READ ME: I'M NEW! With six years of phd work on theropod dinosaurs behind him, Darren Naish mostly spends long, happy hours in the library, hunched over his laptop. But he gets out sometimes, and picks up litter and pursues exotic lizards across the British countryside, aiming all the while to publish his technical work on obscure Cretaceous dinosaurs. He also messes around with pterosaurs, swimming giraffes, British big cats and stuff like that. He has given up on the stupid idea of being a dedicated academic and ekes out a living as a technical consultant, editor and author. He can be contacted intermittently at eotyrannus (at) gmail dot com. For more biographical info go 
It's always interesting when individuals of two different species strike up a relationship. This might be a hunting partnership (raptor species have been reported co-operating to flush prey, as have coyotes and American badgers), an alliance where species warn each other of approaching predators (as in the case of co-operating monkeys and duikers)... or a sexual relationship where individuals engage in bizarre cases of interspecies intercourse. I'm not about to start documenting medical anomalies at Tet Zoo, but I will admit a certain visceral fondness of Kirov et al. (2002), a paper that reports a most remarkable and eye-watering case of zoophilia...
A 62 year old male Bulgarian farmer suffered from abdominal pain, and it was eventually discovered that the cause of the pain was a 0.5 cm ragged tear of the rectal wall. This was repaired and the patient recovered without event. But how exactly had he received this unfortunate injury? Despite early reluctance to discuss it, he later admitted that the injury had been received during sexual intercourse with a boar. The pig penis is somewhat different from the sort of anatomy that we're more familiar with. For one thing, the organ is twisted, with the right corpus cavernosum more strongly developed than the left. The retractor muscle is also attached asymmetrically [the tip of a pig penis is shown in image at top. The arrow points to the urethral orifice]. Believe it or don't, by contracting its retractor muscles, a boar makes its penis move in a semi-rotary fashion, and by causing this movement a mating boar can achieve ejaculation even when not thrusting the pelvis in the normal fashion. A glans is absent, and instead the tip of the organ is twisted with a curved and pointed end. If you're curious as to how female pigs cope with all of this, their anatomy is also quite different from what we're used to: spiralling transverse ridges on the walls of the cervix accommodate the twisted penis, and yes I do mean cervix and not vagina, as the penis actually engages with the cervix during mating. The penis is between 45 and 62 cm long (measured along the curves of course). If you want to know more about the genitals of pigs, Bora wrote about them at A Blog Around the Clock back in 2006 (here).
All in all, the interesting anatomy of the male pig would make a boar a potentially dangerous sexual partner for a human. And so, pity the poor Bulgarian farmer: as Kirov et al. (2002) stated 'A transmural tear occurred when pressure exceeded the rectal wall compliance at a fixed point of contact' (p. 367). While Kirov et al. (2002) did note another case where a farmer required surgery after anal intercourse with a boar (Blondel 1976), cases of zoophilia are rarely reported in the literature. Quite why anyone would want to have a fulfilling physical relationship with a pig is a good question, but then human curiosity knows no bounds, and - maybe - neither does pig lust.
Why did I choose to write this article? You can blame a conversation I had with my brother-in-law on Wednesday. Then again, it took ten minutes to write and is bound to prove popular. I am not intending for zoophilia to become a regular feature. Back to work...
You can obtain a free pdf of Kirov et al. (2002) for yourself here.
Refs - -
Blondel, P. H. 1976. Perforations digestives d'etiologie insolite: deux cas. Nouv Presse Med 5, 915.
Kirov, G. K., Losanoff, J. E. & Kjossev, K. T. 2002. Zoophilia: a rare cause of traumatic injury to the rectum. Injury, International Journal of the Care of the Injured 33, 367-368.
Life Science
Medicine & Health
Comments
The second picture is priceless.
