| Index | ||
| Prologue | ||
| The Roper Report | ||
| Introduction | ||
| Section 1 | ||
| Section 2 | ||
| Section 3 | ||
| Section 4 | ||
| Section 5 | ||
| Section 6 | ||
| Section 7 | ||
| Section 8 | ||
| Section 9 | ||
| Section 10 | ||
| Appendix A | ||
| Appendix B | ||
| Perry's Tale | ||
| Pictorial Record | ||
Sexual Symbiosis
Vulcus vulcus and Monux hipparion gracilis
Sec.10.0 Monux hipparion gracilis (Goodw.) is the smallest of the 3-Gamma Draconis monukhidae. It is a race of diminutive, light gray, black-maned, pony-like equid quasi-anthropomorphs. The most massive males of the species are roughly equal in bulk to a wlko (and rather smaller than the typical rupellid), but the general run of male hipparions are smaller. Their territory largely overlaps the territory of the wlkon. Since they occupy totally different ecological niches, however, the two species rarely encounter one another accidentally. The social organization of the two species, too, is as unalike as their morphology and ecology.
Sec.10.1 The monuxes are typical equids, that is, they are generally gregarious, with the proviso that in any grex, most sexually mature males are kept away from the sexually mature females, which constitute a kind of harem. The truly unusual feature of the social organization of 3-Gamma Draconis genus Monux, and M. hipparion is no exception, is that instead of a single alpha male ruling the harem, there’s a sort of alliance of three to eleven males (usually five or seven; always in any case an odd number) who share the females. The latter are typically between twenty and thirty in number, and it was early noted that the size of the "alpha committees" seems to vary in accord with the number of females in the herd.
Sec.10.2 The symbiosis between M hipparion bachelors (herinafter simply "monuxes") and the wlko is real, and it is ancient enough for the evolution of Horniman Sites (Sec.4.2.7) in wlko recta specialized to digest both monux and wlko male ejacula specifically. And the symbiosis is socially supported by the differences in their sexual needs and behaviors. The wlkon have been described. The monux "bachelors", i.e. sexually mature males who are not mambers of the alpha committee, have little to do from one day to the next but graze, defecate, and gossip, and look on while a privileged few males, with well-advertised relish, couple with receptive females.
In several hundred years of morphological study, such an event among the monuxes has been recorded only twice (see Al-Hassan, Suthandaret, et al. drac3-2.0360), but it may fairly be speculated that the incidence of overt homosexual behavior among the monuxes is not any index of the prevalence of homosexual inclinations, as the gruesome consequences of homosexual behavior, no less than the violently negative attitudes taught monuxes of both sexes from earliest childhood, are a strong deterrent.
Sec.10.4 Otherwise, though, monukhid society is on the whole more irenic than the typical equid social group. This seems to be largely because of the unusual "committee"-type control of the "harem", characteristic of all four species of the genus. Trespassing on the harem is so obviously a losing proposition that no monux male of normal intelligence would even try to do so, no matter how frustrated sexually. Besides, transgression does not mean getting into the horsy equivalent of a knife-fight (with its unpredictable outcome), as is the case of most equid societies. Rather, thanks to the resources available to a group of dominant males (in contrast to the single sexually active male in the usual equid pattern), a transgressor is overpowered, and then, at least according to Boileau ( drac3-1.0378), sodomized by the alpha committee. Unless or until he somehow runs away, or dies as a result of repeated anal trauma, he is then sodomized by the bachelors.
This has nothing to do with the homosexuality taboo sketched above. The monuxes are clear on two points: the males sodomizing the transgressor are not engaged in homosexual activity; and, once a male has been anally penetrated, even aginst his will, he is not male at all. In fact, he’s an outlaw, in the original sense of that word: no other monux owes him any social obligations, nor does he expect any. He is, as Gibb and Albakar neatly put it ( drac3-2.0029), a "thing". (Fn 45) As may be anticipated, sexual transgression against the harem, like homosexual behavior, is rare. Monux bachelors have told me and other field workers that they have nightmares about gang-rapes, and the sense of dread is reported to be strongest among those bachelors who have actually participated in these acts.
