Bonk (34 page)

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A visit to Yerkes will forever after distort your image of corporate America. On my flight home, the woman behind me was talking about the
presentation
she was planning for a man named Mark. Her seatmate had just finished up a series of
displays
at the regional sales conference.

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Ladies, do
not
get involved with a chimp. Not only are they fast ejaculators, they want to perform this minor irritation
constantly
. (Highest copulatory frequency of all primates.) And here’s how they let you know: “the male invitation posture,” in which the male sits on the ground, knees up and legs wide open to, quoting
Reproductive Biology of the Great Apes
, “reveal his erect penis.” As an alternate wooing strategy, the male chimpanzee will shake a branch at you.

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A category defined by PE expert Marcel Waldinger as one to one and a half minutes Intravaginal Ejaculation Latency Time (IELT)—a high-octane way of saying How Long He’s in Before He’s Done. “Definite” premature ejaculation is defined as consistently less than one minute. (Certain antidepressants are being used these days to treat PE—including some that can be taken a couple hours before sex.)
You never hear much about the opposite condition, delayed ejaculation. Possibly, this is because for years it was called “retarded ejaculation,” and who wants to admit they’ve got that?

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Shortly after his discovery, Michael patented the chemical makeup of the copulins as a sex attractant. George Preti, a researcher at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, says a major fragrance company in the seventies was said to be adding synthesized monkey copulins to its perfumes. Which seems disgusting, until you learn that another ersatz sex attractant fragrance, called Realm, was made from skin compounds derived from scrapings off of, quoting Preti, “the inside of casts worn by injured skiers.”

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Preti and gang were clearly not speaking for the millions of soiled-panty enthusiasts in our midst. A Google search on “soiled panties” produced 78,000 hits, most of them directing you to freelance sellers, women who throw up a Web site with a couple of photos and a PayPal link. Wikipedia says some Japanese sex shops operate panty exchanges for girls, who wear a pair overnight and then exchange them for a new pair on their way to school. “The more soiled they are, the more they will fetch at sale,” says Wikipedia, yet further distancing itself from stuffy rival Britannica.

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Hirsch speculated that the effect could be Pavlovian: “The smell of cucumber or Good ’n’ Plenty…may bring back fond memories of Grandma’s back yard.” But why would the women be sexually aroused? And why use candy-coated Good ’n’ Plenty instead of straight licorice? Has Dr. Hirsch gone Good ’n’ Fruity?

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Except for this one: “Rape Fantasies for Both.” Masters and Johnson published a list of the top five sexual fantasies of the gay and straight men and women. Forced Sexual Encounters was either No. 1 or No. 2 for all four groups. Both straight men and lesbians imagined themselves interchangeably in the role of rapist and “rapee.” In the case of gang rape fantasies—I so love this—gay men occasionally “played an additional role of planner or organizer.”

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But not rectally. Anal sex—which Masters and Johnson dubbed “rectal coition”—was shunted off to its own little investigation. Twelve couples were observed: five gay and seven straight (three of the latter being strangers). The researchers studied anal sphincter contractions (conclusion: it mainly just hurts at first) and looked to see if arousal causes rectal lubrication (it doesn’t).