It's a girl...no, wait! It's a boy!

*Taken from a semi-NSFW email I sent to a select group of friends the day after the Pussy Balls Incident - there were pictures in the original, but they were a little, um, pink (and graphic), so y'all can just click on the link at the end of the post for cat porn galore. I thought I'd do the charitable thing by giving you the choice I never had.*

Yeah...so it turns out that my little girl isn't really a little girl like I was told she was when I got her. She's got a penis, which makes her a boy.

I made this discovery last night after Scraps had concluded a particularly vigorous and thorough washing session. S/he finished with the undercarriage area and leaned back, purring contentedly, legs akimbo, when.....HELLO!! Cat penis. Not unlike the revolting now-you-see-it-now-you-don't icky pink dog "lipstick penis"...just much smaller. And more ambiguous. A teeny, tiny little nubbin, protruding ever so slightly from what I originally had been calling her vajay-jay.

"What the FUCK????!!!" I leaned in for a closer look. After all, it was quite late and the lighting was poor. "This can't be right. Girl cats don't have dicks." That's right - they don't. Sure enough, the petite pink protrusion was still in evidence. "Okay. Okay. Is that like a giant cat clit or something? Could it be a nipple? A birth defect of some sort?" So many questions. I was becoming increasingly alarmed, but as Scraps was clearly fine with gender ambiguity, I concluded that the best course of action would be to turn off the light and float off to dreamland on a cloud of denial. I would pursue this further in the morning.

Pursue it, I did. I woke up this morning after a refreshing night's sleep, ready to solve the mystery of the transgendered kitten with the help of N, The Man Who Has Owned More Cats Than Me. It went something like this:

Me (sitting at foot of bed, sipping coffee): "So I think that Scraps has a dick."

N (propped up on pillows, also sipping): "Um. What?"

Me (casting sidelong glances at the frolicking cat): "Yeah. I think I saw her dick last night after she finished washing herself."

N (looking troubled): "What did it look like?"

Me: "Like a gross, pink doggie lipstick penis, only way tinier. It was poking out of her vagina. Do you think it's a giant clit or something?"

N: "No, I don't think it's a giant clit. Let's look." (reaches for cat)

Me (recoiling): "Yeah, we have to check...only let's try to not make it like we are touching her inappropriately. C'mere girl...it's ok, Mommy won't hurt you..."

What followed was about a minute and a half of gentle restraint and nervous peering, along with some VERY hesitant (mixed with equal parts of disgust) probing of "the area". The micropenis did not make another appearance, but we did notice two almost imperceptible swellings that could very easily be a scrotal pouch. Testicles. My girl has nuts. Also, we noticed that the little hole from whence the alleged penis had come didn't look very much like a vagina...according to N, who explained the mystery of cat pussy to me with a series of simple hand gestures and head nods for emphasis. He's really knows what he is talking about.

Having concluded the gynaecological portion of the program, we felt slightly more confident about reassigning Scraps' gender, but needed confirmation. Solid proof from an ironclad source. So we Googled "determining gender kittens" and came up with these super-helpful instructions:

"Lift the kitten's tail. The opening just under the tail is the anus. Below the anus is the genital opening which is round in males and is a vertical slit in females. In kittens of similar size, the distance between the anus and the genital opening is greater in the male than the female."

Easy peasy.

Thanks, http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/clientED/kittenSex.asp !!