When Vaginas Attack!

[VIDEO available on Spotify.] Imagine a vagina. You might be thinking of a passive tube, patiently waiting for a penis to shoot out sperm — and you wouldn't be alone. From Aristotle to Darwin, tons of prominent nerds classified males as the active sexual players: They're coercing, manipulating and harassing to reproduce, while the females are passive, coy, chaste. But animal ecologist Dr. Tiana Pirtle is here to give us the real story. Because once scientists started investigating what really goes on in the vaginas of the animal queendom, they realized that — far from being docile tubes — vaginas are packed with their own weaponry, tools and secret chambers. It turns out that both penises and vaginas were allowed to fight in the evolutionary arms race. Pirtle breaks open a box filled with animal vaginas to tell us all about it. Find our transcript here: https://bit.ly/ScienceVsWhenVaginasAttack In this episode, we cover: (00:00) A Box Full of Vaginas (02:42) The 'Chaste' Female is Born (06:51) The Duck Vagina that Launched a Thousand Ships (11:06) Hyenas and their Pseudo Penises (13:23) Water Striders and their Genital Shields (16:53) Snakes and their Two Vaginas?! (20:28) Alpacas and their Regal Vaginas (25:31) The Rainbow of Vaginas This episode was produced by Wendy Zukerman with help from Michelle Dang, Rose Rimler, Meryl Horn, and Ekedi Fauster-Keeys. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Fact checking by Michelle Dang. Video Editing Kait Plum. Additional editing help from Alex Button. Mix and sound design by Sam Bair. Thanks to Dr. Patricia Brennan, Dr. Andy Flies, Dr. Chang Han, Prof. Christine Drea, Samuel Cox and Nick Johnson. We first heard about Tiana's show at Beaker Street Festival in Tasmania. Also a big thanks to the Zukerman Family and Joseph Lavelle Wilson. Science Vs is a Spotify Studios Original. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you are listening on Spotify, follow us and tap the bell for episode notifications. And if you like the show - please give us a five star review – it really helps new people find the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:07Wendy Zukerman?

  Hi, I'm Wendy Zukerman and you're listening to Science Versus. Today on the show, animal sex: why so much that we've been taught about it is wrong. The story that seems to have stuck in our heads about how animals have sex is that the male with their spear-like willy plunges into a passive vagina. But it turns out that the truth is so much more complicated and so much more fun. So to tell us all about this is Dr. Tiana Pirtle at the University of Tasmania. Hi.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  Hi, thanks for having me.

• 0:41Wendy Zukerman?

  And you should really watch this on video, which you can if you're watching this on Spotify, because Tiana brought props.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 0:49Wendy Zukerman?

  What's in the box?

• 0:51Speaker 01

  Well, this very, very special box is full of different animal vaginas.

• 0:58Wendy Zukerman?

  Animal vaginas!

• 0:59Speaker 01

  I may require a stabby implement.

• 1:02Wendy Zukerman?

  Yes.

• 1:03Speaker 01

  Not a penis, to open the box.

• 1:08Wendy Zukerman?

  Oh my gosh, I've never been sent a box with animal vaginas.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  Oops, and I might have just destroyed your pencil or your pen a little bit.

• 1:15Wendy Zukerman?

  That's fine. That's what today's episode's all about, isn't it? Whoa, whoa, whoa, what's coming out? Who we got here? Well, meet the family.

• 1:22Speaker 01

  Yes, let's see, we've got the alpaca, common dolphin, couple rattlesnakes, dogfish shark, harbor porpoise, and a domestic duck.

• 1:34Wendy Zukerman?

  Amazing, oh my god. Okay, so wait, how, wait, that looks like a penis. How is this a vagina?

• 1:39Speaker 01

  So these are all the internal negative space inside the vagina.

• 1:45Wendy Zukerman?

  So how did they make them?

• 1:46Speaker 01

  So how these got made was an animal died and the vagina was excised from the body and then filled with silicone, so created this mould of what is inside.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  The space that would be inside.

