Anyway, as I sat on the Diversey train platform today, watching THREE SEPARATE PIGEON COUPLES bobbing along the tracks and on the rooftops, I had to wonder.
Why are these female pigeons such BITCHES? It’s the male doing all the work, puffing up, dancing around, bobbing his head, following her to the ends of the earth, and she just keeps walking forward, trying, in fact, to get AWAY from her suitor.
I understand that sometimes we ladies are not in the mood…but really!
And then I realized, that’s all you ever hear about in the Lesser Animal Kingdom. BOY chases GIRL…BOY overpowers GIRL, BOY mounts GIRL. You hear about male elks goring each other to death for the love of a girl elk who doesn’t even CARE.
Is female sexual aggression a unique phenom to the Human Rock Opera? or are their chick otters out there who are just slutty as hell?
My family had a couple of girl cats who stopped just short of putting on spiked heels and taking out ads in the back of Kitty Penthouse when they went into heat. They wandered around wailing and hunkering down with their nether regions in the air for the perusal of likely suitors (Yes, Mom DID get them fixed as soon as possible… and I have no idea why it wasn’t done sooner! No kittens resulted.)
jarbabyj: Spotted Hyenas ( Crocuta crocuta ) . Females are larger, more powerful, and politically dominant. They live in packs ( “clans” in most literature ) similar to lion prides, with a stable population of interrelated females and semi-transient, unrelated males. Males and females have separate dominance hiearchies, but senior females trump senior males ( quite unlike lion prides ) - It is a more or less a complete matriarchy. Also lineage matters - adolescent daughters of the Alpha Female often outrank virtually every other member of the Clan. Males do court females, but the females ultimately call the shots.
Also, males and females are virtually identical, even by external genitalia ( I’ll go into more detail if you like ).
Not sure if this was what you were looking for. If you just want critters where the female is always the sexual aggressor, I’m sure there are a number of non-mammals that qualify, but I’d have to sit down and think for awhile. As to mammals, I think the Spotted Hyena comes closest.
In terms of evolution, it makes more sense for the female to be passive and the male to be aggressive. That way she can sit back and be choosy. The males have to compete, may the best pigeon win, and she’s sure of getting the best genes for her eggs.
And how do you know all those pigeon babes aren’t being passive aggressive? Like, pretending to ignore him, which drives him wild?
Just a huch, but does anyone knoe about sexual behaviour in seahorses? As I understand it, much of the difference in behaviour between the male and female of a species derives from the fact that females have to deal with pregnancy and (in mammals) nursing, whereas males don’t.
In Xanadu did Kubla Kahn
A stately pigeon dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river ran
Through caverns measureless to pigeons
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But O! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By pigeon wailing for her pigeon-lover!
And from this chasm with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this Earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced,
Amid whose swift half-intermitted bursts
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
On chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion,
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to pigeon.
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pigeons
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device.
A sunny pigeon-dome with caves of ice!
A pigeon with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssian pigeon.
And on her dulcimer she played.
Singing of mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song.
To such a deep delight 'twould win me
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air.
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there.
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the pigeon’s milk of Paradise.
Phalaropes. The female is more brightly colored, courts the male aggressively, and then leaves the guy to incubate and raise the kiddies by himself while she finds another to dally with.
Tinamous too as well as those cute widdle button quail.
Some male spiders need to be very careful around their female partners lest they become dinner. That’s pretty aggressive female behavior (a literal “I wanna eat you”).
Female mantids will often eat their partners, sometimes while they’re doin’ it. What a BITCH!
I have 2 cockatiels, once known as Punky & Tricky Dick. In 1998, early one Friday morning, I noticed them doing “the birdy bump”. This was about 10 minutes after I awoke and about three sips into my first cup of coffee. My initial reaction was to tell 'em to “get a room”. My assumption was that both birds were male and their behavior seemed somewhat kinky - at least from where I was sitting. In those days I was doing a daily afternoon radio program at a jazz station in Cincinnati and decided to throw this “birdy bump” situation out to my astute listeners. One listener suggested I buy a nesting box for the birds and see if they layed eggs. Another listener said that even two female birds will emulate mating, even to the point of laying eggs and sitting on them in the hope of hatchlings - to no avail, of course. As it turned out, eggs were laid and they hatched. Final score: Punky is a male. In lieu of re-naming Tricky Dick “Tricky Twat”, she’s now known as “Trixie”. Both cockatiels are happily-ever-aftering in San Diego, but haven’t been doing the “birdy bump”. I think the 3-day trip from Cincinnati to San Diego in the front of a U-Haul truck with me and a cat named Meche, may have traumatized them. It’s either that or perhaps Trixie needs to learn to put on fishnet hose and practice the cockatiel version of a “come hither look”.
I used to have a pair of cockatiels as well, named George and Rosie. Rosie was a sweet-natured little puffball of grey feathers, and she mothered everything. If she was a person she’d be a round, cheerful woman running “Mom’s Diner” and pushing her homemade pie down everybody’s throat. George, now, he was a bastard. I was the only human who could get near him. He thought he was Slick Shady or something, a real Ladies’ Bird. And this playa of the playas, this Ultimate Cockatiel Love Daddy, this Avian Sexgod, had his heart set on poor disinterested Rosie.
He’d spend hours serenading Rosie with the sweetest songs he knew how to whistle… “Dixie,” the wolf whistle, the themes from Superman and Mighty Mouse, even a short section of the intro to “Come As You Are” by Nirvana. She’d sit on her perch grooming her feathers.
He’d circle her, climbing over toys, perches, cage walls, trying to catch her eye. She’d stare at me with an almost human “Please help me” look in her eyes.
He’d eventually get fed up and try to mount her. She’d literally shake him loose and then hang upside down from the roof of the cage until he gave up.
It was HILARIOUS!
Eventually, space issues forced us to give Rosie and George up for adoption, and they went to another home - together - where eventually they did indeed make sweet birdy love. I think they hatched three “litters” before Rosie got egg-bound and died. George is still alive, and presumably he’s just looking for another sweet piece of hen…
. Females are larger, more powerful, and politically dominant. They live in packs ( “clans” in most literature ) similar to lion prides, with a stable population of interrelated females and semi-transient, unrelated males. Males and females have separate dominance hiearchies, but senior females trump senior males ( quite unlike lion prides ) - It is a more or less a complete matriarchy. Also lineage matters - adolescent daughters of the Alpha Female often outrank virtually every other member of the Clan. Males do court females, but the females ultimately call the shots.
George is still alive, and presumably he’s just looking for another sweet piece of hen…