Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation

by Olivia Judson

  But perhaps there’s an innocent explanation for this behavior. Perhaps it is a regrettable but genuine mistake. Or perhaps it is a rare psychosis brought on by life in captivity. After all, roughly a third of cannibal species have been seen at it only in the laboratory: perhaps it happens because in a small cage the male can’t run and can’t hide. Perhaps. But the European praying mantis is one of the few species that has been watched in both the laboratory and the wild—and cannibalism is equally common in both places. The difference is that laboratory sex takes several hours longer, apparently because the male is too terrified to dismount. (Normally, when the male is done, he drops into the undergrowth, putting himself out of reach. Laboratories usually don’t feature undergrowth, and the male stays where he is, as if pondering his predicament.) As for “I ate my lover by mistake”—well, I can’t say accidents never happen. But I know of several spiders where there can be no doubting the female’s intention to take head, not give it. When she sees a male, she beckons him over and adopts a submissive, “I’m yours” posture—only to pounce on him, wrap him up, and store him in her larder before he can say “cannibal.”

  The trouble is, all too often the male is captured and eaten before he’s had a chance to mate. From his point of view, this is a disaster. If he’s eaten during foreplay, that’s it: his genes get naturally deselected from the population. And from her point of view? The habit is not as self-defeating as you might think. For many of these creatures, a male represents a substantial meal. A female garden spider, for example, becomes noticeably plumper with each male she consumes. Her only risk is that she’ll be so aggressive toward her suitors that she’ll die as she lived—a grumpy old maid. But that risk is negligible.

  To see why, let’s step back and take a more general look at what happens when females routinely attempt to eat their lovers before sex. First, imagine a land where all the girls are equally rapacious. And imagine that each girl will meet just one boy in her whole life. If every girl eats her only suitor instead of screwing him, everyone loses: nobody reproduces and the population goes extinct. However, what if some boys could somehow escape being eaten, at least until they had done the job? Any boy able to escape would have a huge advantage over those who were not. And if the trick to escaping had a genetic basis, genes for escaping would spread. After all, every male in the next generation would be the son of a successful escapee—and thus females would be mated in spite of their rapacity.

  Granted, in real life some girls may not be so fierce. This complicates matters. Girls who don’t eat their mates are at no risk of remaining virgins, so if everyone has only one suitor, kinder, gentler females will win the day. This is because, with noncannibals in the population, a male lucky enough to meet one will be able to mate even if he doesn’t have escaping genes. As a result, the advantage to being an escaper will be smaller, genes for escaping will spread more slowly—and rapacious females will be more likely to encounter males that cannot elude them. Having eaten their only mate, rapacious females will leave no offspring, and genes for rapacity will disappear.

  Now add another dollop of reality to the situation and consider what happens if each female is likely to meet lots of males. In this scenario, it won’t matter to her if she eats most of them. Indeed, girls, it may count against you if you don’t try to. That’s because if everyone else is attempting to catch and eat their lovers, attempted cannibalism becomes a test. In a man-eating culture, your sons will survive and reproduce only if they can evade a female’s clutches, so it would be wise to check their dads’ abilities. At the same time, any male who can escape will again have a huge advantage over those who cannot, and genes for escaping will spread.

  To sum up, the more likely females are to try and eat their mates, the larger the advantage in being an escapee and the faster the population will be made up of great escapers. In most situations, then, you should expect to see not cannibalism but escape.

  But how does a male get close enough to copulate while avoiding capture? Grandmother’s footsteps is one technique—but that won’t do if he has to tiptoe across a spiderweb, where every twang on the threads tells the owner where he is. Besides, while a male mantis can always crouch at the end of his partner’s back, spider sex is more perilous. A male spider has two penises (called pedipalps), one on each side of his mouth. A female spider has two genital openings on the underside of her belly—you see the difficulty. It is impossible to have sex without getting up close and personal.

