monthly column from author/activist
Carol Queen

The Royal Treatment

IN SPRING, A YOUNG BEAST'S FANCY...
...turns to thoughts of rutting. Doesn't it? All you beasts out there know it's true. Sure, it's not Spring yet, but Robert and I got the jump on it this year by taking the Valentine's Day Sex Tour at the San Francisco Zoo.

Now, don't get too frisky yet. I'm not talking about that hard-to-find-except-in-Amsterdam pornography that goes by the name of "zoo." But I do mean the real facts of sex as the beasts have it, and it turns out that's a pretty diverse and spicy topic even if we never go interspecial. For one thing, don't ever let anyone tell you something you like is "unnatural" -- in the animal kingdom they do just about everything we do, including play with sex toys, have homosex, and fetishize unlikely objects. I'm sure they talk dirty, too, if we could only understand them. And plenty of species are raving exhibitionists -- just look at the beautiful peacock, all dressed up to impress the far-less-fancy peahens. Or the luridly-colored genitals of some of the apes. Or -- my favorite -- the lady coyote, who can apparently distend and wiggle her vulva if her coyote guy isn't sufficiently impressed. "No male can resist it!" said Brandais, our tour guide. Yup, the animal world can be about as rowdy as a Bangkok pussy show, as Simon and Garfunkel knew way back when: "Somebody told me it's all happening at the zoo." Indeed it is -- although I must confess that we didn't actually see much action on the tour. I guess the catch is that animals don't celebrate Valentine's Day. As Brandais confessed: "Getting them to do it on cue is just impossible!" Yes, like a few humans we've known.

In considering the birds and the bees, we started -- and ended -- with the birds. We passed a fountain where a pair of lesbian Canada geese had taken up residence; though not official denizens of the zoo, apparently they knew their domestic partnership would be safe and respected in San Francisco. Then there are the Magel lanic penguins, a postcard-cute colony of which resides at the zoo. Brandais told us that these creatures are mostly fairly monogamous, mating for life, "but there are exceptions to every rule, and one special female would slip out during mating season and go through several males. The keepers named her 'Joan Collins.'" If I recollect, it was among penguins that scientists' first inkling of prostitution in the bird kingdom emerged: a lady penguin like that was such a hussy that she insisted on collecting stones for her nest before she'd do the deed with the horny boys.

When male ostriches get horny, they dance around to get the girls' attention. Ostriches are pretty huge birds, of course, so this can be quite the festive display. Ostriches keep group families: everyone uses the same nest, so the whole colony can guard it together. Besides this poly tendency, the SF Zoo's pair, Fred and Ginger, is special. "Ginger is colored like and acts like a male," Brandais told us. "Pretty sad story for Fred, who actually is a male!" It figures our ostriches would be queer -- maybe they just need a copy of Bend Over Boyfriend so Fred can learn to love being on the bottom. Then there's the fun fact about ostrich penises -- although about eight inches long, they're true pencil-dicks. "And they're bright, bright pink!" Brandais cheerfully added.

Eagles do all their foreplay in the sky, death-defying feats which test the males' mettle and urge to mate. The SF Zoo's bald eagles are flightless victims of human malfeasance, so they can't manage the aerial sexerobics of their cousins in the wild. "Sure Shot" and "Wyatt Earp" are a breeding pair nevertheless, with a deluxe nest situated on a small island.

Surrounding the island are ducks, and it turns out they're some of the rudest dudes in the water. The have corkscrew-shaped penises (many male birds don't have external genitalia), and they'll commit rape if there are too few lady ducks in the pond.

Back to peacocks for a minute. They're not just all dressed up with no place to go. They're the sex fiends of the bird world and will hop on hydrants or go after themselves in a mirror. "Hey, duuude! You look gooood!" I imagine them saying. Doesn't that imply a fair amount of homoeroticism, besides narcissism and exhibitionism?

Flamingos, too, do an intricate dance. They all do it together -- thousands of birds may go into mating mode at the same time, and they have their chicks all at once too. That way even if predators show up, some of the flock and the young will survive.

Speaking of the predator-prey distinction, it turns out this is one of the keys to what kind of sex you have (that is, if you're an animal). Prey animals can't afford to spend much time at it, evolutionarily speaking, so they're masters of the quickie. A few seconds, a minute -- that's about it. (Of course, they can do it a lot, hence phrases like "fucking like bunnies.") Predators, on the other hand -- especially those pretty near the top of the food chain -- can spend hours. Even when they don't -- the lion is a pretty quick fuck -- they do it so many times that it really adds up. "Lions are busy," said Brandais. The male can copulate up to 50 times a day -- and mind you, they sleep about 21 hours, so when they're hot, they're really hot. Cats have barbed penises -- that's one of the reasons they howl -- but it stimulates ovulation in the female, so the lady kitties are pretty much stuck -- ahem, literally and figuratively -- with the less-than-kind decisions of evolution. Speaking of big, gorgeous kitties, the zoo has tigers -- a supposedly-mated pair of Sumatrans, but the female isn't responding. So close to San Francisco State, maybe the Women's Studies classes have been sneaking over and telling Ms. Kitty she doesn't have to stand for those barbs.

