Why is my male cat constantly having erections?
Dear Most Esteemed and Knowledgeable Kitties:
I really hope you can help. Basically, we’ve just got a male cat (2 years old) from a shelter and he is really affectionate and loves human contact. He constantly purrs when he’s with us.
But the problem is, when he sits on my lap or lies on the bed with me, his genitals pop out. Then he jumps off and licks them. He really purrs loudly and kneads with his paws loads (he’s been declawed – not by us!).
Is there any reason for this? It’s a bit disturbing really as it’s now making me afraid of showing him affection as he seems to get ‘aroused’ each time. And one time, his legs were twitching so much that I was scared he would spurt on the bed as well.
We are only petting him like we do with other cats — head, back, etc.
Do males cats do this? Is there anything which causes it? Is he insecure or has he been mistreated? I’m confused and it’s making us reconsider looking after him. Please help.
Thanks,
~Jo
Siouxsie: Jo, we’ve decided to answer your letter in the column rather than as a personal reply, because we know you’re not the only person who has had this issue with a cat. And probably, very few people actually talk about it. We know a lot of humans tend to be uptight about issues around sexual behavior.
Thomas: Speaking as a male cat, I can say with great certainty that it’s not normal for neutered male cats to have frequent erections. You don’t say whether or not your kitty has been neutered, but I suspect that since you got him from a shelter and he’s declawed, he probably is “fixed.”
Dahlia: Male cats that haven’t been neutered will respond to sexual stimuli. Also, if your cat was neutered less than a month or so ago, he may still have some testosterone (the hormone responsible for male development and sexual response) in his system. It takes a while for the hormones to disappear completely, even after neutering.
Siouxsie: It’s entirely possible that your cat could have a foreign object such as a pebble of cat litter or something of that nature stuck in the skin that covers his penis which is causing him discomfort and stimulation. We’d definitely suggest that you talk to your veterinarian about this, especially since it’s interfering with your relationship.
Thomas: We cats often respond to consuming catnip with sexual behavior. This can include spontaneous erections and “love biting” in male cats. I’ve never had that particular response to the “catnip parties” Mama gives us. But then again, I was neutered as a very young kitten.
Dahlia: We did some checking on the Internet, and we have found some abstracts (summaries) from veterinary journals that suggest the possibility of brain lesions or other neurological problems causing spontaneous erections in cats. This, of course, is extremely rare, and there are probably much less obscure and frightening causes for your kitty’s over-the-top sexual responses.
Siouxsie: If this behavior is a new development in your kitty’s life, it’s particularly important to talk to your vet. Any time your cat’s behavior changes, in any way, it’s a good reason to call the veterinarian. Cats don’t show signs of being ill or in pain in the way that dogs and humans do. Sometimes the only way you’ll know your cat is sick is by a change in his mood or activities.
Thomas: Genital licking can be a sign of urinary tract infections, too. Very often, a cat with a UTI will find that it’s very uncomfortable to urinate. You may see your cat squat in the litterbox with no results, or go back and forth frequently to the box in an attempt to void his bladder. You might also see your cat urinate in inappropriate places such as the bathtub or shower stall.
Dahlia:Whatever you do, please know that your cat is not trying to make you uncomfortable. He can’t help the fact that his body is responding to stimuli in the environment. He clearly loves you, and he can’t understand that his sexual behavior is making you uncomfortable.
Siouxsie: We cats don’t have the same kind of attitudes about sex or genitals as people do. Human attitudes, religious beliefs, family history and life experience tend to bring a lot of emotional baggage to sexual interactions. We’re not troubled by such things because for cats, sexual behavior is just something that happens (or doesn’t happen, in the case of spayed and neutered cats).
Thomas: So, Jo, please call your vet tomorrow morning and let him or her know that you’re concerned about your cat’s sexual behavior. If your cat isn’t neutered, that will probably be the first treatment your vet will suggest. There might be other diagnostic tools your vet will want to use in order to figure out what’s going on.
Dahlia: If your cat gets a clean bill of health, that’s wonderful. If not, your vet will be able to help solve whatever is making your kitty overstimulated to the point of sexual response to non-sexual stimuli.