  The most reliable way to escape unscathed is to disable her somehow. That’s why male Tetragnatha extensa spiders are not afraid of sex: they have spurs on their fangs to wedge open the female’s jaws so she can’t bite during their embrace. The male crab spider Xysticus cristatus is a great lover: he goes for bondage, tying the female down (lucky her!) before making love. And in Argyrodes zonatus, a tiny silver spider that dwells on the webs of much bigger spiders, the males are nature’s frat boys. On their heads they have a horn that secretes a powerful drug. They offer the horn to the female to suck so she’ll get high and won’t be able to resist their advances. Better hope she doesn’t wake up with the munchies …

  As for Mr. Praying Mantis, he’s had a stroke of bad luck. When he’s possessed of his head, his brain sends messages to his private parts telling him how to behave. This holds his libido in check until he’s in position. When he loses his head, the messages that inhibit sexual behavior cease—and he turns into a sex fiend. The result is that he can copulate when there’s almost nothing of him left. Yet although this sounds like proof that he has evolved a spectacular adaptation to being eaten, the “lose head, have sex” reflex is actually rather common among male insects. Something analogous even happens in humans: throttle a man and like as not he’ll get an erection, not from erotic pleasure in dying but because “Down, boy” signals from the brain stop coming. For most fellows, such a reflex is simply a medical curiosity. But most fellows don’t have to face Ms. Mantis in the bedroom.

  Dear Dr. Tatiana,

  I’m an Australian redback spider, and I’m a failure. I said to my darling, “Take, eat, this is my body,” and I vaulted into her jaws. But she spat me out and told me to get lost. Why did she spurn the ultimate sacrifice?

  Wretched in the Wilderness

  What could be more perverse? A known man-eater refusing to eat a man who wishes to be eaten? Needless to say, your problem is unusual. But so are you. When faced with making love to a cannibal, most males do not try to make themselves more delicious.

  In the first place, although being eaten after sex beats being eaten beforehand, most guys prefer not to be eaten at all. No surprises there: death puts a stop to amorous adventures. Anyone who has a good chance of mating again should hump and run—no whispering of sweet nothings, no postcoital cigarette. If anything, you should pummel her a little to stop her chasing you. In the scorpion Paruroctonus mesaensis, the male whacks his partner several times before racing off; in the wolf spider Lycosa rabida, the male tosses his lover in the air, leaving her in a crumpled heap as he hurries away.

  But what if you haven’t a hope of mating again? This would be the case if, for example, you were only capable of mating once, or if your life expectancy were short, or if a quest for another female were sure to fail. Then, as long as you’ve accomplished your mission, you shouldn’t fuss if your lover eats you. The male spider Argiope aemula vigorously resists capture before he’s had sex—but the excitement is usually too much for him, and he expires in copula. It’s fine with him if she opts for gastronomic burial. In the bristle worm Nereis caudata, something similar goes on but for once it’s the man who eats his wife. These worms, which look like bottlebrushes, live in sand and mud on the seafloor. Once the female has laid her eggs, the male puts them into a long tube that he makes, and fertilizes them. He tends the eggs, like a dragon guarding treasure, until they have hatched and the larvae are ready to go out into the world. Shortly after the female lays her eggs, she gives up the ghost. If her mat
e decides, as he sometimes does, to hasten her end by having her for lunch, so be it. It’s all the same to her.

  Do other males eat their mates? I have never heard of it. But note: this is not to say males don’t eat females. They do. Just not during sex. Platonic cannibalism is a problem for creatures from apes to amoebae. It’s depraved out there. The sand shark, for example, practices intrauterine cannibalism. That’s right, the biggest fetus gobbles up its embryonic brothers and sisters while they are in the womb. Surely you know the rhyme:

  The shark, he is a vicious beast,

  Tears fin from fin at every feast.

  But it’s no surprise he should do so—

  He ate his sibs in utero.

