Althouse: "Males relentlessly bound from partner to partner, as massive hormone releases in their bodies cause their immune systems to crash and their fur to fall out."

May 3, 2014

"Males relentlessly bound from partner to partner, as massive hormone releases in their bodies cause their immune systems to crash and their fur to fall out."

"They bleed internally. Some males even go blind, yet still stumble around the leaf litter hoping for one last tryst. In a few short weeks, every single male lies dead, leaving the females to raise their offspring...."

40 comments:

madAsHell said...: I'm pretty sure that Variety reported that this concept was being shopped as a sequel to Saturday Night Fever.; 5/3/14, 12:13 PM
Moose said...: Is this about Sully?; 5/3/14, 12:16 PM
traditionalguy said...: OK. Finally there is some proof that man is descended from mammals. This was true clearly for Charles Darwin who inseminated ten children before losing his hair.; 5/3/14, 12:19 PM
Ipso Fatso said...: A guy I know had an uncle who was 93 the last time he became a father. He died a year later. That's how I want to go out.; 5/3/14, 12:23 PM
n.n said...: The natural behavior, untempered by morality, is to seek sexual gratification. The natural imperative, which may be only implicitly fulfilled, is to reproduce.

Fortunately, men have a choice to curb their appetites. They are not ruled by a boundless buffet.; 5/3/14, 12:25 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I thought this post was about a gay guy berating other gay guys.; 5/3/14, 12:28 PM
John Enright said...: A marathon for male marsupials, and the mileage seems insuperable.; 5/3/14, 12:33 PM
Fernandinande said...: Think of an MMA fight wrapped in an Insane Clown Posse concert wrapped in the Insane Clown Posse playing during an MMA fight.

Science reporting in the pop media is consistently horrible.; 5/3/14, 12:47 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I see what you are doing, you don’t want people feeding off each other. You don’t want comments bouncing off from commenter to commenter as massive thought releases in the brain cause inhibitions to crash and their familiarity to fall out of favor.

You want virgins.; 5/3/14, 12:51 PM
Gahrie said...: The femisists' dream.....; 5/3/14, 12:59 PM
Saint Croix said...: Absurd Creature of the Week: This Marsupial Has Marathon Sex Until It Goes Blind and Drops Dead

What's absurd about that? That's #2 on my master list of ways I want to die.

1. In my sleep
2. marathon sex marsupial style
3. beautiful Russian spy stabs me in the back; 5/3/14, 1:15 PM
Anonymous said...: Crazy Street Corner Guy Off His Meds Says:

Harvey Keitel is raging with lust. College girls pass by him on the street and he pounds his chest, he pounds his naked chest and bellows, the girls try to ignore him but how could they? How could anyone? Harvey's mind: Harvey's mind is in a ferocious fever of short skirts and spring dresses, swirling in bright colors, bra straps, girlish laughter, smiles, it is all taunting him, it is taunting him and enflaming his blood, he is engorged and I sense that bad things can happen, bad things can happen at anytime now. Harvey, he has told me how -- with enough women -- he could fuck and fuck and fuck until he dies, desiccated and devoid of all juices. The thought can literally drive him blind, he can only see red light and white spots and his hands shake violently. It is not a good time to be a college schoolgirl on this side of the street.; 5/3/14, 1:24 PM
Anonymous said...: Crazy Street Corner Guy Off His Meds Says:

It was the girl in the skin-tight blue dress, beneath the fabric you could see the straps of her G-string riding her swaying hips, it was she who did it. Harvey is at the corner and he is ferociously masturbating through his stained pants, he is masturbating with a fury that borders on unrelenting rage and the crosswalk signal is beeping and there is spittle on his lips, it foams and flecks, little flecks of spittle shake loose from his grimacing jaw, I can hear his teeth grind, I can hear his teeth grind mercilessly. I tell him he should stop but he doesn't, I tell him he should stop before the police arrive and he says it's OK, he has fucked a cop before.; 5/3/14, 1:47 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: This was true clearly for Charles Darwin who inseminated ten children before losing his hair.

!!!; 5/3/14, 1:51 PM
Meade said...: "You want virgins."

No. But what she doesn't want is commenters who are looking for an unregulated free-for-all chat room. Can you blame her?