Posted by: David Marjanović | February 22, 2008 7:38 AM
David, from your comment it appears that you are not familiar with the, erm, seminal work of Cecil Adams (or in this case, his long-time illustrator Slug Signorino). Here, let me help you with that. The article with the pig picture is here.
Posted by: Mrs Tilton | February 22, 2008 8:37 AM
I wonder if Ken Ham has seen this?
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | February 22, 2008 9:01 AM
Thanks! This was a great laugh for starting out my day.
Posted by: Strakh | February 22, 2008 9:19 AM
So basically, when you have sex with a boar you're getting screwed.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | February 22, 2008 9:24 AM
Somewhat like the bacterial flagellum... Paging Dr. Behe!
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | February 22, 2008 10:07 AM
You know, notwithstanding the occasional accident like this, the squiggles of the lower intestines are clearly intelligently designed to accommodate the squirly pig phallus.
Posted by: John Conway | February 22, 2008 10:08 AM
45 to 62 centimetres??
a.k.a. 18 to 25 inches long?
the farmer is lucky it was a tear in his rectum, and not his small intestine.
incidentally--you do know that "bulgarian" is the origin of the british term "bugger"?
and that in one famous incident, a member of parliament complained that another m.p. had called him a "bulgarian", but was mollified by having the official record corrected to "vulgarian"?
Posted by: youch | February 22, 2008 10:11 AM
> incidentally--you do know that "bulgarian" is the origin of the
> british term "bugger"?
I thought it was a corruption of "bogomil"(a medieval manichaean heresy)? The idea was that gnostics feared reproduction so much that they preferred anal intercourse. It was - and is - sadly common to tar religious minorities with unusual, immoral or "perverted" sexual behaviour - the state-owned German TV channel ARD aired an sunday evening prime time episode of the crime show "Tatort" that depicted Alevites as incestouos just two months ago.
Both explanations are, of course, not mutually exclusive, for the Balkans in general and Bosnia and Bulgaria in peculiar were bogomil strongholds.
Posted by: johannes | February 22, 2008 10:40 AM
O.o
Yet another proof that I live in a weird country.
Posted by: Daggerstab | February 22, 2008 10:54 AM
Well, thanks. You've ruined all my Bulgarian pig sex fantasies for good.
Vivan las tetas.
(º)(º)
Posted by: wÓÒ†| February 22, 2008 11:21 AM
You forgot to mention that the average volume of a boar ejaculate can be anywhere from 100 to 500 ml. I think that might give you a bit of bloated feeling....
Posted by: Umilik | February 22, 2008 11:29 AM
While it isn't exactly an authoritative source I found this portion of the related wikipedia entry to be interesting:
From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogomilism
--------
Name
The name of the movement was bulgarus in Latin (meaning "Bulgarian"), which included Paulicians, Cathars, Patarenes and Albigenses. It became boulgre, later bougre in Old French meaning "heretic, traitor". It entered German as Buger meaning "peasant, blockhead" (and went on to English as bugger) and the French term also entered old Italian as buggero and Spanish as bujarrón, both in the meaning of "sodomite", since it was supposed that heretics would approach sex (just like everything else) in an "inverse" way. The word went on towards Venetian Italian as buzerar, meaning "to do sodomy" (the sexual acts performed by homosexuals). This word entered German again (see reborrowing) as Buserant and went on to Hungarian as buzeráns, becoming buzi around the 1900s, a form still in use as a sexual slur for male homosexuals.
--------
IMHO it seems to me more likely that the anal sex part came about not from actual Bogmil practice or preference but rather an assumption that the heretic sect would do things backward and, as always when humans meet different people, a slur.
Aside. One has to wonder about the overly dilated curiosity of these guys. Plugging the livestock seems to be a long standing and international pastime for some percentage of country boys everywhere. A local man was caught mid-stroke porking a horse but was charged with trespass not animal cruelty after it was determined that the horse was not his and that, given the relative size of orifice to phallus, he had done the beast no harm. Interestingly he was far less ostracized because of his mating with a horse than the fact that the horse was, in fact, male. Evidently screwing the livestock is nominally acceptable, if not encouraged, but the slightest hint of homosexuality is not.
