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Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science pp 1–5Cite as

Traumatic Insemination

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Synonyms

Copulatory wounding (pt.); Hypodermic impregnation; Hypodermic insemination; Traumatic mating (pt.)

Definition

The transfer of sperm through a physically inflicted wound (wound = trauma [Greek]).

Introduction

Traumatic insemination (TI) is a special form of traumatic mating (TM) that refers to cases where routinely “the partner’s intra- or extragenital integument is wounded by specialized devices in the direct context of copulation” (Lange et al. 2013).

This explanation excludes accidental cases of copulatory wounding, which perhaps can happen in any group of animals with internal fertilization. Other forms of TM refer to cases where only seminal fluid, but no sperm, is transferred through the wound, or traumatic penetration with neither sperm nor seminal fluid transferred (Lange et al. 2013).

Far from being a bizarre, even aberrant, behavior, recent systematic reviews (Lange et al. 2013; Tatarnic et al. 2014; Reinhardt et al. 2014) identified both TM and TI as being...

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Applied Zoology, Department of Biology, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany

    Klaus Reinhardt

  2. University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany

    Klaus Reinhardt

Authors
  1. Klaus Reinhardt
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Klaus Reinhardt .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland Univ Dept of Psycholgy, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana Weekes-Shackelford

  2. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

  3. Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. University of Redlands, Redlands, CA, USA

    Catherine Salmon

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Reinhardt, K. (2016). Traumatic Insemination. In: Weekes-Shackelford, V., Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3079-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3079-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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