Siouxsie: We hope this helps, Jo. And we hope that other readers dealing with similar problems in their cats will be able to cope with those problems and not allow their cats’ “horny” behavior to interfere in their relationship. Please let us know how things turn out!
Thomas: Hey, guess what! Dahlia’s “A-Day” is September 19. That’s the anniversary of the day Mama signed the adoption papers making Dahlia a part of our family. We can’t believe it’s been a whole year. I’m so glad Dahlia is my little sister and snuggle-buddy!
Dahlia: Awww, shucks. I love it here, and I’m glad I picked this family. I never imagined I’d have reasons to purr every single day of my life, especially after the rough start I got. And Mama says my brothers and sisters are all doing well and living in good homes, too. I’m so grateful to the folks at the Humane Society of Knox County and our “foster family” at the print shop, who helped us find great, loving “forever homes.” Speaking of the Humane Society of Knox County, they recently took in 43 cats from the home of a hoarder, and they really, REALLY need financial help to get these cats the care they need. If you want to give them a gift in celebration of my A-Day, I’d be absolutely delighted!
Hi, I know this topic is over a year old now but I wonder if Jo ever found out what was wrong with the cat?
I am wondering because we have just started looking after a cat which is EXACTLY the same. He is wonderful but I do find the behaviour disturbing, and I am worried about embarrassing scenes when people come round to visit!
I am wondering about hormone balance pills. Would this be an option?
kind regards,
Annie
I’m so glad that you have brought up this subject! My 16 yr.old cat has started doing the same thing. He is neutered,and my small town vet. isn’t much help. I feel like I have to go to all of my vet. appts. armed with facts,so that I can tell THEM what to check. Anyway, the cat seems to be amost suffering from this happening so often. What should I do? HELP!
There may be something irritating like hair wrapped around the penis or a grain of something that got into his penile sheath. The erections may be caused by licking, which he might be doing because he’s in pain due to a urinary tract infection. In any case, he should be seen by a vet.
I myself had a neutered male cat that had frequent erections.
Typically when sitting on my lap or when I was petting him.
He seemed to get “aroused” and started making little jerks with his body and his little penis would pop out. He would purr loudly and would start licking himself, but … ONLY around me! It was never something he did when other people petted him. There was nothing wrong with my cat and he was perfectly normal and healthy in every way. I have to say the cat absolutely adored me as I did him, and we were like glue. Maybe he thought of me as a mate – I don’t know.
I don’t think it’s all that unusual for cats to show this behaviour. It’s an animal.
Well, i have a neuter tom, who lives a charmed life. We have another spaded female and they interact and play daily. She is de-clawed, not by me, as she came to us as a stray, but my boy is much the hunter and we live at the edge of a small woods that keeps his hunting skill active.
Rascal is about ten years old and when he is not hunting and bringing home little presents and re-enacting his kill and telling the great story of the hunt, he loves to watch tv and sleep in a rotation of his favorite warm spots, depending on the time of the years.
We have a cat door and both use it actively. Even during very cold (10 degree) weather, they often go out to check out the yard. We recently had a large snow and they seemed to enjoy it.
When we are home, our cats want to be with/near us. They love lying in our laps or next to us and particularly love to have the bellies rubbed. the area of the belly my Tom likes to have stroked is from just under his chin…downward to about mid torso. He will lay upside down, head tilted back, front paws retracted and held close to his chest all day if you will caress him.
Every now and then he will get a little wood. One day he was lying on the sofa with my wife when he popped a wheely while he was getting his belly rubbed. I noticed Alice’s reaction and knew something was going on and finally she looked at me and said Rascal’s wanger is hard….why do you think that is, and i replied :”he’s trying to tell you he thinks you are hot”.
I can report that he also enjoys a good spanking and i got him from a vet because he was such a vocal cat and seemed to be begging me to get him out of there. As he got older we realized that he enjoyed being patted on the but and over time it became very comical to see him complain when the patting stopped and over more time we found he loved to be firmly spanked. And he shows his appreciation with vocal replies.