Which brings up the slightly more twisted desire of a human male to take on the receiving role with the livestock. Weird. Don't they have toys and gay bars for that sort of thing? Or is this a situation where the fear and shame of homosexuality is so deeply embedded that like most things forced into deep, dark corners it festers and become malignant? To the point of serious physical injury during a sexual misadventure with a pig.
Posted by: Art | February 22, 2008 12:02 PM
You know, some time ago I was asked "can you cross human with a chimp to get better AIDS test subject?". I answered "not". But immediately I had this nasty little biologist's second thought: "genetic distance is really so small that cross might actually succeed. Remember camel-llama cross. You cannot be sure". Then, the best reason was "if it was possible, somebody would already do it". Then I had second thoughts. "Surely, nobody in the whole world can be so crazy as to try... Perhaps nobody would...".
Thanks to you, I know that somebody WOULD. One cannot cross human with chimpanzee.
Posted by: Jez-ry | February 22, 2008 12:41 PM
Aha. Human - 23, Chimp - 24, Gorilla - 24, Orangutan - 24
Humans being what they are, the chromosomal fusion was probably necessary for speciation. :)
Posted by: rpenner | February 22, 2008 1:24 PM
Jer-zy we live in a world and there are so much really sick things and many of them you really don´t want to know. Some years ago I read in a journal (I think it was "Focus") an article about captive orangs in Asia. It was really horrible, not only the obese bloated orangs with sick skin and orangs which had to fight against other orangs in holiday parcs, but also something which was perhaps the sickest thing I have ever seen. There was a photo from an asian "transient hotel" where you can not only pay for human prostitutes, but also for a shaved female orang...well, at least this seems to prove that orang/human-hybrids don´t work.
Posted by: Sordes | February 22, 2008 1:31 PM
Orangutans have in fact raped women on occasion. This is not folklore but documented by modern primatologists. As for chimp-human hybrids - we discussed it here a while back (go through the comments here). It is probably possible and could have occurred.
Posted by: Darren Naish | February 22, 2008 3:30 PM
Maybe I'm naive, but how could a man get a boar to take a sexual interest in him?
Posted by: Rubymac | February 22, 2008 4:11 PM
sexy lingerie or, more likely, he got the boar drunk.
Posted by: wrpd | February 22, 2008 4:51 PM
@Rubymac - It takes a lot of liquor, I imagine. For both participants. And, as we all know...sometimes you just can't help who you love. ;)
If he'd stuck a truffle up his butt, then maybe the boar was just trying to get a treat?
Posted by: pmomma | February 22, 2008 6:52 PM
When I was 10 or 11 I would help my grandpa on the pig farm. 2-3 times a year we would put the boars into the sows' pens in order to make piglets. The boars would often get so excited they would get fully aroused before mounting. I probably didn't quite understand what was going on but I do remember being terrified at that corkscrew thing. When I started getting my own erections, I was always afraid that my penis would do that too. Then, failing that, I was afraid it would happen the first time I had intercourse.
amazing what things can scar you :)
Posted by: Ry | February 22, 2008 8:50 PM
Rubymac, shouldn't it be obvious? It was a male pig. They'll screw anything. BaDumBumChing
Looks like we have another Thomas Granger award winner.
Posted by: Robster, FCD | February 22, 2008 8:54 PM
So if the boar had sex with a man, does that prove there are not only pigs into beastiality, but gay pigs as well? Or was the boar not smart enough to pick up on the fact he was screwing another guy?
While on the topic, I have no problem with beastiality as long as both creatures are OK with the relationship. The problem is that with most animals, you have no way of telling if they enjoy the relationship. A horse cant tell you if he wants to see other people.