• 2:06Wendy Zukerman?

  Okay, yes, yes, that makes sense. So the penis is going in. So this is inside.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  Yes. So there's some animals with multiple vaginas, some with corkscrews, vaginal folds, long and thin ones, thicker, fatter ones.

• 2:23Wendy Zukerman?

  The array of vaginas in front of me. The story is clear that both males and females were allowed to participate in the evolutionary arms race. And I'm so excited for you to tell us all about it after the break.

• 2:40Speaker 02

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• 3:10Speaker 03

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• 3:42Wendy Zukerman?

  Welcome back. Today on the show, the wonderful world of animal vaginas. And we're here with Dr. Tiana Pirtle. So, welcome back. Let's start from the beginning for you. So you were in the middle of a PhD studying evolutionary theories, and you started noticing something a bit frustrating in some of the papers that you were reading.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  I just noticed there was quite a difference in the way male animals and female animals were described, especially in Terms of reproductive behavior and evolutionary strategies. The males are often described as these very active players. They're coercing, manipulating, harassing. And females, on the other hand, are described in very passive terminology. They're responding, reacting, even like adaptation is what males do and counter adaptations are what females do.

• 4:44Wendy Zukerman?

  Wait, what do you mean by that?

• 4:45Speaker 01

  So the male is adapting all these strategies and she's only relevant compared to what he's doing. And yes, there's an empirical bias in the way Western science has treated female animals. Starting with Darwin, but extending even even before that.

• 5:01Wendy Zukerman?

  So tell me about that. Yeah. When when did this bias begin?

• 5:05Speaker 01

  Uh, well, Aristotle, in fact, has described males as active and females as passive. So it extends all the way back to then. But it really was solidified by Darwin. He was developing his theory of sexual selection. And sexual selection is the struggle for mates essentially in how animals get mates. And he was developing his theory during Victorian England, which, as we all know, had some very pernicious views on women and their role in society. And that really formed the the foundation for how Darwin viewed female animals.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  Describing them as coy and chaste and the thought that

• 5:55Wendy Zukerman?

  An animal.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  Female animal couldn't be promiscuous was unacceptable. So they just ignored any sort of examples that would suggest otherwise. And it really A gave scientific credence to the patriarchy, but also kind of set Western science on this trajectory of focusing on the males. They're doing the interesting things, evolving weaponry and behaviors.

• 6:24Wendy Zukerman?

  Antlers and cool feathers.

• 6:26Speaker 01

  And cool penises.

• 6:28Wendy Zukerman?

  Yes.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  And the females, on the other hand, are just in the sidelines, waiting for the males to do their thing and then working themselves around what the males decide. And the reality is, is that's not true at all.

• 6:41Wendy Zukerman?

  Okay, so you're reading about all of this, feeling scandalized, frustrated. How would we describe your emotions as you're kind of reckoning with this bias in science?

• 6:51Speaker 01

  I suppose as you train in science, you're kind of given this line that science is objective. We all like to think we're objective observers of the world and we're testing theories in an objective manner, but the reality is, is science is very biased. So these models all came from Dr. Patricia Brennan in the US, who's a phenomenal researcher and has made it her life mission to categorize as many animal vaginas as possible because the line that we often think about when it comes to penises and vaginas is that, you know, the penis is doing the thrusting, the ejaculating, and the vagina is just a passive

• 7:34Speaker 01

  tube sitting there, ready to catch the penis and let the sperms go where they need to go. But that's not even remotely the case. And they're very diverse in function and form.

• 7:47Wendy Zukerman?

  Let's jump in. Let's ju- okay, so let's start with the duck.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  Yes, the duck is the classic example. And this is actually, I think, the vagina that launched a thousand ships. Patricia Brennan's line of research started from the duck vagina.

• 8:05Wendy Zukerman?

  From the duck.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  So this is the duck vagina, and you can see it's corkscrewed.

• 8:13Wendy Zukerman?

  Do you feel like you're on a game show?