A pattern emerged. He would ask to be petted, beg for more petting and eventually get spanked rather firmly….eventually, he would jump up and go on a the hunt for our female and their game of chase and conquer who begin during which time they will take turns being the aggressor.
As i type this, he is lying next to me, getting a rub on his belly every so often and our little female is sitting by, staring daggers at him because she would rather i be petting her.
I am blessed that my cats love it here, love the life they have, co-habitate well and are healthy. I dont really question what they do, allow them to come and go and they wish but have let them know that under so circumstances are they permitted to drive my car.
Funny I found this site. I am glad. I have a young 4.5mth old kitten who has started what I just read is kneading things. Particularly my bed covers when we are in them. He goes all over the joint kneading and then he seems to shake and then kind of collapse. At 1st I aske a few people why do cats do this kneading thing? They said its just what cats do. But the past few nights he actually looks as though during this ruitual he is humping, and I noticed his lil penis is hanging out, and he shakes and to be honest he looks like he is climaxing. Then he collapses and relaxes. Weird. I started to think he is getting off on my bed Ewwwww.. Tonight he started the kneading while I was in the lounge, this time he started to nip at me. I thought sorry son no way, and I pushed him away. He got a lil nasty and the look in his eyes I know he was getting his rocks off and I interupted it. He come round pretty quick and was his normal loving happy friendly lil kitty. Man I did not realise they did this sort of thing EEK. He is not due to be fixed for another month. Will he get worse cause he started soo young??
Moderator? Somebody with any scientific answers? Btw, I am at this blog bc my wife’s cat started doing this around just me after we got married… lucky me.
Seeker, we’ve given all the advice we know of in this column. Your veterinarian may have more answers. Is your cat neutered? If not, neutering might help to reduce the behavior.
I was petting our cat when he showed his belly up. As I rubbed his belly, he purred and then I saw some little pinky thing. I freaked out, since I never saw him doing this before. And yes I have been petting him like that before too, but he didn’t get aroused before. It seemed like he was humping in the air and then shaking. Why did he start to do this all the sudden??? He is neutered.
My cat does the same sort of thing. He’ll knead a blanket or something and purr loudly, and flip his tail, and every time he is aroused. After a couple minutes of kneading, I’ll notice he has developed a small clear droplet (idk if it’s a drop of urine, or semen, but he IS neutered). He’s about 3 1/2 years old, and was neutered at 5 1/2 months. I’m not sure why he’s so turned on by kneading, or especially why the little droplet appears. Has that happened to anyone else here?
I have a 1 year old male cat who has had little erections, usually because he kneads the blankets when snuggling with me, ever since he was about 5 months old. He also seems to ejaculate a little bit. I had him neutered when he was about 10 months old, and I thought the behavior would slowly go away after the hormones died down a bit, but he never seemed to grow out of it. My roommate never experiences that when he snuggles with her, only me. I mentioned it to my vet and he wasn’t too concerned about it and suggested that my cat may just have a lot of hormones even without his testicles. Cats are animals after all. It’s just funny to think of your cat getting a hard on just from sitting and enjoying his time with you, haha.
Thank God I found this sight, it is the first one that has been of help from almost a week of searching. Mostly everyone’s story here is quite close to mine. I’ve had Willy, a neutered male for about for years now, and he is about 6 years old. He’s always been a shy, scared cat around everybody but me; he may have been abused before I found him in an abandoned house, but didn’t take long to take to me and know I would never hurt him, and I am the best mommy he could ask for. Well anyway, I don’t think I can ever remember seeing him display any odd behavior; always uses the box like a good kitty, sleeps under the covers with me, etc… Well, after all this time we have been “best friends,” at the end of last week, he began doing what so many people list in the above stories: kneading my blankies, laying with his little furry back up against me, purring profusely, and jerking those little back legs, all the while, his little ding dong fully exposed. Then of course when he us done, purring stops, he jumps up and walks away. First I was freaked, then I thought he was just so comfortable around me that he thought anything goes, and I would look it up online, but now, with some if the replies being that he might have hair wrapped up in there or something might be wrong, I’m worried. The only thing is that before I go to bed, he’ll be sleeping for hours, not licking down there at all, then he’ll get up, follow me to bed when I go, and then the kneading triggers everything. If I don’t see him licking hardly at all before he does this, only at night before I sleep, would it seem more likely that he only is doing it for harmless reasons? Worrying about my little Will really stresses me out!