Posted by: Baratos | February 22, 2008 9:19 PM
Reminds me of my father-in-law's favorite tongue twister:
"I'm not the fig plucker or the fig plucker's son,
But I'll pluck figs 'til the fig plucker comes."
Three times fast, etc....
Posted by: RedMolly | February 22, 2008 10:36 PM
"A horse cant tell you if he wants to see other people."
The thing is, animals don't have single's clubs close enough for them to walk to, and they don't have a Puritan past to reckon with.
Posted by: trog69 | February 22, 2008 10:44 PM
You know what? Something just occurred to me.
There are more peer-reviewed research papers on the subject of traumatic anal intercourse with a pig than on intelligent design.
Posted by: J | February 22, 2008 10:52 PM
Maybe I'm naive, but how could a man get a boar to take a sexual interest in him?
A lot of animals aren't as particular about their partners as you might expect -- which is why it's possible to routinely obtain their semen for the purpose of artificial insemination. Pigs apparently don't need much encouragement, at least according to the Modern Marvels episode about pigs. When they covered the topic of porcine breeding, they showed semen collection. The pig was basically shown a piece of furniture to mount, and he went right to it, quite enthusiastically. Presumably there was some training required early on so he'd know that he could have sex with this object, but once he knew it was possible, that seemed to be all he needed. Pigs are fairly intelligent, so it's likely that he knew he was not mounting an actual female pig. My conclusion is that pigs aren't very picky. ;-)
Stallions are usually shown a mare in heat to get them "in the mood", but they don't seem to care if they mount a piece of furniture instead of the actual mare. And tom turkeys will mate with *absolutely nothing* as long as they can see a fake hen turkey's head. (Toms, even in the wild, are so much larger than the hens that when mating, this is actually all they see of her.)
Posted by: Calli Arcale | February 22, 2008 11:38 PM
It didn't take long for this thread to get around to the subject of having one off with furniture. When I was taking psychology courses at university, we were told that a person could become sexually aroused by anything, followed by the obligatory phrase "even a piece of furniture." What is it about furniture that makes tetrapod passions run wild?
Posted by: deang | February 23, 2008 12:37 AM
J wins teh intartoobz.
"Praise J! Praise J!"
-- Men in Black
-----------
Incidentally, this is now the 3rd most active ScienceBlogs post. A Pharyngula post on cephalopods comes 4th.
Posted by: David Marjanović | February 23, 2008 7:45 AM
Brings a whole new dimension to the expression about "being boar'd stiff"
Posted by: McDawg | February 23, 2008 11:07 AM
Almost as bad as necrophilia...I wonder if he used oink-ment, or if the boar was disgruntled...bad puns..
Posted by: PeteKay | February 23, 2008 11:53 AM
"Traumatic anal intercourse with a pig"
The word 'traumatic' seems almost redundant in that expression.
Also, there's the implication that there's such a thing as non-traumatic anal intercourse with a pig, the thought of which is kind of, um, traumatic.
(Yes, I know "trauma" refers to injury. Still, the phrase "Traumatic anal intercourse with a pig" seems funny to me, with the "even worse than regular anal intercourse with a pig" subtext.)
Posted by: El Christador | February 23, 2008 1:19 PM
Wow. Who drew that pig? The style looks to me like it's from James Donnelly, my favorite never-collected cartoonist ever (who did a lot of illustrations for the old CoEvolution Quarterly).
Here's his entirely pertinent illustration, from
"The Basic Law of Human Stupidity" by Carlo M. Cipolla (which, alas, seems not to be online any longer, but see the article that accompanies the illo for a summary)
here
For more on stupidity: here
Posted by: Hank Roberts | February 23, 2008 3:32 PM
"What is it about furniture that makes tetrapod passions run wild?"
The four legs, natch.^^
Posted by: Moro | February 23, 2008 5:33 PM
David Marjanović wrote:
MIB FTW! Thanks! :)
Posted by: J | February 23, 2008 5:47 PM
"even worse than regular anal intercourse with a pig"
I suspect that the more common type of human-pig anal intercourse involves the human penetrating the pig. That's probably less traumatic than having a pointed and rotating(!) suine penis up your ass.
