Commercial Sex appears to be rare in other species, even in zoos, but a form of ‘prostitution’ has been observed in certain primates. Female monkeys in captivity have been seen to offer themselves sexually to a male as a means of obtaining food morsels scattered on the ground, the sexual actions distracting the male from the business of competing for food.
10. Status Sex
With this, the final functional category of sexual behaviour, we enter a strange world, full of unexpected developments and ramifications. Status Sex infiltrates and pervades our lives in many hidden and unrecognized ways. Because of its complexity, I omitted it from the last chapter so that I could deal with it more fully here. It will help if we start by examining the form it assumes in other species, before we take a look at it in the human animal.
Status Sex is concerned with dominance, not with reproduction, and to understand how this link is forged we must consider the differing roles of the sexual female and the sexual male. Although a full expression of sexuality involves the active participation of both sexes, it is nevertheless true to say that, for the mammalian female, the sexual role is essentially a submissive one, and for the male it is essentially an aggressive one. (It is no accident of legal jargon that when a man sexually ‘fondles’ an unwilling female, his action is referred to as an indecent ‘assault’.) This is not merely due to the fact that the male is physically stronger than the female. The relationship is an integral part of the nature of the copulatory act. It is the male mammal who has to mount the female. It is he who has to penetrate and invade his partner’s body. An over-submissive female and an over-aggressive male are simply exaggerating their natural roles, but an aggressive female and a submissive male are completely reversing their roles.
The sexual action of a female monkey is to ‘present’ herself to the male by turning her rump towards him, raising it up conspicuously and lowering the head end of her body. The sexual action of the male monkey is to mount the female’s back, insert his penis and make pelvic thrusts.
Because, in a sexual encounter, the female submits herself and the male imposes himself, these actions have been ‘borrowed’ for use in primarily non-sexual situations requiring more general signals of submissiveness and aggressiveness. If female sexual ‘presenting’ signifies submissiveness, then it can be used in this way in a purely hostile encounter. A non-sexual female monkey can present her rump to a male as a sign that she is simply not aggressive. It acts as an appeasement gesture and functions as an indication of her subordinate status. In response, the male can mount her and make a few cursory pelvic thrusts, using these actions purely to display his dominant status.
Status Sex, used in this way, is a valuable device in the social lives of monkeys and apes. As a ritual of subordination and dominance, it avoids bloodshed. A male approaches a female aggressively, spoiling for a fight. Instead of screaming or attempting to flee, which would only feed the fire of his aggression, the female ‘presents’ herself to him sexually, the male responds, and they part, their relative dominance positions reaffirmed.
This is only the beginning. The value of Status Sex is such that it has spread to cover virtually all forms of aggressive encounter within the group. If a weak male is threatened by a strong one, the underling can protect himself by behaving as a pseudo-female. He signals his subordination by adopting the female sexual posture, offering his rump to the dominant male. The latter asserts his dominant status by mounting the weaker male, just as if he were dealing with a submissive female.
Precisely the same interaction can be observed between two females. An inferior female, threatened by a superior one, will ‘present’ to her and be mounted by her. Even juvenile monkeys will go through the same ritual, although they have not yet reached the adult sexual condition. This underlines the extent to which Status Sex has become divorced from its original sexual condition. The actions performed are still sexual actions, but they are no longer sexually motivated. Dominance has made a take-over bid for them.
The fact that sexual activities are being used repeatedly and frequently in this additional context explains the apparently orgiastic condition of some monkey colonies. Visitors to zoos often come away with the idea that monkeys are insatiable sexual athletes, ready, at the flick of a rump, to mate with anything, be it male or female, adult or juvenile. In one sense, of course, this is true. The observation is accurate enough. It is the interpretation that is wrong. Only when one understands the non-sexual motivation of Status Sex, does the picture become more balanced.
It may help to give an example from nearer home. Nearly everyone is familiar with the friendly, submissive greeting of a domestic cat, as it rubs the side of its body against a human leg, with its tail held stiffly upwards and the rear end of its body raised high. Both male and female cats do this and if, in response, we stroke their backs, we can feel them pushing the rear ends of their bodies up against the pressure of our hands. Most people accept this simply as a feline greeting gesture and do not question its origin or significance. In reality, it is another example of Status Sex. It is derived from the sexual presentation display of the female cat towards the male, its original function being the pre-copulatory exposure of the vulva. But like the Status Sex presentation action of the monkeys and apes, it has now become emancipated from its purely sexual role and is performed by either sex when in a friendly, submissive condition. Because of the human cat-owner’s size and strength, he is inevitably and permanently dominant as far as his pet is concerned. If contact is made after a temporary absence, the cat feels the need to re-establish its subordinate role, hence the greeting ceremony utilizing a submissive Status Sex display.
