Do ants have sexual pleasure

Answer 1

We have no way of telling whether ants have any emotions or pleasures in any sense that humans do. We find it easy to believe that say, birds and mammals do, but even there we cannot really be sure. In fact, we have no way of proving that any other human does either; there is a whole branch of philosophy, known as existentialism, that deals with this problem. In case you are not interested in studying a course of philosophy just to satisfy yourself on that point, there also is a brilliant and entertaining book called "The Mind's I" by Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett. I strongly recommend it and it should leave you with a much clearer idea of the difficulties that your question raises (plus many other difficulties that you probably never have thought of).

That said, the simplest and most practical attitude that we can adopt towards the behaviour and the minds of other creatures is to assume that when they behave in ways that we think we understand, they are driven by feelings and minds similar to ours in principle, similar at least in some of the ways that matter to us. So for example, when we see an animal that acts as though it is angry, or hurt, or as though it is enjoying itself, we might as well accept that it really does have something like a feeling that we can understand, at least until we have reason to accept that such ideas don't make enough sense to take seriously.

In the case of mating ants, most species only mate once, and in a huge hurry, mainly as it were, in passing. Their behaviour doesn't look so much pleasurable as compulsive, so I am not inclined to think that they enjoy it any more than we enjoy eating cereal, or perhaps breathing. It is just something that has to get done and gotten over with.

But as I said, I, and as far as I can tell, other people as well, have no way of finding out. Good luck if you think that you can find such a way!