Posted by: Andreas Johansson | February 23, 2008 7:29 PM
David Marjanović - Hank Roberts
For the source of the picture, see
Does a pig have a corkscrew-shaped penis?
For more on Slug Signorino, see
http://slugsignorino.com/
http://www.straightdope.com/faq/slugfaq.html
Posted by: Johnny | February 23, 2008 9:33 PM
Okay, it seems agreed that male pigs (chauvinist or not) will screw anything they can get their trotters on.
I was raised on a farm, and though we didn't raise pigs, some of the neighbors did. I was told, most emphatically, that if I happened to fall down in a pigpen, getting up immediately was not just an esthetic priority but a matter of sheer survival: swine are quite enthusiastically omnivorous.
Our buggered Bulgarian must have had to make some elaborate arrangements to e/n/j/o/y/ (Uh, what's the html strikeout tag?) survive his tryst.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | February 24, 2008 12:12 AM
The standard HTML tag for strikethrough is <strike>. But on ScienceBlogs it doesn't work. On Pharyngula, and Pharyngula alone, <s> works instead -- but on the others, nothing works.
test
test
Posted by: David Marjanović | February 24, 2008 6:13 AM
The test shows I had remembered correctly.
Posted by: David Marjanović | February 24, 2008 6:15 AM
David -
Very odd: I propose we call this PZ Privilege Phenomenon (did you actually perform tests on all the 60-some other sciblogs?).
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | February 24, 2008 11:07 AM
No, on two or three that have the same layout (the standard ScienceBlogs font, instead of PZ's more beautiful and more Unicode-compliant font).
Posted by: David Marjanović | February 24, 2008 4:04 PM
Mrs Tilton, I managed to overlook your comment till now. Great site.
Posted by: David Marjanović | February 24, 2008 4:08 PM
Hmmmm. I wonder whether a pig mutant with a straight tail would have any other pleiotropic straightenings. Perhaps one could be isolated and saved at the slaughterhouse, both for its interest to researchers and its potential value in niche markets. ;)
Posted by: Mike S. | February 24, 2008 8:18 PM
At least the Bulgarian survived, which is more than can be said for this chap after his romantic equine encounter.
Posted by: DT | February 25, 2008 5:31 AM
Does anyone here remember that bizarre scene from Last Tango in Paris where Paul (Marlin Brando) fantasizes about copulating pigs? Has anyone here even seen the film? (Am I dating myself?)
Posted by: chris wemmer | February 25, 2008 12:12 PM
I remember the bit with the butter.
Posted by: Darren Naish | February 25, 2008 12:17 PM
I see you have the same phenomenon I get - you can write a lovely serious post about a serious scientific discovery, and you get hardly any comments. But write about anal sex with a pig, or barnacle penises, or something like that, and everyone has something to say!!
I'm proud and ashamed in equal measures to say I've never seen Last Tango In Paris, EXCEPT for the bit with the butter. On the basis of Chris Wemmer's comment about the pig fantasy, I suspect I've seen the least disturbing scene!
Posted by: Julia | February 25, 2008 4:49 PM
*snicker* I can't help it! *snicker*
THAT GUY GOT PORKED!!!
Posted by: Zach Miller | February 25, 2008 6:23 PM
I just saw that movie for the first time last night, so thank you for making me re-live the trauma. God, it was like a train wreck. I wanted to turn it off, but I just couldn't.
What were we talking about? Oh, pig fucking. I'm against it.
Posted by: Haley | March 4, 2008 4:17 PM
OMG! A Pig...Ohhhh PLease! However I DID have a girlfriend that loved getting naked and giving head to horses...weird...totally weird!
Posted by: exhibivoyeur | June 6, 2008 8:36 AM