• 8:16Wendy Zukerman?

  It's corkscrewed. Okay, yes. Let me look at this. Okay. So, science first understood not the duck vagina, but the duck penis.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  Yes, so.

• 8:25Wendy Zukerman?

  So what does the duck penis look like?

• 8:27Speaker 01

  Male ducks are quite unusual in the bird world and they have penises. So, most birds have cloacas, which are just like multi-orifice holes, or multipurpose holes, and they do a cloacal kiss. So, the birds just rub it together, transfer the little sperm and flutter off. But ducks have these giant, fleshy, corkscrew organs that explode out of their body.

• 8:53Wendy Zukerman?

  Really?

• 8:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:54Wendy Zukerman?

  And it explodes inside her?

• 8:56Speaker 01

  It's like.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  It's impressive to observe. And like most animals, we've known what the penis looks like for a while. And no one thought to even look at what the vagina might look like that would handle a penis like that.

• 9:14Wendy Zukerman?

  Yes.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  So, the male's penis is corkscrewed. Well, the vagina is also corkscrewed. And there's some like little side pockets, like some flaps.

• 9:25Wendy Zukerman?

  Pockets in the vagina? Wow.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  So.

• 9:28Wendy Zukerman?

  So, why does it have all these?

• 9:30Speaker 01

  The amazing thing is it's corkscrewed in the opposite direction of the penis. So, for a long time, and for some animal species, you think the penis and the vagina fit together, like the lock and key hypothesis.

• 9:44Wendy Zukerman?

  Yes.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  But this seems to be a vagina that's evolved to not accept the penis. And that's exactly what it can do. So, male ducks can be quite coercive, to use a term that's often used to describe male animals.

• 9:58Wendy Zukerman?

  Uh huh.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  And the sex ratios tend to be skewed. There's more males than females, and I'll explain why in a second. And that means that not every male gets a female partner for the seasons. So, the males that don't form these little bachelor gangs roving around, looking for some females. And when they find one, they jump on her and.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  Force themselves on her and that's why sex ratios can be skewed is that some females end up being killed in this process or harmed.

• 10:32Wendy Zukerman?

  Right.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  There's penises exploding everywhere. The female can't really do much about it.

• 10:36Wendy Zukerman?

  Yeah.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  On the outside, but she has her secret weapon, which is her vagina. And if the female doesn't want the penises that are exploding at her.

• 10:45Wendy Zukerman?

  Yeah.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  She can shift her body around so that the penis tips go into these little side pockets formed by the corkscrew. Or in some species, she can squeeze the muscles around and just fully expel the penis.

• 10:59Wendy Zukerman?

  Ah.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  So, and it, and it works remarkably well. So in some duck species, about 40% of the matings a female will experience are these forced matings.

• 11:08Wendy Zukerman?

  Right.

• 11:08Speaker 01

  But only two to 5% of the ducklings are fathered by those.

• 11:12Wendy Zukerman?

  So of all the matings that she's having, up to 40% of them.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  In some species.

• 11:18Wendy Zukerman?

  In some species are these forced, um, uh, these sort of gangs of, of bachelor ducks. But then when you look at who's actually fathering the ducklings, it's, it's only two to 5%?

• 11:32Speaker 01

  Only two to 5% of the ducklings are coming from those.

• 11:35Wendy Zukerman?

  Wow. So, so, so the rest are from mates that were more consensual that she was into?

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, or the partner she's chosen for that season, or other males she's gone out to solicit matings from.

• 11:48Wendy Zukerman?

  How interesting. And so without science having been able to know who was actually fathering these ducklings, you could see why this story would persist.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a great example of, you know, when you only tell, look at half the story, you only get half the story.

• 12:04Wendy Zukerman?

  It's funny, I'm still hearing that males are the coercive, violent ones.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. So it's, it's not an untrue storyline, but there's females like hyenas are a great example of a, a female that kind of flips that story. So female hyenas are bigger, more aggressive, dominate the society, and they also have these giant eight inch long clitorises that work like a pseudo penis. They look like, they look exactly like the male's penis. They even have fused labia, um, that look like testicles.

