Animal Sex

This doesn't have anything to do with Sunday but I had, I suppose you could say, the good fortune of watching a show on Discovery concerning that most fascinating of American topics. You guessed it - sex. The sex lives of animals. No, not people - I didn't say animalistic. Real animal sex. I've often wondered why I watch these creature features, and I think I've come to the conclusion that they are crucial to helping us keep our perspective - especially concerning sex, about which we have none. We have to read about it, watch it, and, more than anything, talk about it. Incessantly. We can't even tell a joke without it rearing its ugly head (sorry). For example, a friend informs me that studies have shown that the most common sexual position employed by married couples is the the doggie position: the husband sits up and begs and the wife rolls over and plays dead. Further studies have shown that there are five stages to the sexual lives of most couples. The first stage is called Smurf Sex, which occurs when you've just met someone and you have sex until you are both blue in the face. The morality of this stage is often questioned by certain segments of society. The second stage is called Kitchen sex, which usually occurs in the first few months after marriage. You and your spouse are still so taken with each other that you'll have sex anywhere, even in the kitchen. The third stage is called Bedroom Sex. You've been together for some time and sex has become routine, transpiring in the bedroom virtually all the time. The fourth stage is called Hallway Sex. You and your partner have been together too long, so when you pass each other in the hallway you say, "Screw you." The last stage is called Courtroom Sex. You can't stand each other anymore, so your wife takes you to court and screws you in front of everyone. We're all familiar with the complexities of human relations in this area, or, if you're not, you one day will be. And we all agree that there's good sexual behavior and bad sexual behavior, but that's all we agree on. Which are good and which are bad is a matter of unending and often heated debate.

In the animal kingdom, things are simpler, even, one might say, better ordered - requiring a less complex courtship ritual, and fewer subtleties in the variety of adaptive behavior, nothing comparable to, say, the human male's longing to evolve the ability to read minds. But, though the process is not nearly as complex within a particular species as it is with us, the diversity of experience among species is enough to make one wonder what the Creator had in mind. The program presented these - what shall we call them? - analyses of reproductive habits in no particular order. You might think they'd start with the lower creatures and move to the higher, but they were all over the cladistic map, so I'll just give them to you in the order they appeared.

Lions are always popular and here's what they do: A strong young male comes in and takes over the pride, driving out the old guy. He kills all the cubs sired by that old guy. Literally hunts them down and breaks their little necks in his jaws. Sometimes he eats them. The female sniffs their dead bodies, if any are left, looks vaguely distressed in that whisker-twitching way they have, then goes immediately into heat and starts flirting with the new guy. Thus, lionkind continues.

Next came the right whale. Of land mammals the elephant has the largest (you'll have to permit me the anatomically correct term now and then; how many euphemisms are there?) penis. But the right whale, well, to call him "endowed" is to demonstrate the inadequacy of words. "It" is ten feet long. That's as long as some other whales ever get. Three or four of these right guys surround the female and politely take turns doing it. Occasionally they brush against each other, but there is really very little touching seeing as how...I think you get the picture. Much has been made of the intelligence of these animals, but doesn't this girl realize she is bringing little whales into the world who will never know who their father was? John Lily started a bad thing back in the sixties when he decided to try talking to dolphins. Yes, if we could just decipher those sophisticated bleeps and blips; he was never bothered by the fact that the dolphins made no effort, in fact seemed to lack any desire, to decipher our language. Sure, they could follow commands like a dog, but refused to learn how to spell "cetacean." On the other hand, there was no evidence of a bureaucracy springing up to support the fatherless whalelets and their mothers, so they might be smarter than I think.

The male of some species produces more than one kind of sperm: one kind seeks to fertilize, the other to fend off competitors sent along by another male. Yep - killer sperm. This is characteristic of the macaque, a monkey that lives...somewhere, Asia, I think. The females have huge, red, bulbous hindquarters, as though constantly in estrous, and they and their male counteparts seem to live to copulate, like many humans. The male macaque's sperm forms what is called a sperm block: some of it races for the egg, others hang back, like a street gang looking for interlopers. They form a literal blockade, a gauntlet that must be run by another male's contribution, for the female is sure to be molested in very short order. Through microscopic photography, they showed sperm actually attacking other sperm and killing them. If this trait could be evolved in humans, it might prove useful in paternity tests. Certainly less costly than the current hi-tech procedure.

There is a parrot, a cute, fluffy little thing, whose reproductive drive is so urgent that, if a female does not respond to his calls within a certain period of time, it is driven to necrophilia. It wasn't clear to me if he'd killed the other bird or simply found it, but he carried it back to his hovel, dropped it in the dirt, and tried his moves on the dead body. It came as no surprise to learn that this bird is on the verge of extinction.

