Duck rape is the best rape, and other marvels of nature, love and reproduction

I love nature. I really, really do. You think biscuit-obsessed rapist cowboy heroes are fucked up? That ain’t nothing compared to what evolution cooks up, baby.

Take, for instance, this article about duck penises recently published in the New York Times.

Those of you who’ve raised ducks will know this already: male ducks are, well, dicks. Big dicks. But more than that, they HAVE big dicks. Big, corkscrewy dicks.

The champion phallus from this Meller’s duck is a long, spiraling tentacle. Some ducks grow phalluses as long as their entire body. In the fall, the genitalia will disappear, only to reappear next spring.

REGENERATIVE big, corkscrewy tentacle dicks. Mmmm mmmmm.

Why the presence of penises, though, especially given that most other bird species use their cloacas to reproduce? Answer: because ducks are quite the accomplished rapists.

In some species of ducks, a female bonds for a season with a male. But she is also harassed by other males that force her to mate. “It’s nasty business. Females are often killed or injured,” Dr. Brennan said.

Species with more forced mating tend to have longer phalluses. That link led some scientists to argue that the duck phallus was the result of males’ competing with one another to fertilize eggs.

But there’s more! (“Call now, and receive this beautifully hand-finished work of duckrape…”) Scientists are now hypothesizing that the male ducks are evolving these crazy penises in response to the females evolving incredibly complicate—labyrinthine, even—oviducts. In fact, based on the incredibly high duckrape rate (about 30%) vs. the number of offspring sired by the forced matings (3%), there’s some speculation that the female ducks are able to sequester the semen in a pocket and shoot it back out later.

This is fascinating science and a worthy contribution to evolutionary science and avian physiology, but the implications are clear, as Lilith Saintcrow pointed out to me on Friday night: we need more were-ducks in our romance novels. Somebody notify Lora Leigh, stat!

And speaking of huge corkscrew penises, here’s a possibility for you paranormal m/m romance authors who have a fondness for were-beasts: many slugs have them, too. Slugs are hermaphroditic, and their mating habits can be…exotic. Spotted leopard slugs, for example, suspend themselves from thick ropes of mucus, entwine their bodies, extrude their gigantic blue cocks, wrap them around each other and exchange genetic material. For some amazing pictures, check out this website.

BUT THERE’S MORE! Sometimes, the penises become so hopelessly entangled that the only way for the slugs to disengage…is to chew away the cocks. This, kids, is known as apophallation, and banana slugs sometimes do this.

Extreme BDSM m/m paranormal were-slug romance: This is clearly an untapped market. When the sub-genre becomes huge in three years, just remember where you read about the idea in the first place.

Categorized:

News, Random Musings

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  1. Elaine says:

    Wow. Were-ducks and were-slugs SBTB spots another emerging sub-genre.

  2. Anonymosity says:

    Don’t encourage them! *has horrific mental images of badly drawn anime duck women with huge boobs*

    Oh God, you’ve created a monster…

  3. affreca says:

    Dr.Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation is a good reference book for the crazy variety in animal sex.  Think of the possibilities for were-slimemolds, they have up to 20 different genders.

  4. KellyMaher says:

    So *THAT’S* what I witnessed last Thursday: duckrape.  Dead serious.  I’ve got pictures.  Well, not of the actual copulation, but of the poor female getting harassed by not one, but two males.

  5. David says:

    Maybe this wasn’t the best post to be introduced to your blog with…

  6. Rashenbo says:

    ICK *shiver*

  7. La Nerdina says:

    And female ducks are in turn agressive about protecting their young.

    And speaking of were-slugs, wasn’t there a Simpsons episode in which Milhouse was a slug and created a palace made of slime for Lisa? How romantic, LOL.

  8. Eva Gale says:

    My Mom had a friend who raised ducks. One January day her favorite was quacking by the water holder, just staying there. She looked back later and, yup, he was still there, so she went out to investigate.

    When she got to the barn she saw he was stuck to the aluminum part of the dispenser and she yanked him away. Only he wsn’t attached by the feathers, she ripped his little weiner right off.

