SALVE ROMA! A Felidae Novel - U.S. Edition (26 page)

But now I thirsted for my beloved Sancta, whom I had to deliver on my promise. I guessed that Gustav would be busy at the Forum Romanum for another two, maybe even three months, so that I could be busy with my Latin chattering goddess the whole summer long. And I didn’t want to be called Francis the smart-ass, if I wouldn’t be able to tell Gustav by body language that I, Francis, yes his Francis, wanted to spend my life with this female alone for ever and always. O God, in the end I’d even long for something that hadn’t been invented for my kind at all: Marriage! Brrrr!

However, time would tell. The air smelled like freshly picked lemons and the fear-sweat of Roman mice, which had probably heard my call already. My vacation lay before me like a dark horse, and the future was as appetizing as a flush plate of
pagliata
,
coratella
and
trippa
. I opened my eyes and gazed directly at the bright morning sun, so much it hurt. And I yelled at the eternal city of my dreams: Salve Roma!

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1
.
             
For a long time, our species was able to brag about having a naturally unique extra skill: In the fashion of a fortuneteller, who looks into a crystal ball, humans anticipate the future by pre-planning. Organisms, which are more humble intelligence-wise, don’t seem to ever think outside the horizon of the current moment though and appear to be slavishly fixated on the present. Those parts of the brain, which were most developed at the evolution of humans, actually are occupied with the planning of future projects. So it was a lesson in modesty, when it turned out a while ago that also many of our fellow creatures have the mental warehouse for futurism and making plans for the future. African chimps for example sometimes undertake very long hikes to collect granite stones, which they need to crack certain savory nuts. Behind this are not only predictive thinking and the understanding of the tool, but also the ability to keep an abstract goal (finding nuts) in mind, while there must be altogether different challenges (findi
ng their way) coped with first.

Meanwhile scientists have found the sense for future times in other animals, too. For example in African elephants, which go on pilgrimages to faraway waterholes, long before they become very thirsty. Or in Eurasian jays, which bury food storages for imminent intermittent starvation with surprising flexibility. Jeffrey M. Masson, a famous psychoanalyst and cat expert from Berkeley, California, attributes »strategic« thinking to our cats also. Cats sometimes poise in front of a mousehole for a very long time. This gesture actually is an epitome of the core of the feline character. All mental and brain processes of the cat are highly geared to the needs of a solitary predator, which needs to analyze the hunting situation very quickly and always has to be one step ahead of the prey. Even when they lay dozing next to the heater, cats now and then bob up for no clear reason and follow some cryptical impulse. For instance, it might happen that they suspectingly inspect their food bowl (without eating) and then happily go back to the arms of Morpheus, if the world is in order. If one heads the animal off and distracts it with some toys, before it can actually put its plan into action, the plan often falls into oblivion – and the cat goes back to sleep without having achieved anything. However, this means that the animal only had a lax idea in its mind and wasn’t driven by strong environmental
stimuli or intensive instincts.

Once a cute cat strayed to the analyst Masson. At night the visitor, who seemed to like it at the Masson’s, made himself comfortable in the host’s lap. »The astonishing fact about this is that it was a scam, a plan, which he must have hatched in his sweet little cat heart.« After a week when it was clear him that he was allowed to stay, he stopped this kind of »flirting« and never demeaned himsel
f to do it again.

Literature: Jeffrey Masson:
The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats: A Journey Into the Feline Heart
. Ballantine Books 2003

2
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Noah invited the animals to his ark in pairs. Later, one female and one male each were supposed to raise a family under God’s watch. What Noah didn’t think of in the heat of the moment: A lot of those couple on the ship might have been homosexual. Although a naturalist observed homosexual sex between birds already two hundred years ago, for ages scientists smothered, concealed or simply ignored this »forbidden love« among animals due to prudery. »It is clearly proven«, the anthropologist Volker Sommer from Gottingen says, »that all variants of homosexual behavior among humans can be found in animals, too. Many worms and sheep, seagulls and guinea pigs – often additionally to a heterosexual main interest – show additional gay behavior and very openly practice things, which are still forbidden under penalty o
f death in Islamic theocracies.

In having sex with »their own kind« males indeed are dominant in nature, but also many females are cut from the same cloth. Female dolphins push their fins into their partner’s genital slit, male bonobos suck at another male’s penis, and manatees give their partners a fin job, due to default of hands. From occasional escapades through to a livelong relationship, scientists have observed everything. Homosexual herring gulls and penguin couples actually remain faithful to each other their whole life. 450 animal species were caught red-handed at the »gay research« by scientists. This is a tidy sum, as actually behavioral scientists by now have only soundly observed about 2000 of the approximately multiple million animal species in this world.

In the face of so much animal homoerotism our cat doesn’t stand apart. Even both cat sexes have the aptitude of having a sexual role swap at least sometimes. Among a dozen tomcats one can always find a couple, which have a partiality for other males. Not only female house cats, also a couple of their big and wild relatives have been observed at lesbian flirts. According to Paul Leyhausen, the Konrad Lorenz of cat science, the gay coitus is a perfect copy of the heterosexual cat lo
ve except from the penetration.

Nowadays, the belief that the passive female role is totally unacceptable for tomcats is also confuted. Sometimes tomcats actually do slip into a female role when having sex, they just have to be in the mood, in fact outside of a rape scenario. But even this happens. We know it from countless American police and prison movies. Strange tomcats, who are put into a cage with an established cat of the house, often beco
me victims of sexual violence.

