Mar 11, 2016 7:25 PM

Hey, Neil deGrasse Tyson, These Animals Have Sex That Hurts

Some people seem to think that animal sex wouldn't exist if it hurt. Those people are wrong.

This image may contain Animal Rodent Mammal and Rat

Today, Neil DeGrasse Tyson tweeted this...
It seemed … not quite right. And we can prove it.
Gary Cranitch/Queensland Museum
Antechinus
The antechinus, for example, is a marsupial that lives in Australia. Its males [have so much sex](http://www.wired.com/2014/05/absurd-creature-of-the-week-this-marsupial-has-marathon-sex-until-it-goes-blind-and-drops-dead/) that they bleed internally and go blind and their hair falls out and they die. Photo: Gary Cranitch/Queensland Museum

Kelly Shimoda
Cats
House cats—cute, cuddly, sometimes grumpy—have [barbed penises](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ar.1091570111/abstract) that scrape up the ladies’ insides something fierce. Yup: penile spines. Photo: Kelly Shimoda
Klaas van Haeringen/ Buiten-beeld/Getty Images
Praying Mantis
Female [praying mantises](http://www.wired.com/2015/01/animal-cannibalism/) (and a lot of female spiders) eat the males after mating. Listen, a lot of people get the munchies after sex. Photo: Klaas van Haeringen/Buiten-beeld/Getty Images

Claude Robidoux/Getty Images
Ducks
Female duck vaginas [corkscrew in the opposite direction](http://www.wired.com/2009/12/muscovy-duck-sex/) of male ducks’ penises. This is apparently evolution's way of keeping the males out, because male ducks are assholes. Photo: Claude Robidoux/Getty Images
David Shale
Anglerfish
[Anglerfish males](http://www.wired.com/2013/11/absurd-creature-of-the-week-anglerfish/) fuse their faces to females’ bodies and they live the rest of their lives like that, stuck together while they release sperm and eggs at the same time. Romantic? Perhaps. Painful? Hard to tell. Comfortable? No. We're going with no. Photo: David Shale/NOAA

Kamil Bialous
Bed bugs
Bed bugs are [traumatic inseminators](http://www.wired.com/2015/02/50-shades-wrong-disturbing-insect-sex/). Males pierce the females' abdomens with their sharp penises and inseminate them. Photo: Kamil Bialous
Clayton Cubitt
People
Everything's not always awesome down there, you guys. Human sex can be painful, for both parties, and it's a treatable disorder called dyspareunia. Yet somehow, we're still here. Photo: Clayton Cubitt

TopicsBiology drones Neil deGrasse Tyson sex

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