    He was bleeding all over the place and she called my mother, who was a nurse, crying her eyes out. I think they then brought him to the vet.

    It wasn’t funny then (because I wsa too young to get it), but now Mom and I just about die laughing when it comes up.

  9. Eva Gale says:

    OK, the slug love picts just kept me on my diet another day.

  10. Brandi says:

    Don’t encourage them! *has horrific mental images of badly drawn anime duck women with huge boobs*

    I recommend you stay away from furries, then.

  11. Claudia says:

    I predict huck (human-duck) and geoduck romances on EC within a month… Thanks Bitches 😛

  12. Jules Jones says:

    Given the popularity of super-alphas, I think I may have made a mistake when I held back on some of the less savoury details of dolphin behaviour while writing the dolphin shapeshifter book…

  13. snarkhunter says:

    Oh my holy God.

    Why, WHY did you have to write about the slugs? WHY?

    You know how some people are really, really phobic about snakes?

    I feel that way about slugs.

    And now you’ve given me even more reason to be terrified of them. I will have nightmares about GIANT SLUG PENES now. *whimper* I’ll never be able to go home to the Pacific Northwest. Do you KNOW how big the slugs get there?

    GIANT SLUG PENES. Oh my god.

  14. AnimeJune says:

    I remember reading somewhere that tiger penises are BARBED, because they have to stay in during a mating time that can take up to SIX DAYS. Ow, ow, ow…any romances with weretigers that deal with this?

  15. KellyMaher says:

    I think one of Lora Leigh’s were-big cats is a tiger.  But yeah, most of the male were-big cats mention a barb.

  16. Acajou says:

    Somebody notify Lora Leigh, stat!

    Ohmigod so funny. What would the title be “The Mallard Who Loved Me” or “Under His Wings”?

  17. TeddyPig says:

    Lora Leigh Duck Breeds, now with more painful anal!

  18. TeddyPig says:

    duck-wise or counter duck-wise?

    That is the questions…

  19. Soni says:

    Re: tigers – actually, I caught a documentary that explained that while the mating session lasts a week or so, it is accomplished in hundreds of short (as in 15-30 second) bursts of seriously angry-looking furry nookie, with lots of snarling and annoyed swatting from the lady tiger, followed by rest periods where the dude tiger apparently works up the energy and nerve to try it again.

    The narrator made a point of saying that, based on this duration, the compliment “he’s a real tiger in bed” was really not such a great thing after all. ;-P

  20. LDH says:

    Also in regard to the cat barbs, I read somewhere that it is only through the scratch of the barb that a female cat can orgasm.

    Ow.

  21. Marty says:

    Oh the possibilities, snakes have two penises, yes, both the feline(cat, tiger, etc) species and the canines(dog or wolf) have barbs. Oh and frogs can change gender depending on the need.  Now that would be really interesting.  I don’t recommend praying mantis though since the female eats the males head to get him to perform faster.  ;D

  22. Lynda The Guppy says:

    <<

    >>

    OMG. You say that as if there’s enough Draino in the world to get THAT thought out of my head!

    Thankseversomuch. LOL

  23. laurad says:

    LDH, would that be cat scratch fever?

  24. amy lane says:

    ‘Duck me baby one more time?’—well, I guess they’ve got the whole were-cat thing with the spines on the pee-pees cornered, and the wolf thing… I guess the 2 hour pig orgasm is next…

  25. Katie Ann says:

    An interesting article on the weird mating habits of 30 different animals, including a species of duck with a 17 inch penis who can LASSO the female.