Sec.10.5 Where the wlkon fit into all this is that a "cold" male, or more accurately the two co-mates together, will go to a monux camp for the purpose of inviting sexual (anal) intercourse. The monux bachelors readily oblige. Strictly speaking, it would be necessary for only one "cold" co-mate to be "made a man" by the monuxes, but it is regarded (correctly) as dangerous for a single wlko to venture into the company of a group of monux bachelors. (Fn 46) An even more pressing reason, though, for co-mates to visit the monux haunts together, is that the coupling with a monux does not always "make a man" of a wlko. There is only very short interval between penetration and ejaculation–see Appendix A–and even when performed by six or ten or more monux bachelors in succession, the rectal stimulation can fall short of what is necessary to make sexual readiness possible for a wlko. However, with both co-mates going through this experience, it is successful even if only one wlko co-mate is restored to virility, as he will make the other a man. This is nevertheless not a simple matter (see Sec.11.). It can only be regarded as fortunate for the wlko that it is not common for a visit to the monuxes to fail to "build a fire" in both co-mates.The monuxes, who are not remarkably intelligent, think that wlkon are simply homosexual, and despise them elaborately–their usual name for a wlko is zizi-hulikmik, skittishly rendered "zizi-without-testicles" by Jerome ("nutless faggot" would be a closer translation, zizi being a very crude term for a homosexual, and hulik is such an obscene word for "testicle(s)" that when I asked wlko subjects about it, they were visibly embarrassed, and were curious to know where I had learned such language). (Fn 47)
But the bachelors plainly relish sexual intercourse with the cats. Amusingly, the members of the harem committee emphatically deny even the possibility of penetrating a wlko male, and it is the basis for sneering and contemptuous jests about the intensity of the bachelors’ sexual frustration. (Fn 48)
Sec.10.6 This brings us to the peculiarly horsy morphology of the wlko males, especially the rather long, heavy neck. In the couplings of monuxes with wlkon that I witnessed, the "style" of the sexual encounter was always pure monux and radically unlike any wlko intercourse I witnessed: the creatures standing up, equid male behind, holding the big cat in his arms and clamping his teeth on the wlko’s neck. In fact, from a distance or in a poor light, you could hardly tell that two equids were not copulating. (Even at wlkatar I have never observed sexual congress between animals on their feet.)
It is of course useless to try to get any creature to explicate urges and motivations, but it seems likely that such male wlko horsy traits as the prominent mane and heavy neck are specific adaptations to make the big cats more acceptable to a race of equids as sexual partners, not regularly but in times of real necessity. And "acceptable" they unquestionably are: the coupling between monuxes and "cold" wlko co-mates is little more than gang rape, in which the monuxes, despite their crass disparagements of wlko virility and supposed homosexual behavior generally, join enthusiastically. That said, it must be admitted that it is difficult to tell how much of the enjoyment is physical and how much might be termed socio-sexual sadism.
Fn 44. To describe masturbation as "tolerated", as two early morphologists do (Higgins drac3-1.0089a and Jerome drac3-2.0121a), is an understatement. Two things might account for the early misunderstandings.
First, masturbation is practically a mark of bachelorhood, so members of the harem committee masturbate either not at all or in secret–and most of the early morphography was of course conducted with the prestige members of male society, i.e. the harem committee. Some field workers were aware of the possibility that they were missing important details of social organization, societal norms, etc., but were unable to do anything about it, partly out of uncertainty about how to deal with marginal groups like the monux bachelors, and partly because it was just easier to deal with individuals at the center of monux society.
Second, even though monux bachelors are casual about masturbating, they rarely do so in the presence of strangers. Fully erect monux bachelors waiting around to take their turn copulating with wlkon, for instance, generally keep their hands away from their erections, though of course this may be attributable to a species of social fiction, viz., that the bachelors waiting to penetrate a wlko are "playing the role" of members of the harem committee waiting their turn to couple with a receptive mare.
Among friends, though, a monux bachelor masturbates quite as casually as he urinates and, since sexual excitement is contagious (even in rigidly heterosexual societies like the equids generally), I have several times observed a whole conversational group of two to seven monux bachelors lying about masturbating in concert while continuing to talk and joke, just as they would if one or more of their number were voiding urine or feces. There are even conventionalized patterns of linguistic behavior, much like greeting formulae, associated with masturbation. The socially-correct thing to say to a companion who has just ejaculated, for example, translates as one or another variation on "big man! those fillies don’t know what they’re missing" vel sim. Of course, most monux bachelors have never ejaculated in a female vagina in their lives and know they never will. (Regarding the reproductive anatomy of M. hipparion, Zhukhov et al. remark, "Ein Einhüfchen, das eine Erektion vor sich her trägt, mutet an wie eine Art kindischer Scherz."–loosely, a monux with an erect penis looks like a kind of infantile joke.)
