[sebbie]

Driving your college roommate bonkers: Part XXII College is all about learning—about yourself!

A lot of complicated but interesting things are going on here. Let me begin at the beginning, and more or less work forward from some very basic information. Every species of animal (plants too, and even stuff the biologists claim doesn’t fit neatly into one category or another) is here today because of some form of reproduction. At some level, every living thing now present got here because of some form of reproduction. Some of this is rather banal biology, at the one-celled microorganism level, by the cell simply dividing.

Not being a one-celled species, I cannot tell you for sure or not whether dividing yourself into two cells is somehow “fun” for the microorganism. But, for complex multi-cellular animals, animals more nearly like us, an element of fun associated with the first stage of reproduction is frequently present.

I like to watch all the science shows, especially those that show animals reproducing. I am fascinated by the fish. Many male and female fish never come in direct contact with each other through their body parts. Some form of intercourse like that would be tough to pull off. So the female fish merely sprays her eggs into the water in large numbers and the male of the species responds by spraying his semen all over the area where the eggs were sprayed. Is this somehow sexually fun for either fish?

This seems like a poor way of having sexual fun in the context that we humans and a lot of other land-based mammals are really fond of the whole idea of getting a penis inside of a vagina. Surely it must be that these mammals are dealing with sensations that mimic our own with a response to the enjoyment they get from doing this. It can’t be that different for them than us, or can it?

I grew up on a farm where I raised sheep. Female sheep, the ewes, like a lot of mammals (but not us) have only certain periods of time in which they are receptive to the whole idea of intercourse with a ram. Female sheep are interesting in that there are few if any outward signs that they are in heat, which happens during the breeding season every 13 to 19 days for a ewe. The male rams, however, know exactly when the female is ready to breed. A typical ram will service about 40 ewes in a 45-day period, averaging maybe one a day but sometimes more.

Breeding in sheep involves the ram mounting the sheep with his front legs over the ewes mid back, so that his rather long penis (by human standards) can shoot ejaculated semen deep into the ewe’s vagina. Some 143 days later, if all went well, a lamb or two, rarely three, pops out.

Rams are enthusiastic breeders, they seem to thoroughly enjoy the entire sequence of events. I presume that the sensations are tickling the pleasure zones of the ram’s brain, in much the same way this happens in humans.

Having said that, I have yet to see a ewe that seemed nearly as enthusiastic about the entire sequence of intercourse events as the rams seem to be. Indeed, sometimes they seem quite unhappy about the situation. Other times they are willing to let the ram proceed, but act as if what they are doing is more of an obligation than a highly pleasant moment in their own lives as a ewe. It is almost as if they would rather be out grazing in the pasture than “messing around” this way with the ram. Still, sex between ewes and rams happens, sheep reproduce and produce lambs. Life goes on in the sheep world too.

Now you don’t see rams with hard-ons trying to lick their own penises for pleasure in part because that would be impossible to do given how rams are built. But you do see young uncastrated adolescent males playing out the strategy of getting a hard-on and mounting other sheep their age mimicking the manner that a breeding ram would do. That the sheep they are mounting if female are not in heat doesn’t matter, nor do the young males seem to pay any attention to the sex of the sheep their own age they are mounting. Learning how to get a hard-on and then mount another sheep seems to just be part of the fun things adolescent male sheep do growing up.

Licking your own penis for pleasure after getting a hard- on is something non-neutered male dogs often do, also apparently for the sheer fun of doing it. Male dogs like to masturbate this way, and their anatomy allows this. The behavior is often disturbing to dog owners who discipline the dog in an (usually unsuccessful) attempt to get the dog to quit doing that.

What does all of this have to do with the behaviors of Randall and Shawn? First, there is the topic of why there are human males and females and why sexual intercourse hits our pleasure centers the way it frequently does. After all, human beings need to continue on over the generations and making intercourse very pleasant is part of the scheme nature employs for accomplishing that.

Still, if human sex were all about the need for reproduction and nothing else, bluntly put, why are sexual behaviors that do not involve intercourse at all so immensely enjoyable too? The sequence of events that Randall and Shawn just went through ended up being hugely pleasurable and mind-blowing fun. Is it SUPPOSED to be like that? What gives, anyway?

In watching adolescent rams mounting other adolescent sheep irrespective of the sex of the sheep being mounted, at one time I thought the rams doing the mounting of other male sheep (castrated or not) would end up as adult gay rams with zero interest in breeding a ewe. The problem was that I have zero evidence to support the latter. These same rams grew up to be adult rams that seemed to very much be into and enjoy breeding the ewes, even if the ewes frequently did not appear to be so enthusiastic.

As an undergraduate, I watched as a suite mate masturbated himself and then he and his roommate masturbated each other in front of several other males their age including me. I have followed one of the guys involved in this (who cheerfully seemed to know he was “grossing out” the others who were watching the entire sequence of events) after that, and he got married and raised a family. Clearly, if his behavior was consistent with a guy being gay or even having a gay side as that is not at all what happened. The male masturbation behavior seems to be not unlike the behavior of those adolescent rams mounting other adolescent males.

Which leads us back to the question of what exactly is going on right now in the brains of Shawn and Randall. Are they both actually gay but haven’t admitted that to themselves, or maybe each simply has a gay side? Or, maybe not! If sexual sensations are all about the continuation of the human species, why are certain kinds of masturbation such mind-blowing fun? Are guys who like to masturbate in a Speedo® going to be willing to quit doing so if they get married to a woman? Or, nowadays, get married to a guy, for that matter.

Lots of interesting questions here, for sure.

To be continued…