Fresh Water Hook Up?

There's a water hose type fitting on my motor, I've heard it called a fresh water hook up, there's a male fitting coming out of the motor and a female fitting with a hose on it that looks like it might run into the lower unit. I hooked water up to the female side and water came out of all the holes in the lower unit and the pee hole. My question is if the termostats were OUT would it circulate through ALL the cooling passages?
Thanks in advance, I'm trying to understand how the cooling system works.

[robert graham]

the fresh water hook up is a very nice feature that allows you to flush salt, dirt, mud, etc. out of your motor. my motor is a 1999 model and doesn't have this feature, so I have to flush the motor on the garden hose with the rubber cup flush unit.

Thanks for the reply, lots of different theories out there. I keep getting different answers

[Tucker]

I have the same engine. Yes, it flushes entire cooling circuit that's what it's for. You can even run the engine on this without messing with the cups. However, you can't test the water pump with this way.

[Timbo down under]

According to the manual you should NEVER run the engine when using the fresh water hook up.
That system flushes the engine (excellent feature) but does not supply water via the pump. If you run the engine the pump will run dry and risk buggering the impeller