Topic: Mammal cloaca tag confusion

Some mammals have cloacas or pseudo cloacas. It can be confusing to tag, so let's discuss in this thread!

Comments welcomed

Definitions

• Sphincter: a ring of muscles that can open and close, such as the anus or iris
• Urogenital sinus/tract (UGS): the canal in which urine and genitals come from. This includes retractable penises

The current consensus:

A cloaca is when the urogenital tract, and anus converge before the sphinter opening. If the UGS has a separate opening elsewhere on the outside of the body, it's not a cloaca. If the UGS opens outside of the anal sphincter, but still goes through it, it's a pseudo cloaca.

Many marsupials have cloacas, but some have pseudo_cloacas. Marsupial_pussy used to be tagged on many images with marsupial cloacas. Since the tag has now become marsupial vulva, it doesn't apply anymore as "pussy" could refer to everything but vulva only refers to the external UGS opening. Issue is, that opening isn't external with a true cloaca, so true cloacas shouldn't be tagged vulva, but they can be tagged vaginal_canal instead. Marsupials with pseudo cloacas could still use the marsupial vulva tag. Things that resemble cloacas but aren't, can also be tagged pseudo claoca. Monotremes have true cloacas.

Currently, the marsupial vulva wiki implies that true cloacas would still be tagged with vulva, despite it being internal. Is there a tag that could replace marsupial pussy without eliminating the use of marsupial vulva? Marsupial_cloaca perhaps? Let's discuss!

Examples:

• These have the UGS and anus opening before the sphincter. This is a true cloaca. These don't have a vulva, but the first two have a vaginal_canal. In the first case, multi_vaginal_canals as well, and in the last case, it's a retractable penis.

post #5582283 post #3200084 post #4076317

• This has the UGS going through the sphincter or lips, but opening outside of it. This is a pseudo cloaca

post #6020268

• These have the UGS and anus in one loop of lips, resembling a cloaca, but are still clearly separated like a slit. This can also be tagged pseudo cloaca

post #5923197 post #3504945

oddly_arousing said:
/snip

It was a good read, but I'm not even sure what you're suggesting we do about it

I feel like those definitions are so precise that people will just not think about tagging it, or will not be able to tag it accurately.

bleakdragoon said:
It was a good read, but I'm not even sure what you're suggesting we do about it

I feel like those definitions are so precise that people will just not think about tagging it, or will not be able to tag it accurately.

I'm just wondering how we should go about tagging it and editing/adding the tag wikis. Hopefully more concise than this thread. Also, if there should be another tag. A lot of the related posts have been having tag battles happen, so I thought it would be worth making a forum to form a consensus.

I've seen "separate but connected genitals and anus" getting tagged as cloaca, which didn't seem appropriate, but I wasn't sure how to tag them properly.

pseudo_cloaca applies to this, right? I'll add a note about that to cloaca wiki, then.
post #2668174 post #1795990

waydence said:
I've seen "separate but connected genitals and anus" getting tagged as cloaca, which didn't seem appropriate, but I wasn't sure how to tag them properly.

pseudo_cloaca applies to this, right? I'll add a note about that to cloaca wiki, then.
post #2668174 post #1795990

I feel like it would, but this is a discussion thread to see if others agree too.