The feline pattern is a fairly simple one, but returning to the monkeys again, there are some striking anatomical extensions of Status Sex that we should examine before investigating the human condition. Many female monkeys possess bright red patches of swollen, naked skin in the rump region. These are conspicuously displayed to the male during the sexual rump-presentation action. They are also, of course, displayed when a female offers her rump submissively in Status Sex encounters. It has recently been pointed out that the males of some species have evolved mimics of these red patches on their rumps, as an enhancement of their submissive Status Sex displays towards more dominant individuals. For the females, the red rump patches serve a dual purpose, but for the males their function is exclusively concerned with Status Sex.
Switching from the submissive to the dominant Status Sex display, we can see a similar development. The dominant action involves erection of the penis, and this too has been elaborated by the addition of conspicuous colours. In a number of species the males possess bright red penises, often surrounded by a vivid blue patch of skin over the scrotal region. This makes the male genitals as conspicuous as possible and males can frequently be seen sitting with their legs spread apart, displaying these bright colours to the maximum. In this way they can signal their high status without even moving. In some monkey species, males displaying in this manner sit at the edge of their group and, if another group comes near by, the red penis becomes fully erect and may be repeatedly raised to strike its owner’s stomach. In ancient Egypt, the sacred baboon was seen as the embodiment of masculine sexuality. It was not only depicted in its Status Sex display posture in Egyptian paintings and carvings, but was even embalmed and buried in that posture, seventy days being spent on the embalming procedure and two days on the funeral ceremony. Obviously, the dominant Status Sex display of this species came through loud and clear, not only to other baboons, but also to ancient Egyptians. This was no accident, as we shall see in a moment.
Just as in some species the males have mimicked the submissive female displays, evolving their own red rump patches, so the females have, in some cases, mimicked the dominant displays of the males. Some female South American monkeys have evolved an elongated clitoris, which has virtually become a pseudo-penis. In certain species it is so similar in appearance to the true penis of the male, th
at it is hard to tell the sexes apart. This has given rise to a number of native legends in the areas where these animals live wild. Because they all appear to be male, the local populations believe them to be exclusively homosexual. (Strangely enough the female hyena has also evolved a similar pseudo-penis, but the myth that has emerged in Africa is that this species is hermaphrodite, each individual enjoying both male and female sexual activities.)
In a few species of monkeys the females have evolved a pseudo-scrotum as well as a pseudo-penis. As yet, we have little information about the way these fake male genitals are employed in the wild. We do know that certain male South American monkeys use penis erection as a direct threat to a subordinate. In the case of the little squirrel monkey, it has become the most important dominance signal in the animal’s repertoire. It is more than merely sitting around with the legs apart. When in a threatening mood, a superior male of this species approaches close to an inferior and obtrusively erects his penis in the inferior’s face. The pseudo-penis of the female monkeys does not, however, appear to be erectile; perhaps it is enough simply to display it as it is, towards an inferior monkey.
This, then, is the Status Sex situation in our closest relatives, the monkeys and apes. I have gone into it in some detail because it provides a useful evolutionary background against which to examine Status Sex developments in the human species. It makes some of the extraordinary lengths to which the human animal has gone, in this direction, a little easier to comprehend. Already, while reading the details of the monkey behaviour, you will, like the ancient Egyptians, have noted certain similarities to the human condition. With men, as with monkeys, the submissive female sexual patterns and the dominant male patterns have come to stand for submissiveness and dominance in non-sexual contexts.
The ancient female pattern of presenting the rump to the male still survives as a gesture of subordination. Children are often forced to bend over for punishment in this posture. Also the buttocks are generally regarded as the most ‘ridiculous’ part of the human body, to be joked about and laughed at, or have pins stuck in them. Helpless victims in sado-masochistic pornography — not to mention popular comedy cartoon films and drawings — are frequently trapped with their buttocks in the air.
It is in the realm of dominant male patterns, however, that the human imagination has really run riot. The art and literature of civilization, since its earliest days, have been Strewn with phallic symbols of all kinds. In recent times these have often become highly cryptic and far removed from their original source, the erect human penis, but it is still possible to observe more direct and overt phallic displays in the most primitive surviving cultures. Amongst New Guinea tribesmen, for example, the males make war wearing long tubes fitted on to their penises. These extensions, often well over a foot in length, are held in a near-vertical position by cords attached to the wearer’s body. In other cultures, too, the penis is ornamented and artificially enlarged in a variety of ways.
Clearly, if the erection of the penis is used as a threatening display of male dominance, then it follows that the greater the erection, the greater the threat. The visual signals transmitting the intensity of the threat are of four kinds: as the penis becomes erect, it alters its angle, it changes from soft to hard, it increases in width, and it grows in length. If all four of these qualities can be artificially exaggerated, then the impact of the display will be maximally enhanced. There is a limit to what can be done on the human body itself (which is more or less reached by the New Guinea tribesmen), but there is no such limit where human effigies are concerned. In drawings, paintings and sculptures of the human form the phallic display can be magnified at will. The average length of the erect penis in real life is 6 1/4 inches, which is less than one-tenth of the height of an adult male. In phallic statues, the length of the penis often exceeds the height of the figure.