My own analysis over the last 10 months reveals fewer comments (though still plenty) that are smarter, more interesting, more humorous, and well-considered, with a sharp reduction in repetitive personal attacks.

Virgin or long-time commenter or anything between, if you just can't wait for up to an hour or so to see your comment published, you will probably be happier contributing to some other blog.

Now, let's get back to the topic of marathon marsupial sex, shall we?; 5/3/14, 2:00 PM
Fritz said...: But do they die happy?; 5/3/14, 2:16 PM
Phil 314 said...: "My own analysis over the last 10 months reveals fewer comments (though still plenty) that are smarter, more interesting, more humorous, and well-considered, with a sharp reduction in repetitive personal attacks."

Funny.; 5/3/14, 2:20 PM
john said...: It was on their bucket list.; 5/3/14, 2:20 PM
cold pizza said...: "You and me, baby, we ain't nothin' but mammals, so let's do it like they do it on the Discovery Channel."

Well, I mean, I know you are, but I'm just an old Elvisaurus. -CP; 5/3/14, 2:21 PM
traditionalguy said...: @Freeman...Yes, Darwin was hard on the Beaver for the 1800s. Perhaps he inseminated 10 half-zygotes is a better phrase. ..or 10 pre-fetuses. Oh never mind.; 5/3/14, 2:26 PM
Skeptical Voter said...: Sounds like Greek Week at a good party school like the U of A at Tucson or at UC Santa Barbara.; 5/3/14, 2:31 PM
Paddy O said...: "But what she doesn't want is commenters who are looking for an unregulated free-for-all chat room."

Musing:

What if Althouse had this policy from the beginning?

Would she still be single?; 5/3/14, 3:16 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Tradguy, whatever one wants to call them and however it is done, I think putting sperm into children is wrong.; 5/3/14, 3:19 PM
Paddy O said...: I don't have an answer to that question, it's just musing.; 5/3/14, 3:21 PM
Gahrie said...: "My own analysis over the last 10 months reveals fewer comments (though still plenty) that are smarter, more interesting, more humorous, and well-considered, with a sharp reduction in repetitive personal attacks."

You left out: Except for Crack who we reward and indulge instead."; 5/3/14, 3:27 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "I don't have an answer to that question, it's just musing."

Kind of creepy musing though, eh?

Anyway, Meade emailed in the days before commenting. One of the reasons I opened up comments was that I was getting some good email, then needing to publish the email, and in some cases, I was doing private email correspondence, and I thought it would be better for my writing to take it public.

So, without comments, I probably would have connected with Meade sooner.; 5/3/14, 3:46 PM
Paddy O said...: "Kind of creepy musing though, eh?"

I didn't intend it that way, though I now realize there is a separation of Althouse and off-blog Althouse, so comment musing on usual themes can seem creepier in the rare personal topic. I apologize. Especially if it seemed dismissive or something. I started from the assumption that being single was a value that was affirmed, not a problem to be fixed. Which is where I was at too, until an online forum introduced me my now wife. Not a dating site, but a now defunct networking/social media site. Which I found through comments that led me to one writing forum, that led me there.

More, to me at least, my comment was just thinking about the commenting trends over the last 10 years hereabouts and how that may have had real-world effects in your life (and also in many commenters lives), positive and negative.

I appreciate your answer.; 5/3/14, 3:58 PM
Paddy O said...: creepy post for the musing as I think about it, but the musing was entirely on the digression in the comments, which is mildly ironic. Not chills inducing irony, though.; 5/3/14, 4:08 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Apology accepted.

But it is disconcerting that people who have been here a long time continue to return to this subject and act like they don't understand what the problem was.

Lem comes in and says "You want virgins." Then you, Paddy, pile on in a sexual way too, bringing up my husband?

I'm not going to talk about the need to moderate the comments anymore. The two of you have every reason to understand the problem, and if you don't by now, there's really no point in talking.