Cats aren't the only animals whose mating seems -- or is -- a little aggro. Sea otters have a rough time keeping it together as they mate in the water, so the male grabs the female's nose with his teeth. Harbor seals, like dogs, have a baculum -- a penile bone. Males keep a harem of females and are so aggressive in their mating habits that the females may be injured, even killed. Koalas aren't too friendly in the sack either, in spite of their cute and cuddly looks. "A female in estrus goes to a male's tree, they have sex, and then she tries to kick his butt. At the zoo we lock 'em in a closet." After mating, a zookeeper has to rush in and get her off the poor guy. Zebras -- "hung like the stallions they are" -- invented the "eat, eat, eat, screw, screw, screw" lifestyle, though their erotic marauding ends up in anticlimactic quickies, since they're prey animals.

Speaking of how animals are hung -- we did devote some time to the topic that will delight all you size queens. Although the giraffe has "a very small unit, for its size," it makes up for it with an 18-inch tongue -- not a bad trade, eh, ladies? They literally "neck" during their mating dance, wrapping around each other and getting quite cozy. The warthog has a corkscrew penis -- larger than the duck's, one assumes.

And get ready for the one-horned rhino! His penis is four and a half feet long, and he and his mate may go at it for an hour at a time. "There's a flange on his penis, which actually spreads like wings -- kind of like on those maxipads, y'know?" (Brandais was born to do this tour.) His cousin the black rhino is an aggressive fuck; "they bash the hell out of each other for days, so the female can test the male's strength." Sex can last an hour, "a fairly large payoff for all that work" - - and his penis-head is shaped like a daffodil. In both rhino species the point of this exotic cock is to keep the sperm from escaping, and the black rhino stud may find himself hopping helplessly after the female, still stuck, if she gets bored after they copulate.

"The elephant has the largest unit -- eight and a half to nine feet long, 70 pounds of pure muscle." I know what you're thinking -- come back as an elephant in the next life -- but there's more! It's prehensile, like his trunk. "He can't pick up a dime, but he can do just about everything else. It's like a heat-seeking missile, finding the right spot." And if that isn't enough to impress you, the highly intelligent pachyderms also use their trunks during sex, to sniff and fondle.

Then there's the tapir, whose penis can reach past his front feet when erect. The female can try to leave and he'll still be inside her just because he's so long.

National Masturbation Month is coming up in May, and some of the animals will actually be celebrating. The spectacled bear is notorious for masturbating; it is flexible and can give itself head, and will also use its paws. "Because they're at the top of the food chain they can spend more time sleeping and playing, and what better way to play than with yourself?" Kangaroos and wallabies also masturbate with their hands, and they also use sex toys -- branches and the like. So do bonobo chimps, our closest relative. They have sex all the time, using it for social reasons and to bond the tribe. Their cousins the siamang, although among the most monogamous of apes, have lots of oral sex.

Before we draw to a close, we really must consider the hippo. You don't give them much thought, do you? The huge creatures spend almost all their time in the water, and Cuddles and Puddles, the SF Zoo's mating pair, are fondly known as "love in the tub." The water helps buoy their 5000-pound body weight. "Imagine having sex in Vaseline on satin sheets," said Brandais -- sexy, but not very easy to coordinate! His penis size isn't spectacular, but they've had 14 baby hippos -- she's on birth control now, "so they can have all the fun with none of the work." The pygmy hippos, on the other hand, have been mated for 26 years, but he's never managed to find her vagina. "He's tried to stick it in her ear, nose, everywhere."

Some animals have to do it carefully, not because they're big but because they're prickly. The giant anteater has huge claws, so they lay on their sides and "gently play footsie" -- awww! They groom and push each other for about an hour, then "she carefully climbs on top and thrusts - - an unusual case in the animal world of the female taking charge." Porcupines and hedgehogs, too, have to be careful -- Ms. Hedgehog will smooth down her spines in she's in the mood, while the male porcupine will get up on his hind legs. He's into golden showers, too.

"It's all slightly grislier than I thought," said a man behind us. Dude, why do you think we call them animals?

Insects are the real superfreaks, said Brandais, engaging in charming behaviors like sticking their penises just anywhere, or, then again, biting penises off.

So there's your bees, to go with the birds. We'll end with a bird, for Brandais saved the best for last. Apollo, the zoo's Harris hawk, was another rescue from the wild. Perhaps his experience messed with his sexuality, or maybe he was always kinky, but Apollo won't mate with females. A gay raptor? Well, not exactly. He loves his glove. You know the glove the falconer wears to keep those major claws out of his or her arm? Apollo gets happy with the glove -- we actually watched him do it! -- so much so, that they can inseminate the lady hawks he spurns. They just have to use the hawk sperm he leaves on the glove.

Hey, this is San Francisco. Nothing too strange about a leather fetish. Like I said, it's all happening at the zoo.