In the Almeopedia article, zompist (?) wrote:For the females, these are also a defense mechanism; there are tiny, sharp scales along the outside of the labia, which can be shut tight if desired, preventing rape or administering a drastic punishment for it.
So... who would be doing the raping, really? If the ilii are a "nearly unfallen" race, I can't see the males among them doing it. And even most humans wouldn't be so stupid as to attempt to rape an iliu (well, I suppose you never know...). But even if they did I doubt they'd get all the way to the labia before they were stopped, right?
So who would attempt to rape the ilii? Animals? Ktuvoki? Do these creatures ever rape male ilii as well?
Io wrote:Seriously, do you take it as an obligation to be the sort of cunt you are?
If you accept the theology of the Count of Years, the protection is Iainos's foresight, chiefly useful against the ktuvoks, though it protects against fallen humans as well.
From an evolutionary perspective, however, the iliu have been one among several Thinking Kinds for hundreds of thousands of years, and the adaptation protects against all the rest. And against male iliu if necessary-- some might be crazy or evil. (The present nature of iliu society isn't any guarantee that their pre-civilized state was so harmonious.)
There's an urban legend in France (I don't know if it exists elsewhere) saying that East Asian women have teeth in their vagina. I don't know the origin of this legend. I suppose that the French soldiers who conquered Vietnam in the 19th century were surprised by the smallness of the local women's vaginas and created the legend.
When I was a student I once had a Japanese girlfriend. Another student (he was a brilliant fellow, but he knew little about life) asked me if it's true that Japanese girls have teeth in their vagina. Our conversation went like this:
I said:
_ Can you keep a secret?
_ Yes, of course!
_ You promise?
_ Yes, yes!
_ OK, I'll tell you. It's true... They do have teeth in their vaginas. But don't tell anyone!
Afterwards, I had a little remorse, I admit. Helping urban legends to spread is fun, but morally indefensible...
Another urban legend, apparently told by former French soldiers in Vietnam: Vietnamese prostitutes inserted a hollowed potato in their vagina, with a razor blade inside the potato. When the unsuspecting soldier inserted his penis, he bled to death.
[url=http://perso.orange.fr/saiwosh/man.html]Mansquatchie[/url], a Parallel World where cyborgs rule.
I've just been barely able to get access to the ZBB from work, but I still can't seem to get on Snopes.com to research this. I think the potato one is partially true, but is not limited to Vietnam and U.S. troops.
I was about to ask that same question, myself. And I've heard of the potato-razor thing, as well.
"There was a particular car I soon came to think of as distinctly St. Louis-ish: a gigantic white S.U.V. with a W. bumper sticker on it for George W. Bush."
The legend of the "vagina dentata" is, if you accept Freudian psychology (which I don't particularly tend to myself) a common manifestation of the male castration anxiety (though Freud himself never mentioned it).
"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
--Hemingway
Or perhaps they can be employed to provide certain males with a certain level of pleasure? I mean, I assume the scales are sharp and don't have to close all the way.
Salmoneus wrote:(NB Dewrad is behaving like an adult - a petty, sarcastic and uncharitable adult, admittedly, but none the less note the infinitely higher quality of flame)
AFAIK rape is not an animal trait. Only homo sapiens commits rape. Perhaps the behavior of ancient ilii was closer to man's than it now is.
What is the survival value of the labial scales? It looks non-existent to me, unless the rapists used to kill their victim after the act. Perhaps the ktuvoks (or even the ancient ilii) ate their victim afterwards? Sex stimulates the appetite!
Another hypothesis: the scales close after the sexual intercourse, lethally hurting the male. The female iliu, now impregnated, doesn't need the male anymore. After she castrated and disabled him with her labial scales, she easily overpowers him and eats him, like a mantis.
A psychiatrist could probably find meanings in this which Mark hadn't even noticed. American women are often described as femmes castratrices in French literature
[url=http://perso.orange.fr/saiwosh/man.html]Mansquatchie[/url], a Parallel World where cyborgs rule.
Legros wrote:AFAIK rape is not an animal trait. Only homo sapiens commits rape.
By no means; Jane Goodall has documented behavior among chimpanzees that we could only describe as rape.
What is the survival value of the labial scales? It looks non-existent to me, unless the rapists used to kill their victim after the act.
Any physical defense is useful both in case of an actual attack, and as a deterrent. Goodall mentions a male attacking a female so furiously that her hand was badly injured-- more serious for the tree-climbing chimps than for a human. Discouraging such attacks would have clear survival value.
If you don't think it's physically likely, consider the porcupine! Mr. Porcupine can have no sexual encounters except when the Mrs. is willing.
A psychiatrist could probably find meanings in this which Mark hadn't even noticed. American women are often described as femmes castratrices in French literature
I think this tells us more about French males than about Americans!
Legros wrote:I found no mention of rape in the article. Can you post a relevant quote?
Sure. It's in the bottom paragraph on the first page:
Still, it is not only the increasing number of these incidents that is causing alarm but also the singular perversity — for want of a less anthropocentric term — of recent elephant aggression. Since the early 1990’s, for example, young male elephants in Pilanesberg National Park and the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve in South Africa have been raping and killing rhinoceroses; this abnormal behavior, according to a 2001 study in the journal Pachyderm, has been reported in ‘‘a number of reserves’’ in the region.
And Mark is of course right about the chimpanzees.
Oh THAT'S why I was on hiatus. Right. Hiatus Mode re-engaged.
Dewrad wrote:Or perhaps they can be employed to provide certain males with a certain level of pleasure? I mean, I assume the scales are sharp and don't have to close all the way.
This is probably too much information.
"It's to stop rape" is clearly just the embarrassed cover story for when discussing anatomy with other species.
But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!
Deleted the silly OT diversions. I thought about just moving them to Ephemera, but first, the main one of these diversions has already been posted in an Ephemera thread, and second, given that Almea doesn't prune at the moment and that Ephemera threads are usually gone pretty quickly, moving individual Almea posts to Ephemera is almost the same as deleting them anyway.
I indeed first asked myself why did they need anything like such defense, but perhaps not because they are unfallen (I tend to hold the Irreanist view, when reading Mark's stuff.) but more where in the history of their spicies did they need it at all.
However, I must point out that "reproduction" is really not as peaceful as some would like to be. Nature has shown us that sexual reproduction can lead to a good deal of destruction. (Read a very good article on the sexual act among animals, they can be crazier than rapers indeed.)
Perhaps Mark hasn't worked out why do they have such things, but it would be interesting to know, if possible. However, seeing that they evolved some aphrodisiacs along the way might tell us a lot about ilian sexuality : it is not a mere "reproduction" mean. So I would like to imagine that the defense could also be a protection against someone having pleasure without consent, which could be important in ilian life, enough to influence biology.