  The reason platonic cannibalism is so much more common than the sexual kind is simple. Cannibalism is risky: your intended victim may, at any moment, capture you. Most cannibals, therefore, are cowards and never pick on someone their own size. In a typical cannibalistic society, adults eat children, big children eat small children, and small children eat eggs. Even among amoebae, cannibals are giants. So you see, cannibalism between adults—of any kind, sexual or not—is rare.

  Moreover, for most males, it makes no sense to eat their mates: they’d lose the eggs they’ve struggled to fertilize. That’s why the male paddle crab Ovalipes catharus is a gentleman. In this species, everybody eats everybody, with one caveat: you are at risk only while molting. That’s because the Coward’s Rule holds: molting crabs can’t defend themselves. For several days they have neither a shell that can withstand blows nor claws that can deliver them.

  Unfortunately, however, as is common for crabs, female paddle crabs must mate while molting. This leaves them vulnerable to cannibalistic attack. But help is on the way. On meeting a female who’s about to molt, a male picks her up and carries her until she’s gone soft. He then makes love to her ever so slowly—some—times taking several days over it—and protects her from males with less honorable intentions until she’s hardened again and can look after herself. This gallantry is hardly selfless, however. By fending off crabs who might eat her, he also fends off males who might ravage her and thus raises the odds he’ll be the only dad for her current batch of children. It’s quite a prize: large females carry more than 250,000 eggs per batch.

  If males don’t usually eat their lovers, what about hermaphrodites? Almost nothing is known about this matter. Many hermaphrodites are platonic cannibals, though, and I can imagine that sometimes, when two individuals meet, one wants nooky but the other wants lunch. Since both parties would want to avoid being eaten, I’d be surprised, though, if it’s a common problem. My guess is that whenever sexual cannibalism could be a risk, countermeasures rapidly evolve. For example, if you are most vulnerable when mating with someone bigger than yourself, you might evolve a horror of larger individuals. It has even been suggested that the risk of cannibalism explains the lightning-fast sex of the hermaphroditic sea slug Hermissenda crassicornis. “Slug” hardly conveys the ethereal beauty of this animal. No more than a couple of centimeters long, it looks like a land slug fallen under a powerful enchantment: a delicate, glassy body tinged with pale blue, a fetching orange stripe running down the back of its head, and, lower down, a glorious mass of feathery protrusions as if the animal were wearing a coat covered with foxtails. But when it comes to sex, these creatures don’t stand on ceremony. Like knights jousting, the two animals whizz past each other without stopping, lances held out in an effort to knock the other up. Yet although this custom is mighty peculiar, it’s not clear that cannibalism is the true cause.

  Speaking of peculiar, nothing is as peculiar as you male redback spiders wanting to be cannibalized. The urge is so strong that you sometimes fight for the privilege, one male snatching a rival out of the female’s jaws, bundling him in silk as if he were a fly, and then marching into the jaws of doom in his stead. The scene is all the more absurd because you fellows are midgets—one hundred times smaller than the female—so a fight looks like two rabbits dancing around a lion. It goes without saying that such a death wish can evolve only in special circumstances. That is, being eaten must mean you leave more offspring than if you are spared. So far, your species is the only one known to meet this criterion. A male redback who gets himself munched fertilizes more eggs than a male who survives. Why? Remember that spider sex means inserting your pedipalps into the twin orifices on her hairy black underbelly. But even with the tip of your abdomen in her jaws, you can still reach the orifices. And it turns out that sex takes longer when she’s chewing away on you, which gives you the chance to deliver more sperm and thus fertilize more eggs. So your challenge is to make yourself more appetizing.

  The secret is picking your moment. Female redbacks aren’t greedy; when they’re not hungry, they don’t eat. If you offer yourself right after she’s feasted, forget it. You’ve got to wait until she gets that mean and hungry look in all eight of her beady little eyes. And then, for what you are about to receive, may your kiddies be truly thankful.

