Unhand That Beast!

MOLLY:

I went to the zoo the other day and a monkey was very friendly, making sign language to me.  I gave him some cookies.  Was that all right?

DOLLOP:

It is a very good thing to be kind to other species, especially as we are destroying so many of them in order to support our lavish lifestyles.  We have taken away their land, soiled their water, sonic-blasted their brains, bull-dozed their nesting areas, shot their mothers, put their babies in little cages to amuse our babies, and harvested their body parts.  A little kindness is warranted.  Even respect.  Love would be all right too.  And just hope to earn some back.

If it were not for the love, God knows where our genes would be right now.  It is not very well known that inter-species love is not unknown.  Probably as likely as love with aliens, and look how I turned out!

A zillion years ago before man built concrete and steel barriers between himself and natural life, and found himself barefoot in the forests much more often than once a year on vacation, there were fruitful unions that shaped our gene pool.  The early explorers were most likely Desperate Housewives, who had to walk hours away from home in order to fetch jugs of water and got a little fed up about it.

We can only imagine which side made the first overtures, about six million years ago.   It is common, of course, for creatures seeking “to make sexual selection” to present their assets in a good light.  This was hard to do before wonder-bras, thong underwear, and speedos.  We can assume that both sides assumed the cross-species come-hither posture of sticking the chest out and flapping arms.

We hope the species involved showed some good taste.  Not like those shameless Bonobos.  We imagine that the species mutually recognized where the other’s organs were located.  Indeed, early humans could have looked like chimps and could have seemed quite attractive if you were an ape.  Neanderthals of Europe – stocky, large-browed, with sharp teeth and jutting jaws – might have hooked up with modern humans from Africa.  We think they were equally smart.  There is evidence that more than a few felt they were soul mates, in spite of being dirty and smelly at the time.    

There is a researcher seeking to explain why Ecuadoran male manakin birds, using their wings, can pop like firecrackers and make wooshing noises while courting.  After filming them in action, and locating exact feathers and muscles involved, she is planning to clip certain wings to prove her hypothesis.  “I should be able to completely silence the bird,” she said.  The manakins are planning to capture her on her next visit, and test which bodily clippings will render her dateless. 

Contemporary female chimps have been observed “mating furtively outside their social set.”  It could well be that our proto-Desperate Housewives were corrupted watching them.  Thanks to DNA analysis, we the people can tell when the chimp babies come from baby-daddies who are not the boys at home.  Meanwhile, the male chimps go through a lot of vicious fights and humiliations to become the alpha-male and chief procreator.  Good thing they don’t know about DNA.  A respectable female researcher has questioned the benefits of becoming an alpha male, but her speaking tour has not reached the male chimps yet. 

Thanks to bird studies, we know that it is the low- or mid-level males who are doing the siring.  The flashy, powerful alphas are being snookered.  Mission Accomplished, indeed.

Serengeti cheetahs (the name is such a give-away!) have more than one father per litter 43% of the time.  And then, the very next year, the “mobile” females move on to a new set of fathers.  The frightening conclusion that females are the ones in control comes from a close look at lizards.  Those hussies will go for the larger males who have the best territories of nice shady rocks.  If you give a scrawny lizard some nice digs, they will consort with him, but sneak a visit to the big guy on the side. 

A research project trying to bring diversity to a wolf colony found that introducing strange-boy wolves into a new neighborhood did not work because they could not compete with the established alpha- and high-ranking guys, and they would end up joining the rest of the males who got no action at the bar.  The way to go was to introduce strange-females, and boy, was that a successful diversity program!

Apparently the smell of a woman’s armpit gives away her fertile time.  At the same time, the woman feels pretty lusty for new genes, and tends to dress better.  Don’t fetch water from long distances at this time!  Or, if you go, take Inflatable-Man with you.

We know the trysting didn’t last.  DNA evidence points to only 1.2 million years of fooling around before the species went their separate ways.  That is a lot of Desperate Housewives, nevertheless.  Scientists say that the number of species that deviate in this way are very small, and it is only a few that would engage this jungle adventure.  The scientific observation concurs with the Virginian map of “orientations.”  The esteemed Virginia legislation recognizes 8 different sexual orientations.  I think they must be:  hetero, homo, bisexual, transgender-gynephilia, transgender-androphilia, pedophilia, bestiality, and Virginian hypocracy-philia.  In the latter case, respectable citizens claim “hetero” and impose it on others, but practice all the other ways in secret.  They might have overlooked the orientation found in an actual living crab, which was actually biologically bisexual, and is suspected of having had sex with itself (at least once…).    Most of the orientations are, of course, forbidden.

By the way, this means the Virginia legislature gets to spend a lot of time arguing the distinctions among sexual orientations, with details.  In the great religious traditions of debate such as those of Tibetan monks and Jewish Talmud scholars, VA legislators must explore whether anything “not-hetero” is the same as “bestial.”  If Kinsey were still alive, I am sure he would be busy helping them regarding degrees of deviation.

We imagine the ancestral chimp to be a brash opportunist.  Maybe one of those middle-level bad-boys tired of hanging out in the bar and ready to advance humanity.

With the advancement of civilization, the problem of inter-species and regular promiscuity has been addressed.  Especially by people who are very much into family values, and more particularly, family honor.   For example, Molly, your elders could drive a big nail into your head.  I am not speaking figuratively.  (Really, look up “lobotomy.”)   A famous case is the fate of one misbehaving daughter belonging to an elite American family.   It is a form of “honor maiming.”  Honor killing is done a world away, where an incident of errant kissing can get you stoned to death, and by your own family.  Everyone, let’s keep perspective!

By the way, in that same family of the misbehaving daughter, the misbehaving famous sons carried on a multi-generation family tradition of promiscuity because that was an expression of power and privilege, and an entitlement.  Same libido, wrong gender…

For a period of nearly 40 years, the Swedes (and Swiss, and Austrians, and Belgians, and Germans, and Danes, and Norwegians) sterilized their young, rebellious, promiscuous females, especially those of “mixed blood” and alleged feeble minds.  Little did they know then, that there were chimps in our forest, long ago.  Besides, sex reduces stress – lower blood pressure, more bonding hormones – up to a week.  Those mellow Desperate Housewives possibly carried a lot more water and lived longer.