Not too long ago, the internet lost their minds when they saw pics of a man letting his pet falcon fuck his head. The falcon wasn’t technically having sex with the man’s head. He was having sex with the man’s hat. A falcon sex hat, to be specific. And yes, that is a real thing.

Why would he do this, you ask? Well, when a man and his falcon are in love, they give each other a special kind of hug… Okay, not really. The “sex hat” is a device used to help falcons breed in captivity. 

Getting captive falcons to do the deed is particularly tricky. When birds are born in the wild, they imprint on their parents. But for birds born in captivity, they imprint on their human handlers. And for falconers who raise these fluffy balls of flying death from the time they hatch, that means the falcons imprint on them.

Unfortunately when the falcons reach breeding age, they’re not really into other birds. Hence the need for a little helping hand to get them in the mood. Or should I say, a helping hat.

Falcons aren’t the only animals who get their freak on with haute couture. The business of animal artificial insemination is a big deal. This is especially true in horse racing. If you have a horse that wins a notable race, you can sell that horse’s winning gene juice for big bucks. The breeders of Justify, who won the Triple Crown in 2018, were recently selling his semen for $150,000 a pop.

Besides making a grip of cash, there are actually numerous animal health-related reasons why artificial insemination is used. Sometimes a species is so endangered, and males of that species are so rare, that conservation biologists need to spread a viable male’s genes as far and as wide as they can to help propagate the whole species. 

And if you run a farm, it can be dangerous for big animals like cows and bulls to get busy. It’s safer (albeit less fun) for the animals to collect a single male’s semen and then artificially inseminate multiple females from that one batch. It’s also cost effective. And nothing is more romantic that boning on a budget, amiright?

As a result, there are numerous devices (like the “sex hat”) used to assist animals in getting jiggy with it. Perhaps you’d like to try the electro-ejaculator for bulls….

Or maybe the ram ejaculator…

And don’t forget the always fashionable hog hump…

Now this equipment doesn’t come cheap. The falcon sex hat alone costs about $300. Not to mention the cost to your dignity. 

The original falcon love helmet was invented by a falconer named Les Boyd, in the early 1970s. Les also realized that mimicking the female falcon’s vocalizations while wearing the hat aided in getting the males to perform their species-saving duty. No word on whether there’s a Spotify playlist of “Love Songs to Get Your Falcon In The Mood” yet, but maybe we should get on that. 

 Full disclosure: I got my undergrad degree in pre-vet, which means I literally have hands-on experience with some of the techniques described here. Okay, all of the techniques described here. And even some I didn’t mention, for fear of this Gleek being banned from conservative news aggregators. True story: for extra credit, I once jerked off a pig into a plastic thermos. And no, I’m not talking about Harvey Weinstein. 

Been nice knowing you, Apple News.