    Yeah.

    http://www.neatorama.com/2007/04/30/30-strangest-animal-mating-habits/

  26. Ricki says:

    I just want to brag about my dear departed dog in re: duck rape.  My dog stopped duck rape many times.  My parents have a townhouse in South Jersey, bordered by lots of marshland, so lots of forms of wildlife – frogs, birds, gigantic flies, feral cats – sort of hang around the parking lot.  For a while, there was this duck family comprised of two males and a female.  They were terrified of my dog and flew away whenever he came out.  But then one day, he came out while this gang of male ducks was holding off the two male ducks of the family and trying to rape the female duck.  My mom turned my dog on them and he scared away the rapist ducks.  Then the family of ducks was not so scared of my dog anymore, and seemed sort of happy to see him (if still unwilling to make friends with him).  Anyway, I’m glad this story about ducks has come to light, because before, nobody believed me about the rapist ducks.

  27. Emily says:

    How come they never show you THIS on the Discovery Channel? The traditional shots of elk mounting each other gets old after a while.

  28. Dara says:

    I’ve witnessed many a duckrape (or at least attempted duckrapes) on various walks by local ponds and lakes, and each time I’ve wondered, “is that what I think it is?”.  I guess it was.

  29. I still have on my shelf a delightful little book called How They Do It by Robert A. Wallace that contains lines like this: “…..he also spends a lot of time sniffing her toenails, for some reason.  Who are we to say what is sexy for elephants?”

    And to answer that age old question, yes, porcupines do do it very carefully.

  30. Candy says:

    Porcupines also do it with golden showers.

    For serious. The males drench the females with urine from a distance to test her reception. If she’s pissed off, they stay away. If she likes it, she’ll, uh, present her bits. Check out that link Katie Ann provides above. It’s freakin’ GREAT.

  31. Ceilidh says:

    I too have been traumatized by witnessing duckrape.  At work no less.  I was in a meeting and had the misfortune of facing the window.  Those of us on that side of the table had a very hard time concentrating on the meeting with such depraved goings-on right outside the window.  What made it worse was the lack of sound.  We could tell the female was quite upset, but we couldn’t hear her.  *Shiver*

    Ceilidh
    Countess de Cocqueringue

  32. DS says:

    A friend and I had the great good fortune to witness puffin sex at the Baltimore acquarium.  It was great to watch people hustle their kids away as soon as they figured out what the birds were doing.  It looked consentual though.

    Then this weekend one of our office dogs, who has been fixed since he was six months old (now 3 years) met a receptive female.  I think he developed a hernia from his efforts.

    Gosh, Disney didn’t tell us about this part of nature although he did give us the tap dancing sperm.

  33. I think I mentioned otters, at some point.  Male otters will grab the noses of female otters to control them during sex, sometimes even submerging their partner’s head and drowning her during the act.  All the sweet pictures of otters in a marina are likely all female or all male, since no one really wants to see the violence of mating.

    I thought this line was interesting: “Species with more forced mating tend to have longer phalluses.”  It made me think in a different light about the “mine’s bigger” debate that some (rather insecure) men tend to engage in.

  34. Alandra Lee says:

    I have to second the recommendation for the book “Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation”. You might also want to check out “Sperm Wars: Infidelity, Sexual Conflict, and Other Bedroom Battles”. Biology is such a wonderful subject!

  35. jetso says:

    Ohmigod so funny. What would the title be “The Mallard Who Loved Me” or “Under His Wings”?

    homosexual necrophiliac duck rape A whole 75 miniutes of it. Talk about stamina?

  36. MamaNice says:

    For some reason all this duck-dick talk immediately brought Lea Thompson and Howard the Duck to mind…

    …and I really hoped to never think of that movie again.

    my word – keep69 – I suppose 69 would be, um, easier(?) with a 17” cork-screw pee-pee.

  37. Jennifer says:

    I work next to a river. I can walk out of my building every winter and see one poor female duck being pinned down by the next by three male ducks while a fourth goes at her.

    I am kind of enjoying the duck rape articles coming out of late, because now I know WHY they’re so freaking disturbing!

  38. Amy E says:

    … wow.  Corkscrew dicked rapist ducks and slugs who chew off their own penises.  The things I’d have never learned without the Bitches.

    Damn you.

  39. Lia says:

    F*ck a d*ck.

  40. Teeba says:

    AAAH!! MY CHILDHOOD!!!! *thinks of all those Disney duck anthro cartoons she watched*

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