An alpha male in the company of bachelors who start masturbating will of course become aroused himself, but will not touch his own penis. Rather, he whistles up a mare, who at his direction first manipulates his penis with her hands, licks it, rubs her vulva with its glans, and so on, addressing the organ by name (alpha male penises have names) while praising the physical qualities of the alpha male himself and making statements to the effect that she craves [name of penis] day and night, nearly dies from pleasure as she receives his [the name of the penis’s] semen and so on. All this is ritual; the mare’s statements during both foreplay and copulation are rote. Eventually he will tell her to turn around, which she does; and he inserts his erection into her vagina. The alpha advertises the pleasure he gets from every phase of the procedure, also using rote language. (In Monux, only alpha males ever say "I am having an orgasm", whose normal form should be something like hhk-u-nz-ku’ulttss, but the expression has in fact fused into a single, unanalyzable form, hhkuzlss–uttered as little more than a series of hoarse erotic grunts, and taken as such by early fieldworkers.)
Equids being equids, it may be assumed that this behavior by an alpha male is not well-intended; apart from the obvious purpose of sexual release, it seems to be calculated to rub the bachelors’ noses in their condition of permanent sexual inequality. However it is not without its beneficial side: as Zhukhov et al. first noted, and as has been confirmed by many subsequent observations (including my own), the bachelors find every phase of the performance highly exciting–calling out encouragement, joining the female in complimenting the alpha’s erect penis (by name), and so on. Many who have already ejaculated will become erect again and masturbate to a second orgasm while the alpha achieves his, something that never happens during an ordinary mass masturbation. Jerome speculates that this is a kind of defense mechanism on the part of the bachelors, given how unlikely they are ever to enjoy copulation with a mare, and how horrific the consequences of illicit coupling are (see Sec.10.4). That may well be part of it, but it seems obtuse not to take it for what it obviously is, namely heightened sexual arousal.
Fn 45. Boileau (op. cit.) as well as Gibb and Akbar assumed, however, that once the bachelors get their hands on the unfortunate, their treatment of him is always fatal. It usually is, surely, but I once chanced upon a monux herd whose bachelor group included a sickly animal who was plainly at the margins of his already marginal sub-society, and was referred to (I never saw him actually addressed by anyone) with a Monux term I encountered nowhere else; it could be understood either as "unfuckable cunt" or "unable to fuck cunt" (these translations do not capture the crudeness or the original). Some other indications suggested that his story was that he had survived an attempt on the alpha committee’s prerogatives. It is to be assumed that any bachelor who would attempt such foolhardiness would be both virile and physically imposing. The protruding ribs, lusterless coat, and rickety movements of this utterly woebegone male were at the opposite pole of physical and moral vigor, however. I was just passing through, but rearranged my research schedule in order to return to the herd in question a matter of weeks later with the intent of trying to interview the beast, but I was told by the bachelors that "it" had died.
Fn 46. Wlko are formidable creatures, and a wlko has nothing to fear from assault from even three or four monuxes, and (reportedly) when visiting monuxes will sometimes ostentatiously unsheathe their claws, for effect. But the monux bachelors in a typical herd are more like 10 to 25 in number. Monuxes are not to be trifled with and, being cursorial, can easily run down any wlko.
Fn 47. I never encountered the term nuk-nu i-Suknu lit. "filly with a penis" (to sanitize the crudeness of the actual Monux elements), reported as common by Boileau. It may well be a regionalism, unless it has simply gone out of use in the 73 years since his study.
Fn 48. Alpha-committee males constantly boast about the intense pleasures of sexual coupling with mares, and in fact an alpha will penetrate receptive mares many times a day (see Kondrashin). They themselves rarely use the Monux word here translated as "bachelor" (kilhlik). They usually refer to–and address–the bachelors by one of eight or ten synonyms for "masturbator", or (almost as frequently) as "zizi-fucker" or "rump-fucker". These are understood to refer to wlkos, of course, but to the alpha males the inevitable suggestion of overall homosexual deviancy, and the disparagement implied, is not an unwelcome connotation. And the harem committee’s usual term for a former member of the committee is in fact hulikmik "eunuch".