• 12:38Wendy Zukerman?

  Oh, wow. But there's no sperm inside?

• 12:40Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no. It's just, that's just the fused labia that looks like it.

• 12:43Wendy Zukerman?

  Uh huh.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  And the. For a long time, actually, scientists really struggled to figure out what was going on with hyenas because they thought there were only males out there. But the female genitalia looks remarkably like the male. And they use these pseudo penises in dominance displays, greeting rituals. But it also gives them a very high degree over who's mating with them. Because it's like two socks, I guess, trying to push into each other if they're full. If they don't go in. So basically, the female has to allow the male to mate with her. It's like, I've heard it described as kind of like inverting a sock. Like, gets pushed and she relaxes it and the penis gets to push in there.

• 13:29Wendy Zukerman?

  Oh, wow.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  But it gives her full control over what's going on, so.

• 13:34Wendy Zukerman?

  Is there a downside to this amazing?

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Funny you say that.

• 13:38Wendy Zukerman?

  Right.

• 13:39Speaker 01

  This amazing control does come at a cost. So they'll urinate through the pseudo penis, they use it in their dominance displays, they mate through it, but they also have to give birth through it. And it's been described as pushing a cantaloupe through a garden hose. So it comes at a very high cost.

• 13:57Wendy Zukerman?

  I'm clenching, I'm clenching.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  Yes, the pup has to rip through the pseudo penis.

• 14:03Wendy Zukerman?

  Wow. Okay. After the break, we're gonna learn about one creature that has a genital shield. I think it's my favorite, actually. It's coming up.

• 14:20Speaker 02

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• 16:04Wendy Zukerman?

  Welcome back. Today on the show, Dr. Tiana Pirtle is walking us through vaginas of the animal kingdom. It's really an evolutionary battle between, between both vaginas and penises, which, when you think about evolution, is that is how obviously it worked, right? It doesn't really make sense that only one would be evolving.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, and also, it makes sense that they wouldn't necessarily be evolving in the same direction together always. Obviously, both males and females want to reproduce, but females have to invest a bit more resources, time, and energy into reproduction relative to males, and that's where you get the sexual conflict, where the males and the females' interests don't always align. So, that's...

• 16:57Speaker 01

  Why you get some of these wild, um, wild tactics and different physiology, morphology and behaviors.

• 17:07Wendy Zukerman?

  So tell me how the water strider accomplishes this.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the water strider is a great story of kind of sexual conflict, evolutionary arms race in, in action. Um, so water striders are bugs that, that sit on top of the ponds and, and water. The females have these genital shields. So, and I do have a model of this, but unfortunately didn't make it on the, on the.

• 17:35Wendy Zukerman?

  You can't fly with that sort of weaponry.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  But it, she's got her ovopositor that sits inside of her abdomen.

• 17:42Wendy Zukerman?

  Mm hmm.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  And then the ovopositor.

• 17:45Wendy Zukerman?

  The ovopositor where the eggs go.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. And if she wants to mate.

• 17:49Wendy Zukerman?

  Mm hmm.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  She will push it out and it kind of opens.

• 17:54Wendy Zukerman?

  Uh huh.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  And the male can deliver the sperm. But if it's in this position, there's no chance the male gets to mate with her.

• 18:01Wendy Zukerman?

  Uh huh. If it's closed up, it's closed.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  So the female has evolved this morphology that gives her full control over who's mating with her. She has full say over who's going to father her offspring. But the males have evolved this counter, um, strategy.

• 18:16Wendy Zukerman?

  Hmm.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  And historically it would have been described the other way around.

• 18:20Wendy Zukerman?

  Oh, of course, right.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Generally. But the, so the, the male can't mate with female unless she is fully on board.

• 18:30Wendy Zukerman?

  Open for business.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  So the, the male's response strategy is he will, to use those, those terms that we said are often describing males.