But the two of you should take a look at yourselves and how it looks from my point of view. You both pose as caring about religious and moral values. It's not pretty.; 5/3/14, 4:09 PM
The Godfather said...: "Each encounter takes several hours". If "encounter" means what I think it means, this is no slam-bam-thank-you-ma'am situation. It's a deep, personal, long-term committed relationship, every single time. The lady mouse is probably very happy . . . until she discovers that the gentleman mouse didn't use a rubber like he'd promised.; 5/3/14, 4:18 PM
The Godfather said...: "Each encounter takes several hours". If "encounter" means what I think it means, this is no slam-bam-thank-you-ma'am situation. It's a deep, personal, long-term committed relationship, every single time. The lady mouse is probably very happy . . . until she discovers that the gentleman mouse didn't use a rubber like he'd promised.; 5/3/14, 4:18 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I was playing off the quote, re-purposing it comically I thought.

I'm sorry.; 5/3/14, 4:21 PM
Paddy O said...: "sexual way"

I think that's misinterpreting what I was doing and attributing malicious or salacious motivations, maligning me in the process.

I was bouncing off of Meade's 2pm comment, which made me think of his role as a commenter now as someone involved in the behind the scenes process.

I think both Lem and I have shown our character over the years, and should be interpreted because and through that, not somehow contrasting to that.

I understand the interest in moderation and wasn't arguing about that, just musing how it makes an impact.; 5/3/14, 4:44 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "I think both Lem and I have shown our character over the years, and should be interpreted because and through that, not somehow contrasting to that."

I have observed your character over the years, and I gave you my honest perception of it.; 5/3/14, 5:01 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Like I said, I'm sorry.

I will never post like that again.

It will never happen again. All of you have my word on that.; 5/3/14, 5:04 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Apology accepted, Lem.; 5/3/14, 5:08 PM
Drago said...: Meade: "Virgin or long-time commenter or anything between, if you just can't wait for up to an hour or so to see your comment published, you will probably be happier contributing to some other blog."

Think of Meade as the the control rod in the Comments Reactor that is the Althouse blog.

Or, if you prefer, think of Meade as the "saucer" in which we pour forth our comments and allow for the necessary "cooling" to occur and thus maintain a level of civility that would otherwise be unobtainable.; 5/3/14, 5:33 PM
Quaestor said...: traditionalguy wrote: OK. Finally there is some proof that man is descended from mammals.

We can be thankful for some progress in TG's thinking. The question is whether he can face the fact that man is descended from a particular mammal which is also the ancestor of non-human mammals?

Wired is not a top-notch source for information of any kind, so speculations about the wider significance of the reproductive strategy of an tiny marsupial based on its journalism must stand on feet of clay. To begin with Wired names this animal "antechinus," rendered in the lower case. Antechinus is the genus name of at least eleven species and should always be capitalized. They range from New Guinea to Tasmania, with most species occurring along Australia's eastern seaboard. They are normally so secretive and obscure that they have no conventional common names in English, though most Aussies call them "pouched mice." Unlike true mice members of Antechinus avoid humans and do not infest homes or farm buildings.

The Wired article makes much of their orgiastic sexual habits, without noting that most members of the clan aren't as extreme as the article would have us think. All Antechinae except for one are semelparous, i.e. a pouched mouse lives long enough to breed once, then it dies. For the males that means death after insemination. The females last longer because their sexual function ends when the pups are weaned. Most of them die when their milk dries up.

Antechinae do not f'ck themselves to death, so that Insane Clown Posse meme is truly hip, which is to say truly jejune. Antechinae die after sex because to live after sex is to compete with your own offspring for the very limited resources of an Australian winter. Australia is not the land of plenty. It has the smallest biomass of any of the continents except for Antarctica. Consequently winters are hard on a high-metabolism creature that doesn't hibernate. Therefore pouched mice daddies conveniently die to make life easier for their offspring.

Given the huge numbers of boomers retiring every day and the ponzi scheme called Social Security, we could take a lesson from the Antechinae, a lesson that didn't occur to Mike Simon, the editors at Wired, or Althouse.; 5/3/14, 11:02 PM
Quaestor said...: Think of Meade as the the control rod in the Comments Reactor that is the Althouse blog.

It is probably wiser not to include anything rod-like and Meade in the same thought.; 5/3/14, 11:07 PM
ErnieG said...: There may be some truth to the old adage, "If you don't stop you'll go blind."; 5/4/14, 4:44 PM