First, as I have heard them say time and again, it is regarded as "crude"–sex standing up that lasts perhaps ten seconds, being roughly held, from behind, with no reciprocity. (Fn 50)
Second, it would amount to admitting to a taste for perverse sex, since the experience is universally reported as "painful"–the biting, obviously, but also the nature of the penetration. Monux penises are larger than wlko organs, in both dimensions but particularly length; and there is no lubrication (regarding which see Sec.Sec.4.2.3—4, above and fn. 49; see also Appendices A and B). The after-effects of a sodomy work-over by a gang of monux bachelors are commonly serious enough to make walking difficult; and abdominal discomfort can be felt by wlkon for days or even weeks afterwards.
Male wlkon who are thoroughly used to anal sex are best able to take sodomizing by monuxes without lasting consequences. Monuxes are reported to have more or less raped adolescent wlkon, however, which is traumatic both emotionally and physically, since it can do real damage to the youth’s inexperienced tissues. (Fn 51)
Further, if through some untoward circumstance, a wlko or two co-mates have been "cold" for a period of longer than a few months, they will usually prefer just to wait until the next wlkatar, since (reportedly) after so long a period without anal penetration, copulation with a monux can be particularly painful.
Fn 50. The term lhuphh, here rendered "crude", hardly does justice to the Wlko word; it suggests indecency and ignorance of the most basic social values. It is used of the blunders of very young children, who of course are only learning the values in question. It is a term of strong opprobrium directed at an adolescent; and one of the most insulting terms imaginable as applied to an adult wlko–or would be if it were ever so applied; I personally never encountered it.
As for sexual coupling, the wlko cultural norm is the same for males and females: chest to chest, with much muttering and a low sound which might be either purring or growling. In both homo- and heterosexual coupling, the partner being penetrated, whether male or female, will commonly lick the neck and cheeks of the wlko who is in him/her; intermittently at first and then almost continuously as he is felt to be approaching orgasm–a far from speedy process (see Sec.4.2.9). In male/male coupling, occasionally the pathic will ejaculate, a phenomenon aided by the stimulation of the pathic’s penis by the movements of the copulator’s well-lubricated belly against it.
At wlkatar, of course, the patterns are different. One male will penetrate another from behind when the male in question is himself coupling, for example. This ultimate sexual partner might be either another wlko or a wlkwy (very much more commonly the latter). At home, of course, a double copulation would consist of one co-mate sodomizing the other while the latter has intercourse with a wife. This circumstance is unusual, but not rare absolutely.
For no obvious reason, simultaneously penetrating a wlkwy anally and vaginally seems to be unknown, both domestically and at wlkatar; at least no field works report any cases.
Fn 51. I had good reason to wonder whether such events might not be cautionary fables or the like, but my files include notes from my studies of family with three co-mates, one of whom, "Bradley", the handsomest of the three, was withdrawn and shy, and in various small ways seemed maladjusted and socially inept. Eventually I learned that "Bradley" and his twin had been raped by monuxes when they were about ten years old. The brother died as a consequence; "Bradley" survived, but had no "third hand", which meant that it was very difficult for a male wlko to achieve ejaculation in him. It also meant, inter alia, that he had distressing associations with anal penetration, and for whatever reason got little or none of the usual wlko pleasure from it. He was, however, "red"; and eventually, with some show of embarrassment, one of the co-wives explained to me that the young man’s co-mates kept him red by coupling with one another almost to the point of ejaculation, and then would quickly penetrate "Bradley" so that he would receive the seminal discharge. "Oh, he’s so gorgeous–just look at him–and he fucks like a rupellid. At least once a day, too, almost–well, almost like he’s afraid he’ll lose it–I just wish he’d stop apologizing", she added, with a sign of concern. "How many years has it been, now, since his accident?–and still he never fucks me without saying something about how he shouldn’t be able to do this."
He seemed to relate well with his co-wives, though I gathered he had never sodomized his co-mates, and even–sad to relate–was uncomfortable about intimate physical contact of any kind with males.