• 18:41Wendy Zukerman?

  Yeah.

• 18:42Speaker 01

  Um, he will threaten her by, he sits on top of her and taps the water and that will alert all the predators. In the, in the water.

• 18:53Wendy Zukerman?

  Right.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  And the predators will come up and because the female's on the bottom, she has a higher chance of being eaten. So he'll just sit there. She can't fly away because he's sitting on her. And he'll just tap, do this little threatening tap dance. Until she either opens her ovopositor, gets eaten, or they both leave.

• 19:14Wendy Zukerman?

  Wow. What a strategy.

• 19:17Speaker 01

  The insect world is really fascinating when it comes to, to genitals and insects. Where the females have the penis, well, we, we would call it a gynosome, but it would be what we think of as penis. And, and the male has the receiving organ.

• 19:32Wendy Zukerman?

  Okay.

• 19:32Speaker 01

  Yes. There's many ways to be a male and a female.

• 19:35Wendy Zukerman?

  So there's, there's a couple more animals I want to go through. One, so, so far we've just been talking about generally one vagina. But are, there are animals with two.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  Yes. In fact, there are many animals with two. So this is the, the rattlesnake. So you can see there's two of them. Two vaginas, two uterus.

• 20:00Wendy Zukerman?

  And each one can be fertilized?

• 20:03Speaker 01

  The, um, the males have two pronged penis, the hemipen's. So they use them both at the same time.

• 20:10Wendy Zukerman?

  The hemipen's and, and either one can shoot out sperm.

• 20:14Speaker 01

  And then they have the two vaginas, two uterus, so.

• 20:20Wendy Zukerman?

  Two clitoris?

• 20:20Speaker 01

  Um, yes.

• 20:21Wendy Zukerman?

  Clitoris?

• 20:22Speaker 01

  Hemma, hemmy clit, clitoris, hemmy clitoris is what it's called in snakes.

• 20:26Wendy Zukerman?

  Uh huh. Does it give pleasure?

• 20:28Speaker 01

  A hemipen. So there's been remarkably little research about clitorises. Um, which is remarkable because, um, all mammals definitely have one. And I'm pretty sure pretty much all vertebrates have one as well. Um, and we don't really know what they do in, for these animals. But presumably they play an important role in reproduction.

• 20:51Wendy Zukerman?

  Cause otherwise that's a big lot of wasted energy for evolution. So tell me the evolutionary arms race going on with these snakes.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  Okay. Well, so snakes, these, these, um, rattlesnakes.

• 21:02Speaker 01

  Um, they reproduce quite slowly. They're they're long-lived, slow-growing animals. So I believe they don't become sexually mature until they're about 13.

• 21:15Wendy Zukerman?

  Okay.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  And they also don't produce very many clutches. So what these snakes do, and a lot of other species in the animal queendom, do is they'll store sperm.

• 21:27Wendy Zukerman?

  Hmm.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  So these guys have like a special organ that will store the sperm.

• 21:32Wendy Zukerman?

  Okay.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Over winter for years even.

• 21:36Wendy Zukerman?

  Oh, wow.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  I believe um, there's a tortoise or a turtle that stored sperm for four years.

• 21:44Wendy Zukerman?

  And.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  And then produce the clutch from it.

• 21:47Wendy Zukerman?

  Wow, they've got like a little IVF fridge in there.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  These snakes will go around and mate with the males they come across. They can be quite indiscriminate because they can keep all the sperm they find and deal with it later. So.

• 22:01Wendy Zukerman?

  That is amazing. They could store it for that long. Uh huh. And then.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  Yes. And then there's, there's some evidence to suggest that snakes, alligators, sharks, all these species that are storing sperm can then select which sperm to use.

• 22:16Wendy Zukerman?

  No.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  For which clutch. And we don't exactly know how they're doing this, but um, there's a quite a complex dialogue happening between the sperm and the vagina environment.

• 22:31Wendy Zukerman?