There are countless theses on why homosexuality is firmly fixed in the world of animals, although it does harm to the spreading of genetic material. The American biologist Bruce Bagemihl hypothesizes most provocatively, that it is nonsense to speculate about a rational sense when seeing a gay giraffe or a lesbian squirrel. In fact, he says, homosexuality is just an expression of nature’s
joy of playing – nothing more.

3
.
             
Although the physical premises exist, it remains an unanswered question, if cats reach an orgasm during sex. To be precise, scientists still don’t know when and why nature presents their creatures with the »bonus« of a sexual climax. Principally, it is absolutely possible to breed without pleasurable sensation – just like some clerics would prefer. »I kept watching mating carpenter bees«, the American zoologist John Alcock explains, »but I can’t see whether they feel anything comparable to our idea of joy.« The simpler the creatures, the harder it gets to read ecstasy or joy of love in their reactions. The problems are even bigger than for a human Casanova, who already needs to
rely on the woman’s statements.

At any rate most mammals show striking interest in sex and are willing to bear exertions in order to get it. The best sign for it being fun for them. With its whole habitus the male rat creates the impression of having a fantastical orgasm when having sex. After the ejaculation it thrusts hard another time, slowly gets up and its eyes glaze over – which only leaves little room for doubt. So most scientists believe that at least male mammals – including tomcats – scale the height of sexual pleasure. In tribal history it was actually very useful to pour the increasing greed for orgasms down the male animals throat. Because males are capable of increasing their genetic fitness and father more viable descendants, if they lustfully jump at every chance of sex. Females, who bear the brunt of procreation, would be ill-advised, if they got involved in every noncommittal romantic adventure.

Whether evolution sweetens the »breeding work« of female mammals with the ultimate gift of lust, namely orgasm, as well, strikes many scientists as doubtful. »The female orgasm seems to be notably absence with most species«, the American psychologist Roy E. Baumeister states, »and evidence suggest that male animals get more lust out of sex than females.« After all women can be fertilized without orgasm or any pleasant feeling. The autonomic nervous system of male mammals almost does somersault, when the semen shoots out of the erect penis with euphoric twitches. For example, the blood pressure of dogs heavily increases at the moment of ejaculation. The blood pressure of the bitch does show some fluctuation, but none is at all comparable to the sudden rise, which can be registered in the male dog at the moment of ejaculation. In the animal kingdom a point of culmination of arousal, which also marks the event of orgasm in women, coul
d only be found in female apes.

In the past, some scientists considered the possibility that the bizarre postcoital behavior of female cats hints at an orgiastic experience. Directly after the generic »quickie« cats utter an explosive cry and oppose their »benefactor« with sudden anger. In the early Middle Ages Arabian scientists concluded from this, that the tomcats merges acrid ejaculate into his playmate. »She is in great pain because the sperm cauterizes, and she screams until she has ejected it.« Then the female cat wriggles heavily and welters almost spastically. Repeatedly, she licks her vulva, and the female won’t let herself get mounted until the strange »postlude« is ended. If this behavior really reflects a climax of arousal, which matches the male orgasm, remains doubtful though. The sudden change of mind might rather have another reason. The tomcat’s penis is riddled with many thorns on its tip, which probably cause a painful irritation inside the vagina. This tractation triggers the so-called »induced« ovulation in the female cat.

4
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In regard to the reproduction skills of cats, older men of our species can easily take a leaf out of their book. Tomcats stay in the »breeding business« up until old age, at which many grown men are able to fight gravity only with the help of Viagra. Older female cats stay fertile until a point in life, which women of our species don’t even reach with the most advanced reproduction technologies. There are proven cases of tomcats, which successfully bred even at the high age of sixteen years. This matches a human age of 78 years. Female cats still have provably conceived kittens at the age of 12. This equates to 65 human years. This extreme fertility allows a female to conceive about 35 litters – or converted – 144 kittens in an average lifetime.

In contrary to the cat – and to our closest relatives in the world of animals – human women lose their ability to reproduce long before their bodies lapse due to aging. Most women are still so tough at the time of their so-called »menopause« that they could easily live as much more years as they lived before they reached the climacteric period. In the animal world the fertile years of the females only end close to their biological end, at least most of the times. The invention of the menopause, namely a »post-reproductional« phase of life, poses the evolutionary biologists a giant riddle: If evolution really benefits the survival of those individuals, who successfully pass their genes on, why do women stop passing
their genes ahead of schedule?

As early as the 1950s, evolutionary biologists presented an explanation, which was adopted in literature under the name of »grandmother hypothesis«. According to this, it doesn’t »pay« for women of a certain age to conceive additional children, because pregnancy comes with to many risks. Hyper-mortality in old age also creates the risk that those late-born children become orphans. So it’s more useful for the maintenance of one’s own genes to invest into already exist
ing children and grandchildren.

As plausible as this explanation may sound, for a long time there was no empirical support at all. This situation only changed when anthropologists studied a tribal of hunters and gatherers in Tanzania – the Hadza people. Their way of living may be seen as the closest approach to the human state of nature. The scientists found out that the grandmothers collected surprisingly much food for their grandchildren and took the pressure off their daughters in regard to search for food. The support enabled the daughters to conceive more children in less time. Basically, the grandmothers followed the genetic egoism, as their own genes survived in the
ir daughters and grandchildren.