  I’m afraid we don’t know why females in some species become man-eaters while their sisters in closely related species do not. All we can say—and it seems obvious—is that, without exception, sex cannibals are never vegetarians but always predators and that they tend to be larger and stronger than their victims and therefore able to overpower them. Boys, if you have fallen in love with a large, predaceous lady who tries to bite your head off, you may be the dinner as well as the date. If you suspect you could be at risk, you must ask yourself this: do you want to meet your maker now or later?

  If the answer’s later, then think SAFE SEX: Stealthy Approach, Forceful Embrace, Swift EXit.

  If the answer’s now, think again: are you mortally sure you will be rewarded? If so, then prepare your last words—and pray your epitaph will be “He was fruitful.”

  Girls, eating men without screwing them is just plain wrong. But hey, you only live once. If you like making mincemeat of your lovers, remember that cannibalism is the right choice if and only if you run little risk of remaining a virgin. If that’s taken care of—bon appétit!

  7

  CRIMES OF PASSION

  Murder, wife beating, rape. Why do they happen? Because some boys won’t take no for an answer.

  Dear Dr. Tatiana,

  I’m supposed to be a solitary bee, but I can’t get any time to myself. Whenever I poke my proboscis out of my nest, I’m hounded by guys who apparently have nothing better to do than make a nuisance of themselves. They think it’s funny to molest me as I’m doing my chores. It’s not funny. It’s maddening. How can I get them to buzz off?

  A Girl’s Never Alone in Oxford

  Male bees and wasps are notorious layabouts. Look at social species—species, such as honeybees or hornets, that live in large nests ruled by a queen. Males laze around while their sisters—the workers—do the drudgery of gathering food, cleaning the nest, and rearing the young. (Occasionally, workers rebel. In the paper wasp Polistes dominulus, workers indulge in “male stuffing.” It’s a cruel sport. When a male gets stuffed, he’s bitten, kicked, and shoved headfirst into an empty cell in the nest. The stuffer keeps pushing and biting his rear end to stop him from coming out. A male is most likely to get stuffed when a worker arrives back at the nest with food; by the time he’s managed to unstuff himself, the food will have been given to deserving members of the nest, like grubs.)

  But although social species, with their humming hives, are the darlings of the media, most bees and wasps hail from solitary species like yours. In solitary species, each female reproduces; there are no workers. But there are still layabouts. All too often the female is a supermom—building the nest, laying eggs, supplying provisions for each grub to eat when it hatches—while the male is a feckless deadbeat. This can cause problems. In your case, it means that after a male has breakfasted on nectar, he has a whole day ahead of him with nothing to do but chase the girls.

  Yes, it’s a bore. Males of your species are not subtle: they
start their seduction with a pounce. If a male pounces on you while you are flying, he can knock you to the ground; if you have to fly a gauntlet of males, you could be knocked to the ground once every three seconds, making it a real challenge to collect pollen and nectar to provision your nest. Nevertheless, you should thank your lucky stars. In other species, when idle youths hang about in packs things can get much, much worse.

  A female mountain sheep may be chased for miles by packs of eager young rams. This is exhausting and potentially dangerous: to escape she’ll often jump to narrow ledges on the cliff face. Still, I bet she’s glad she’s a mountain sheep. The lie Longue, the biggest island of the Kerguelen archipelago, a cluster of glorified rocks just north of the Antarctic Circle, is home to a flock of domestic sheep that have been left to their own devices for over thirty years. The result? It makes Lord of the Flies look like a teddy bear convention. Ewes are not merely chased but battered to death by gangs of rams. A victim will be pursued until she’s too tired to flee, then the rams will try to mount her. They rarely succeed—as one climbs on, another charges and knocks him off—but that’s no comfort. Sessions can last for hours, the ewe getting more and more bashed; if she falls in exhaustion, she’ll be kicked and butted until she gets up. If, at the end of it all, she’s not dead, she risks being finished off by giant petrels. These huge seabirds—they boast a wingspan of more than two meters—have the disgraceful habit of disemboweling weak animals, punching them in the anus with their heavy, hooked beaks.