  So the, the female will mate with a bunch of different males, store the sperm, and then we think when she releases an egg, she'll somehow, using the word choose generously, but she'll somehow be like, all right, well, for this egg, what we really need is this sperm.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  We want this sperm. Well, in the ejaculate, you have quite a diverse range of, of sperms. This sperm has crappy genetics. We're not gonna choose that one. Ah, this one. It's got great receptors on the outside. We're gonna, we're gonna help this one go forward.

• 23:04Wendy Zukerman?

  Interesting. And you'll be the one to fertilize my eggs and that'll increase my baby's chance of survival. Amazing. So clearly. Some animals have evolved this amazing, these bells and whistles, these sperm storage facilities.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  Corkscrews.

• 23:20Wendy Zukerman?

  Corkscrews.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  Vaginal folds.

• 23:22Wendy Zukerman?

  Yes.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  And like.

• 23:22Wendy Zukerman?

  Genital shields. No shade to my vagina or anyone else listening, but it's pretty cut and dry as far as I'm concerned. And the alpaca, not throwing it under the bridge, but like also just kind of looks like a tube.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:37Wendy Zukerman?

  Why is it that?

• 23:37Speaker 01

  Which, you know, I do still love it though. It's one of my favorites. It's very regal looking, isn't it?

• 23:42Wendy Zukerman?

  It is very regal. Uh, it's, it's just like a very long tube.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Coincides with a very long, thin penis.

• 23:49Wendy Zukerman?

  I could only imagine.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  This vagina does many amazing things still.

• 23:53Wendy Zukerman?

  Tell me about the alpaca. What's happening here?

• 23:55Speaker 01

  So this vagina is punctured by a very long penis that has a little hook on the end of it.

• 24:06Wendy Zukerman?

  Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What does the alpaca penis look like?

• 24:12Speaker 01

  Uh, terrifying. It's long and thin and it has a collagenous hook on the bottom. Alpacas are quite unusual in the mammal world in that the, so most penises stay in the vagina, deposit the sperm within the vaginal canal.

• 24:30Wendy Zukerman?

  Yes.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  The cervix will often kind of function as a bit of a, a, a quality control checkpoint. And the sperm have to make it through the cervix.

• 24:40Wendy Zukerman?

  The trapdoor.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:41Wendy Zukerman?

  Of the cervix.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  Whereas for these guys, the penis punctures through, the little hook pokes through the, the cervix. And deposits the, the sperm straight into the uterus.

• 24:54Wendy Zukerman?

  Ooh, okay. Does feel efficient.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  Which is.

• 24:56Wendy Zukerman?

  Does, if I'm, if I'm gunning for the, the male alpaca.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:00Wendy Zukerman?

  Good strategy, I would say. Good work evolution.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  And, you know, this is potentially because, uh, male alpacas, what we call dribble ejaculators.

• 25:10Wendy Zukerman?

  Hello now.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  Dribble ejaculators. So the ejaculate dribbles out very slowly. So mating can take up to an hour in alpacas. It's like anywhere from 20 to 60 minutes.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  And it happens in a very reclined repose. The female alpaca will sit on the ground. The male will get on top of her and sometimes she'll lay down on her side. Have a nap. Wait for him to finish his job. And so other species, the ejaculate comes out with force.

• 25:43Wendy Zukerman?

  Get familiar with those.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, it needs a little bit of force to get through the cervix. Whereas I guess, you know, if you're dribbling, you might as well put it where it needs to go.

• 25:51Wendy Zukerman?

  Of course, that makes sense.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  I guess this nondescript, normal vagina.

• 25:58Wendy Zukerman?

  Yes.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  Can look the way it does because the female has a high degree of control behaviorally. So if she's not intimating, she'll just stand up and walk away. Or if she doesn't want it in the first place, she just won't lay down. So she hasn't necessarily needed to evolve all these fancy bells and whistles to stop sperm from getting to where she doesn't want it to go.

• 26:23Wendy Zukerman?