Exaggerating the phallus still further, the depiction of a body is omitted altogether and the drawing or sculpture simply shows a huge, vertical, disembodied penis. Ancient sculptures of this kind, often rising many feet into the air, have been found in numerous parts of the world. Giant phallic statues nearly two hundred feet high guarded the temple of Venus at Hierapolis, but even these were exceeded in size by another ancient phallus that reputedly towered to the height of three hundred and sixty feet, or roughly seven hundred times the length of the physical organ it represented. It is said to have been covered in pure gold.
From obvious representations of this kind, it is only one more step to the world of phallic symbolism, where almost any long, stiff, erect object can take on a phallic role. We know from the dream studies of the psycho-analysts just how varied these symbols can be. But they are not confined to dreams. They are deliberately used by advertisers, artists and writers. They appear in films, plays and almost all forms of entertainment. Even when they are not consciously understood they can still make their impact, because of the very basic signal they transmit. They include everything from candles, bananas, neckties, broom-handles, eels, walking-sticks, snakes, carrots, arrows, water-hoses and fireworks, to obelisks, trees, whales, lamp-posts, skyscrapers, flag-poles, cannons, factory chimneys, space rockets, light-houses and towers. These all have symbolic value because of their general shape, but in some cases a more specific property is involved. Fish have become phallic symbols because of their texture as well as their shape, and because they thrust themselves through the water; elephants because of their erectile trunks; rhinos because of their horns; birds because they rise up against gravity; magic wands because they give special powers to the magician; swords, spears and lances because they penetrate into the body; champagne bottles because they ejaculate when opened; keys because they are inserted into keyholes; and cigars because they are tumescent cigarettes. The list is almost endless, the scope for imaginative symbolic equations enormous.
All these images have been used, and in most cases used frequently, as objects representing masculinity. The tough, dominant male (or would-be tough, dominant male) who chews on his fat cigar and thrusts it into his companions face, is fundamentally performing the same Status Sex display as the little squirrel monkey that spreads its legs and thrusts its erect penis into the face of a subordinate. Social taboos have forced us to employ cryptic substitutes for our aggressive sexual displays, but the imagination of man being what it is, this has not reduced the phenomenon, it has only diversified and elaborated it. As I explained in the chapter dealing with status and super-status, we have good reason in our super-tribal condition to make great play with our status devices, and this is precisely what we do in the case of Status Sex.
We can find examples of various kinds of improvements in phallic symbols taking place almost as we watch. The design of sports cars illustrates this well. They have always radiated bold, aggressive masculinity and have been considerably aided in this by their phallic qualities. Like a baboons penis, they stick out in front, they are long, smooth and shiny, they thrust forward with great vigour and they are frequently bright red in colour. A man sitting in his open sports car is like a piece of highly stylized phallic sculpture. His body has disappeared and all that can be seen are a tiny head and hands surmounting a long, glistening penis. (The argument may be used that the shape of sports cars is controlled purely by the technical demands of streamlining, but the crowded traffic conditions of modern driving and the increasingly strict speed limits render this explanation nonsensical.) Even ordinary motor cars have their phallic qualities, and this may explain to some extent why male drivers become so aggressive and so eager to overtake one another, despite considerable risks and despite the fact that they all meet up again at the next set of traffic-lights, or, at best, only cut a few seconds off their journey.
Another illustration comes from the world of popular music, where the guitar has recently undergone a change of sex. The old-fashioned guitar, with a curvaceous, waisted body; was symbolically essentially female. It was held close to the chest, its strings lovingly caressed. But t
imes have changed and its femininity has vanished. Ever since groups of masculine ‘sex idols’ have taken to playing electric guitars, the designers of these instruments have been at pains to improve their masculine, phallic qualities. The body of the guitar (now its symbolic testicles) has become smaller, less waisted, and more brightly coloured, making it possible for the neck (its new symbolic penis) to become longer. The players themselves have helped by wearing the guitars lower and lower until they are now centred on the genital region. The angle at which they are played has also been altered, the neck being held in an increasingly erect position. With the combination of these modifications, the modern pop-group can stand on stage and go through the movements of masturbating their giant electric phalluses while they dominate their devoted ‘slaves’ in the audience. (The singer has to make do with fondling a phallic microphone.)
Contrasting with these phallic ‘improvements’ are a number of cases where phallic symbols have gone into decline or eclipse. As early civilizations (which, as I have said, were much more open in their use of phallic symbolism) were superseded, their obvious images were often cloaked and distorted. Perhaps the most startling example of this is the Christian cross. In earlier days this was a straightforward phallic symbol, the vertical piece representing the penis and the side pieces the testicles. It sometimes appears in a more explicit form in ancient, pre-Christian images, with a man’s head at the top of the upright, his body being completely replaced by the stylized representation of his sexual organs in the form of the cross. It has been pointed out by one author that the acceptance of this symbol in a new role by Christians was probably facilitated by its earlier significance as a symbol of the ‘life force’.
The Human Zoo: A Zoologist's Study of the Urban Animal Page 10