Laurie, the behavior is most likely harmless — doesn’t sound like it’s occurring with any signs of alarm. But it couldn’t hurt to check with your vet; if Mama’s vet is any indication s/he will probably be more amused than anything else, but they may want to ask you a few questions to make sure all is well in terms of Willie’s physical health. *purrs*
has it occured to anyone that most of the cases where people say there male cats have gotten aroused around are girls? did it come to mind that its just another form of Alpha trying to acert itself and claim you as his female? think of it from the point of view of the cat. wether neutered or not, the basic hard wiring for male dominance if instinctive. he probably smells your female time of the month, thinks your in heat and does what an animal does when he can’t control himself, maybe i’m wrong but something else to think about compared to the repeated advice to just neuter the cat or see a vet. could just be normal cat behaviour.
My cat Petey who is 15 starting “humping” about a year ago. He is fixed. He only does it while sitting on me. And I’m his Mom. He is the same cat he has always been. He doesn’t seem to be in pain. I’ve been thinking that because he is getting up there in age his hormones are just a little out of whack. Also has been peeing in bad spots. Thought he was just mad at me because it was raining and i wouldn’t take him for a walk. (yes i take him for walks on a leash like a dog) but now after reading this i’m wonder if he has UTI. Symptoms seem to fit. Time to go to vet.
NoPhD makes an interesting point. I’ve wondered the same thing. I am a female cat owner and have a 3 year old male (indoor cat, not neutered). He was abandoned by his mother when he was a kitten and never got enough milk/nursing as a baby. I bottle fed and raised him so he thinks of me as “mommy.” We are very close emotionally too.
I always thought his kneading and play-nursing behavior was just a result of him still missing his biological mommy. He still loves to cuddle and knead at 3 yrs of age, so he never grew out of it. Sometimes when he’s kneading I will look down and notice he’s sporting a woody! He’s off in happyland and has no idea what he’s doing, presumably…seems to be having a wet dream.
It’s kind of weird but he tends to do this when it’s that time of the month for me, so it does seem to be connected to his sense of smell, hormones and his knowing that I’m a female (I keep telling him it will never work…I’m too old for him, he’s the wrong species for me, lol).
Since he is my only cat, he does feel that he “owns” me, much like a mate. And just like my former husband, he yells at me when I come home too late at night, demanding to know just where the hell I’ve been!
Jealous and possessive much? You bet. He seems to think I’m his girlfriend more than his mommy sometimes I think!
Ah! my 4 yr old male does the same thing! He will hop on top of me and knead my until it hurts and then hop off and lick his thing! Ive never had a cat that did this, does anyone know why or where it comes from?
My male cat has been doing all of the above behaviors since he was a young adult. He’ll be 19 years old in march 2012! He’s an old boy and still a PIG. He’ll be in his favorite spot when we walk in on him having fun with himself. Ah! I quickly shut the door so he can have some privacy. I believe our male cats are very similar to our male humans. Our kitties just don’t know enough not to do it out in the open.
Well all the above has put my mind at rest a bit. The same happens to my 3yr old neutered male when I stroke him but he also then jumps onto the back of my hand/arm, bites down and roots around with his back end. When I take my hand away he just licks at his erection till it goes.
I noticed him jump on one of the females yesterday but non of them (3, all spayed) let him get too close, he had tried to bite down on her neck coz it was wet.
He’s so affectionate, I just feel sorry for the lil fella, he seems really confused.
My cat is 2 1/2 — he is neutered and he displays this behavior too! It is always when I am sitting on the futon, he will only up to my right arm and start biting my clothes (not my skin) and kicking really hard with his back feet. Before you know it, he’s sporting an erection,. When I try to calm him down by petting him, he freaks out and almost barks at me! His biting gets a little more aggressive when I try to pull away so I usually just let him do his thing. When he is done he licks the area, then falls asleep. Typical male.