  Because she can just get up and lay. Oh, that's so interesting. So we find that in the animals, like to go back to the duck, where it is more forcible and the males are really coercing that sexual behavior, then you have to evolve a vagina that can handle that, that can sneakily.

• 26:40Speaker 01

  Well, that will give you the final say.

• 26:42Wendy Zukerman?

  Right, but with some animals like alpacas, the, the sort of evolutionary arms race actually comes from the behavior. That you can just walk away. I'm done with this dribble. So it is interesting. We do often see, as, as you've talked about at the, at the beginning of the show, you know, we often see sex as this battle where the slutty male is fighting to impregnate.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  But it's never described as slutty for the male. Like promiscuous is used for females that mate multiple times, but the male is just multiple matings.

• 27:12Wendy Zukerman?

  Oh, right. The male's just being a male.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  We've had this since Darwin, this very narrow view of, of what a female should and shouldn't be. You know, monogamous was the word, just that Darwin used to describe females. Coy, passive, chaste, loyal, dutiful mothers. But that's not what we. And in the animal kingdom. Also, you know, we haven't even touched on this, you know, homosexuality and homosexual behaviors in animals.

• 27:40Wendy Zukerman?

  Very common.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  And there's many different ways to reproduce and be a male and a female in the world. And I think appreciating that diversity in the animal world will hopefully help us appreciate that diversity in the human world.

• 27:57Wendy Zukerman?

  That's right. There's so much diversity within species, let alone amongst species.

• 28:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And yeah, the patriarchy has had scientific credence for too long from this very narrow view of males and females and reproductions.

• 28:13Wendy Zukerman?

  So when you look at all these rainbow vaginas, this rainbow of vaginas, do you have a favorite? Can you choose amongst your children?

• 28:20Speaker 01

  Ah, I mean, it's it's hard. I mean, I do love the alpaca one because it's just very regal. It stands taller than all the rest.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  But I said, yeah, the duck is one of my favorites as well, just because I love that story of, you know, the secret weapon vagina and the female has the last laugh.

• 28:43Wendy Zukerman?

  Mm hmm. So you have this show vaginal vignettes, vaginal vignettes?

• 28:48Speaker 01

  I've it's had many different names over the years, but this year was the vaginal vignettes.

• 28:54Wendy Zukerman?

  Vaginal vignettes and where you showcase all of these amazing vaginas. What's been the best reaction you've gotten so far?

• 29:02Speaker 01

  They've all been the greatest reaction.

• 29:06Wendy Zukerman?

  What do they say about it?

• 29:07Speaker 01

  Love it. I've had a lot of women come up and, oh, I'm so glad to hear this story. It just makes me so much happier to have a vagina myself.

• 29:19Wendy Zukerman?

  You made them happier that they had a vagina? That's huge. You are changing lives, Diana.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  One vagina at a time.

• 29:26Wendy Zukerman?

  One vagina at a time.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's, again, gives, gives people insight into how diverse being female is.

• 29:37Wendy Zukerman?

  Thank you so much for your time.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 29:40Wendy Zukerman?

  If you haven't been watching this video, you can find it on Spotify, also on Instagram and TikTok. We're gonna put little snippets of this video up so you can see these fabulous model vaginas. We're on science underscore VS, that's us on Instagram, and on TikTok, I'm Wendy Zukerman. So I'm Wendy Zukerman and I'll back you next time.

• 30:09Wendy Zukerman?

  You look like you just won the Oscar.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  Thank you, thank you.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  You don't know how much this means to me.

• 30:22Speaker 04

  Para los grandes, para los chicos, para los bajos y los altos, los pacifistas, los valientes, para los optimistas y los pesimistas, los que valoran lo de adentro, para los que están lejos, los que no vende lejos, y los que no vende cerca, para los introvertidos y los extrovertidos, para los que piensan y los que hacen, para los que nos mostraron el camino. Coca-Cola, para todos. Compra una Coca-Cola en una tienda cerca de usted.

• 30:52Speaker 05

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