On Facebook and relationships.

I witnessed quite an extreme example of messy relationship issues on Facebook today. A male friend of  a friend appeared to have been having sexy-times on the internet with another lady and his fiance found out. And naturally, what with it being the year 2012 and all, the fiance’s initial reaction was to copy and paste the exerts of the rather graphic conversations onto her (and his) Facebook page.I won’t post the exerts here for two reasons: 1. They are really graphic and you can use your imaginations and 2. The spelling and grammar used within them is absolutely appalling. But the fiance did post some really angry, heartfelt status updates (just to point out I am not friends with these people directly and therefore the profile can be viewed publicly, I am not posting anything that would otherwise remain private material):

Now I know that this revelation must have been absolutely devastating – the couple have a 6 month old child and the conversation exerts are very graphic as I said before. I just find it interesting that this has become the new way of reacting to such problems. The fiance also finds out the name of the woman her partner has been chatting to and links to her page for all to see. So now this other girl, who may or may not at this moment have any idea of what is going on, has been publicly outed for something that she undoubtedly thought was a completely private interaction, every typed word transcribed on Facebook. Her profile shows clearly her face, the town she is from and where she works. And to make it all just a bit worse: She looks very, very young.

Friends of the fiance were obviously deeply angered by this too, leading to posts like this in reaction to the sexy script:

Some of that is pretty disturbing stuff. I’m honestly not justifying what the man did – obviously he was in the wrong and the fiance has every right to be upset. But what worries me is that this Jeremy Kyle Does Facebook style outrage is shockingly common. It seems to just be the done thing these days, it’s how people deal with things. I’m not saying it is right or wrong (personally I would never deal with anything like this in such a public arena but hey, that’s just me) and I’m not taking sides. It’s just an observation. One that scares me a bit. What do you think?

What *does* bother me though, is when people use COMPLETELY FALSE SCIENTIFIC REASONING to explain why relationships go wrong. THAT IS NOT OKAY. See below.

Any thoughts?

The article that made me big down under…

Australian website The Conversation re-published one of my blog posts… Here it is!

The human penis is a puzzler, no bones about it

Humans and spider monkeys are the only primate species without a penis bone.
Chris Makarsky

The penis. It comes in so many different shapes and sizes … and that’s just in humans. As you would imagine, different species have very different penises.

The males in most mammal species, including cats, dogs and rats, have a bone in their penis called a “baculum”, or “os penis”.

Of course human males don’t possess an os penis – in fact, humans are the only primate species besides the spider monkey to be lacking in this department.

But we aren’t the only mammal not to have one: whales, horses, rhinos, rabbits, elephants, marsupials and hyenas all go without.

So, why do some species have a penis bone?

Well, simply put, to help males maintain an erection long enough to penetrate a female’s reproductive tract and deliver sperm. The baculum is generally kept in the male’s abdomen until it is required, at which point abdominal muscles push it out into the penis, thus causing an erection.

The other function of a baculum is speed. Sliding an already-erect bone into the fleshy penis is much easier and more reliable than waiting for the penis to fill with enough blood to maintain an erection long enough to deposit sperm into a female (as is the case with us ever-romantic human beings).

This speed is of real importance in many species, as mating often has to be quick and opportunistic. It also allows for quantity-over-quality mating. A male lion’s baculum, for instance, allows him to engage in an impressive 250 copulations in four days.

Sure, each copulation only lasts a minute or so, but the male’s ever-ready baculum makes it easy to get geared up for the next willing lioness shortly after his previous ejaculation.

Spider monkeys have a key key trait in common with humans. OZinOH

So, inevitably, this brings us to the question of why humans are the only apes to lack a penis bone.

Well, the reason is not entirely clear, but it’s believed to be down to our mating systems and strategies. In the 30th anniversary edition of his book, The Selfish Gene, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins suggested the lack of a human baculum is the result of “sexual selection” by female humans looking for healthy males.

That is, having a penis that relies on “hydraulics” to become erect (rather than a bone) means there will be some males with poor erectile function. If Dawkins is right, an innate female desire to guage a male’s suitability as a mate was responsible for “selecting” a penis that shows such suitability (or lack thereof).

Interestingly, our closest living relatives, including the chimpanzee, possess penis bones, but those bones are very small. It is possible that our primate relatives may too eventually lose their bacula.

Indeed, perhaps it’s more a question of why the other great apes still have bacula, rather than why we humans lack them. Complete loss of a baculum in humans seems to just continue a trend towards baculum size reduction which is found among the great apes.

It is also thought the presence of a baculum is associated with longer mating or perhaps just much more mating (as in the case of the lion discussed above). Perhaps the mating systems of humans are such that they don’t require this additional help.

I say “perhaps” here because so little has been published about the baculum that we really can’t say for sure. It would certainly be interesting to learn more.

And while we’re on the subject of learning more, did you know it’s not just males that have genital bones? There is also a female version of the baculum in some species which has a rather lovely name – the “baubellum”, or “os clitoris”.

While very little research has been done in this area as well, it seems to be generally accepted that the baubellum (which means “little gem” in latin) is essentially an equivalent of male nipples – a non-functional, under-developed version of the functional male counterpart.

So, will such bones, penile or otherwise, stand up to sexual selection? It’s hard to know.

A version of this article first appeared on PygmyLoris.

This article was originally published at The Conversation.
Read the original article.

Officers Club and apostrophes.

I am a bit of a grammar ninja. I really am one of those assholes who can’t see any excuse for bad grammar and inappropriate use of, or complete lack of, punctuation – ESPECIALLY when such pillaging of the English language is carried out by big companies who really should know better – or, at the very least, hire someone to check these things over.

I’m talking to you, high-street male clothing chain Officers Club. I present you with the first faux pas right there – as the company belongs to the officers, the name should read “Officers’ Club” (note the addition of an apostrophe). But that’s not my only beef with this particular company. I walked past the Newcastle branch of the store today and saw window stickers that absolutely horrified me. Unfortunately I did not have my camera on my person at the time and so have had to somewhat crudely reproduce the window stickers using Paint, but I can assure you that for the purpose of this discussion, they are accurate enough.

Officers Club (sic), I can deal with you neglecting to place an apostrophe in your name. I get that it might be quirky or cool to be grammatically rebellious and the kids on the street might really relate to that side of your personality. But to then insert apostrophes where they are not only completely unnecessary, but are so obviously against all the rules of punctuation that I am willing to pull out my own hair from my scalp and use it to cover up this absolutely unforgivable defecation on everything everyone has ever learned in English class: Then it becomes personal.

If there is an Officers Club near you, do go and have a look at their windows and if nothing else, just shake your head at the shop. They may think you’re insane, but you can hold your disappointed head high, proud of the fact that you know how to use basic primary school level punctuation, and this massive company does not. If you want to make more of an impact, perhaps write them a strongly worded email or go and laugh in the face of the manager. Tell them Loris sent you.

LET ALL THOSE WHO LOVE GRAMMAR UNITE AND STAND AGAINST THOSE WHO ABUSE IT