Aromatic traces of Dr Dan Rittschoff’s sell-out talk on sex and the senses last March still linger on the shores, particularly in hours when ducks are out and about in search of dirty deeds. This pair of swimming crabs (probably Thalamita crenata) must have thought it safe to make out near the water’s edge at Semakau. But their copulatory embrace was disrupted by my hot and sweaty duck which crouched over them on a slippery stone to dribble over their animal passion.
Lacking publicly-acceptable scent glands, humans aren’t able to rub off piles of pheromones in public spots to lure potential lovers or scare off competitors. Hence, naked apes have turned to the alchemy of amour, from the camphorous resins of fragrant bark to the musky emissions of stag glands, to ignite bawdy instincts or simply to hide the reek of unwashed orifices. But as any good child brought up on Dahl knows, even tailless monkeys can flood the air with compounds of base desire. Noting the preponderance of young females in the seminar room, Dr Dan hazarded a guess that there was enough estrogen in the air to send a radio immuno assay off the scale. And unlike volatile testosterone, estrogen lingers, leaving its mark long after it has diffused through the skin and into nasal pits to trigger wet dreams and naked thoughts.
Guys have tried to get into the game too, with a cologne called Score. According to Dr Dan, it took nearly 15 years to isolate the key compound from human skin, distill it and obtain a concentration so strong “that it impacted the people who worked to purify it”. Sadly, it didn’t descend into a corporate orgy. “All the pheromone does is to make you relaxed,” quips Dr Dan. “So they just stopped working.”
Dr Dan also observed that the most frequent users of scented concoctions are older women, as they lack the pheromonal highs that younger dames emit as they sashay down the street. “Women have a better sense of smell than men, so they use pheromones to maintain their attraction as they age,” he remarks. “They use it to mark their territory.” So when a lady dons her signature eau and kisses her man before he trades pleasure for pasture, it’s “her equivalent to peeing on a tree.” Which seems to be a prudent act, given the claim that “70% of children in all cultures don’t have the father they think they do…”
What older ladies lack in hormones they usually make up for in moolah. So what can a poor young lass do to reel in a catch? Dr Dan offers a simple prescription. “You are training your man, like ‘Come, Ralph!’ and psychophysically, the sex pheromones makes him go ‘Oh, this is so exciting! I love being with her because she makes my life so wonderful…’” So what a desperate young dame can do is buy a pricey bottle of perfume and wear it while giving the bloke a night he’ll never forget. “You buy the expensive one once, train him, and then you can buy the cheaper one and it works just fine,” says the good doctor who probably spoke from experience.
The smell of sex is vital to the love and future life of crabs as well. Studies on the mating habits of local portunids are lacking, but scientists on the Atlantic coast of North America have found it entertaining to observe the intimate habits of a related species, Callinectes sapidus, in the dubious belief that such data could contribute to the sustainable management of a popular seafood item.
Female crabs can only mate after their pubertal moult, when their carapace is soft enough to permit copulation. Moulting is a risky period, so the frisky crabs venture from deeper waters into estuaries or salt marshes when cover is abundant. If local crabs behave similarly, this probably implies that coastal mangroves and seagrass beds are vital breeding habitats for the flower crabs that gourmands so favour. It turns out that the female blue crabs get to make out just once in their life. So they make the most of it and go on for up to ten days. “They stop when they are full of sperm,” states Dr Dan. “They try to have as many babies as possible.”
The males, on the other hand, get a second bite of the cherry but then suffer dry spells. “The boys can have sex twice in a row and he’s out of bullets for two weeks.” Male crabs have it easy though when it comes to finding a friend for benefits. “He just sits in one place and dribbles seminal fluid [in his urine], which says ‘Hey! I’m loaded!’” Meanwhile, the females run around like teenage girls “until they smell a male, stop and pee”. She then shows him her ass and slides towards him with claws withdrawn and lets him cradle her with his legs, in a position known as a “doubler” or “buck and rider”.
The male carries his buddy around for a few days until she is ready to moult and bare her innermost recesses. After she has shed off all her inhibitions, he flips her over and pops his crabhood into two gonopods beneath her soft abdomen. Unlike ducks which wilt after just one shot at the money, crabs have twice the pleasure, as the males have paired organs with a heavy duty piston system that can pump in several microlitres of sperm with each thrust. “The crabs mate for 8-12 hours,” notes Dr Dan drily. “If they were our size, they’d transfer two litres of semen.” Intercourse lasts for days, with periodic smoke breaks, until the male runs out of juice and runs off to recharge his arsenal. Crabby sex, it seems, is really not that crappy at all.