Ever seen a couple of mating dogs get stuck together, rear to rear? They are in that position because the male is trying to withdraw. This was demonstrated on camera by cooperative wolves. Apparently the male gets so swollen he can't get out. They can remain stuck for up to a half hour. The aftermath is painful for the male. The narrator explained that this is another form of sperm blocking; the half hour gives the first male's desperately flagellating fishies an insurmountable lead.

Remember that incredibly cute and cuddly koala from the Quantas commercials? Well, in a peaceful grove of eucalyptus trees somewhere in Australia, a young male koala is, as we speak, becoming overwhelmed by his urges and assaulting a female, who is much smaller. He attacks her viciously as she tries to escape, biting her shoulder the whole time. Problem is, he didn't ask permission of the dominant male, who then attacks him, cuffing him around and biting him here and there including - get this - on the testicles. The dominant male's attack on that area is persistent and quite purposeful. The ultimate outcome was not made clear because the camera cut away to a lower form of life. Maybe they don't want us to know what koalas are really capable of.

Other less advanced species have altogether done away with, or perhaps never possessed, the need for sex. They do lock organs and exchange genes, but that's all it is, an exchange, for male and female do not exist. Any one of them can mate with any other of their own kind. Leeches and sea slugs are prime examples. And then there are certain species of fish possessing the ability to change gender. Their essential gender is female, as you might have expected, and they transform into males "when the need arises." What precisely constitutes that need I'm not sure, because I felt the need to go to the fridge for a Pauli Girl during this segment. When I returned, the need had arisen and the metamorphosis was complete. The female had turned male. I missed seeing "the act", but the end result is a form of cloning, all offspring being female at birth.

To climb slightly, very slightly, back up the ladder of life, there is the terrifying spectacle of the American southwest's whiptail lizard. This is again, ominously, a society of all females who inherit a double set of chromosomes and thus reproduce by means of parthogenesis: they lay fertile eggs without need of male interference. All are perfect replicas of each other. Every whiptail lizard looks just like every other whiptail lizard, in every detail. The lack of genetic variation might render them susceptible to some calamitous event, like the advent of a new disease, but these ladies already live in a challenging environment, the desert, and at last report were thriving.

These are just a few samples from the wild and varied world of animal sex. What are we to take from it? As is usual with humanity, the eye of the beholder will determine the message. The right whale might inspire the male porn star to gloat, "See? Size does matter." While the more reasonable and less prodigious among us will say, "It's all relative." After all, even the right whale has cause for envy. In the animal world, the creature with the longest "thing" relative to body size is the barnacle, immobile for life - stuck to a rock or a boat hull - and which has therefore perfected the art of reaching out to touch someone. From the macaque we can find evidence in the natural world for our promiscuity. From the necrophiliac parrot, certain sickos can find justification for what ails them. From the lion and the koala, a proclamation of the virtues of violence in our liasons. Those who tout the relationship between sex and death can point to the male red-backed spider, who makes of himself, after fertilizing the female, a willing immolation to her cannabilistic impulse. Feminists can call our attention to the female fish who morphs into a male, though I haven't heard them making the case lately. They'd probably prefer to see this behavior displayed in a higher life form, but they can't find it until they get to humans, which makes the argument circular. As to the truly frightening whiptail lizard, well, men already have it tough enough in America, and the revolution in reproductive technology only adds to the trepidation. With in vitro fertilization, we still felt somewhat useful. With the looming advent of cloning, the need for a literal sexual interlude will disappear. And if scientists ever perfect the whiptail's parthenogenesis...gentlemen, prepare yourselves for the drift toward obsolescence for which you have long felt destined. In spite of the male's superficial dominance in certain species, as among the primates for example, the impression I take away is that the axis of nature's orbit is the female's need to build a nest - in the trees, on the banks of a river, in a hole in the mud, in a hillside cave, in suburbia - and bear progeny. The male is largely incidental except for his genetic contribution. But for those women who find an attractive side to cloning and parthogenesis, I would advise you to move cautiously. If you take away a man's sex life, you are likely, certain, to dull his desire to do other things, like mow the yard, change the oil, and paint the house. Unless, ladies, you like doing these things yourselves. There is, after all, much to be said for the disappointment, heartbreak and cruelty, the anticipation, joy, and sometimes ecstatic fulfillment experienced by men and women in the complex and fevered swamp of human sexual relations. Give me complexity every time.