For sensuality and complexity, the scorpionfly puts the ancient Roman orgies
— replete with tables of greasy food, naked slaves, amoral
noblewomen and vomitoriums — to shame. The male scorpionflys line up,
clasping big dead bugs in their feet (to show what good providers they are)
and the female nibbles on the various offerings. The menfolk try all the
while to make genital contact, but they're rebuffed until she's decided who
has the biggest, juiciest nuptial gift. The female eats the entire time
they're fucking, and leaves when the food's gone, even if he didn't come
yet! So a male with a smaller prey can only get it on for about five
minutes, whereas a big one could make it last twenty hot minutes. If there's
any food left after the act is over, they fight over it. The male usually
wins, and offers the remains to some new female. (Is that like going home
with some guy and he pulls a vibrator out of the drawer mid-act and you
notice it's kind of sticky?)

Question: I bet those Scorpionflys practice transvestitism too, don't they?

Answer: Why yes, they do! Some males will approach another, bug-carrying male and
pretend to be a receptive female — then when the genital touching begins,
they snatch the dead bug and fly away before the other guy realizes there
are two penises in the picture.

For some, cross-dressing isn't enough. They need actual transexuality,
along with group gropes. The slipper limpet (a relative of the periwinkle)
is one of these — starting life as a male, ending up a female, living in
piles, getting penises stuck in them when they're female, and doing the
sticking as soon as they get a stick to stick with. Snails, on the other
hand, are hermaphrodites — male and female at the same time. They meet,
press their bodies together, feel each other up with their tentacles for
hours, dripping slime all over the place. Eventually they get boners and
enter each others vaginas simultaneously. The black slugs do it in the air,
dangling from their slime rope attached to a tree limb. Out come their
two-inch-long penises (that's pretty darn big for a little slug!) and sperm
is exchanged.

Question: Speaking of penises . . . we all know about the six-foot whale penis, but
guess what his balls weigh?

Answer: Up to 2,000 pounds!

I know I already discussed this in the intro, but I never get tired of the
Praying mantis story. Let me go over the details one more time: She bites
his head off at the start and eats it while he's pumping her. The center of
the male insect's copulatory control is in his abdomen, while the role of
the brain (the one in his head) is largely inhibitory. Decapitation removes
inhibition, and he pumps into her with fantastic abandon in his death
throes. While she continues eating the rest of him — legs, hairy feet and
all.

Question: Is that the sexiest thing you ever heard?

Answer: Yes.

Another case of fucking to death: The antechinus is a small marsupial which
dies at eleven and a half months, which is also the age of the first and last time they
rut. During their last week of life they run around in a frenzy, looking for
females, not eating, losing their hair and teeth and one-third of their body
weight within days. Examination of the corpse reveals gastrointestinal
ulcers — these poor little guys died from stress. They were so freaked out
about getting their fucking in, they died.

Question: Is that the second sexiest thing you ever heard?

Answer: No, of course not! Imagine the poor lady antechinuses — their only
option for sex in their whole life is herds of balding, toothless, saggy,
dying freaks!

Yet more death: The male deep-sea anglerfish fastens onto the female and
slowly degenerates until he is only a bag of reproductive tissues. How must
that feel? A friend of mine answered: "Like marriage." I don't think that
was a very nice thing to say.

Question: Is this better or worse than getting snapped up by a female praying
mantis?

Answer: Purposely rotting must take a very long time. The life of the anglerfish
stud is . . . I can imagine no worse.

A copulatory plug is the opposite of a condom or an I.U.D. Insects use it,
as do marsupials, bats, rats, hedgehogs, and snakes. It's a gluey substance
secreted by the male to block the female's genital opening, after he's had
his way with her. This keeps the sperm safe inside and keeps other males
from entering to dislodge your sperm with their own vital burst. Some worms
use copulatory plugs on their rival males after committing homosexual rape
on them! One kind of fly uses his body as a copulatory plug. He dies inside
her vagina Then she eats him. Now that is a complex form of eating yourself
out!

Question: How long is the South African grasshopper's sex act?

Answer: A month! That's one-third of his lifetime (which would translate to a
29-year-long, continuous sex act for us). He uses his penis as the
copulatory plug. A species of walking stick (an insect that looks like a
twig) can go at it for almost three months straight.

This one just makes me cry: Children fucking children eating children. The
fly that never grows up. The gall midges, as larva, produce eggs that
develop into larvae which then devour their mom from within — before their
mom has even grown up! The mom-eaters get eaten in turn by their children,
but this is little consolation. Several generations can exist without a
single adult. Lord of the Flies indeed!

Question: Some flies have penises longer than the rest of their bodies. Does it
dangle when they fly?

Answer: I don't know! Please tell me if I am the only one to find this thought
exciting, even though I know where the fly is wont to mate (in poop).

I bet Michael Jackson and his plastic surgeon's assistant, the mother of his
children Prince and Paris, did it like squids: The male passes his sperm in
a packet to the female by means of a hectocotylus (which means "really long
arm"). Then there's the Red mite, who just leaves his sperm on the ground
and when a female happens by, she picks it up and sticks it in her. Also
called to mind would be the Drassodes spider, which kidnaps a young, small
female and keeps her till she's just big enough to enter.

Question: Did MJ really pay that Debbie woman two million dollars so that she'd
give him the children and never have contact with them again?

Answer: I can't believe it either, but it's true. Would you sell your children to
someone who claims his favorite "sport" is throwing water balloons at German
boys because it brings him "so much joy"?

Next time the man in your life scoffs at your claim of PMS, tell him what
female monkeys with PMS do: scream at their mates and children and bite
fingers off their trainers. Then show him your teeth in a very big smile.

Question: Do animals ever do drugs?

Answer: Yes — whenever scientists give them some. When animals' serotonin levels
are artificially reduced, they don't even care what species they're fucking,
never mind gender. They participate in group sex, often harming or killing
their partners during the act. (Note to those of you on Prozac: that drug
tends to boost your seratonin, thereby rendering you less likely to engage
in experimental sex or murder.)

While doing it, the lioness growls and the lion meows. He can get it on up
to eighty-six times in one day. Camels do it sitting. The two-toed sloth prefer the
missionary style. Chimpanzees are known to "wife swap" and have group sex.
Cats can have feline herpes. Some foxes bite when they french-kiss. A male
mouse can't grow his testicles full-size till the dominant (or "boss") male
in his territory dies. If a pregnant mouse catches a whiff of a newly
big-penised male, she spontaneously aborts.

Question: We should always wash our hands after urinating, right?

Answer: We-e-ell . . . The female human can detect "boar taint" of pork, a pheromone
in boar urine that puts sows in the mood. Men, boys and girls cannot smell
it. An ovulating woman smells it best of all. So, men, those pee drops on
your fly might not be so bad after all, when you're in the updraft of an
egg-dropping woman.

Similar to the thirteen-year-old homo sapien, many male insects will try to
have sex with: each other, flowers, bananas, sticks, cans and bottles. The
fruit fly is one of these indiscriminate humpers. He is also the only male
in my research who goes down on his lady. He "licks her genitilia" said one
very scientific textbook. The African mouthbrooder, a fish, gets tricked
into simultaneous oral/anal sex. She carries her eggs around in her mouth.
Mistaking the male's sperm-covered anal fin for lost eggs, she takes it into
her mouth. (But does she swallow?)

Question: Can we bring this all back to death and bisexuality, for consistency's
sake?

Answer: Sure! Add this to that list of things a randy digger bee will mount and
penetrate: the cold, hard bodies of dead female and male bees. And yes, he
does come.

©2002
Lisa Carver and Nerve.com, Inc.