The Lady and the Chimp

Star-crossed lovers: 

Adie Timmermans and Chita the Chimp

 

 

A story that caught my eye earlier this week concerns a woman in Belgium who has been banned by a zoo in Antwerp from visiting the ape enclosure, due to the fact that she was conducting an affair with one of the residents; a chimpanzee named Chita.   

 

For the past four years, Adie Timmermans has visited Chita - who has been held captive at the zoo for thirty years - on a weekly basis and developed a close bond with him, waving and exchanging kisses through the glass (and across the species divide) that separates them. 

 

But now the zoo have stepped in, expressing concern that what they regard as an illicit relationship is negatively impacting upon Chita's natural affinity with members of his own kind; other chimps - perhaps jealous of his rapport with a human - have allegedly begun to exclude him from group activities. 

 

And so, rather cruelly I think, the zoo has banned 38-year-old Ms. Timmermans from making any further contact with Chita, breaking his heart and hers; for parting isn't such sweet sorrow when you don't know if you will ever see one another again.  

 

Keepers have been instructed to help Chita interact more with his fellow chimps. But surely they could have made alternative arrangements; building a private space, for example, in which Chita and Adie could have lived happily ever after in zoosexual bliss ...   

 

 

Onychophilia: Notes on Two Types of Nail Fetish

I. 

Ninkondi (one of the variant plural forms of nkondi, meaning 'hunter') are fetish objects made by the Kongo people of Central Africa's Congo region. They are intended not merely to offer protection, but to house a powerful spirit that can be enlisted to track down one's enemies, inflicting misfortune or illness upon them.

As can be seen in the above image, a nkondi is usually a carved human figure - though it can sometimes be an animal - with a cavity in the abdomen, into which a medicine man stuffs ingredients thought to have supernatural properties. The figures range in size from small to life-size and are sometimes adorned with feathers.

Nails (or blades) were driven into the figure in order to affirm an oath or curse - or perhaps to activate the spirit within. Controversially, some scholars believe that the native peoples were influenced in this practice by images that Portuguese missionaries carried with them from Europe of Christ nailed to the cross and Saint Sebastian pierced with arrows. 

Fascinating as all this is, I have to confess that when it comes to nail fetishes, I'm more interested in the long, sharp fingernails of beautiful young women, than rusty bits of iron banged into a wooden figure for the purposes of witchcraft ...

II.

Whilst fingernail fetish is often framed and discussed within the wider category of hand partialism, I think that it deserves critical attention in its own right. For the nails are not like any other part of the hand in that they are not composed of living material; they are made, rather, of a tough protective protein called alpha-keratin.

D. H. Lawrence describes his fingernails as "ten little weapons between me and an inanimate universe, they cross the mysterious Rubicon between me alive and things [...] which are not alive, in my own sense".

Thus, I think there's something in the claim that what nail (and hair) fetishists are ultimately aroused by is death; that they are, essentially, soft-core necrophiles.* Having said that, the human nail as a keratin structure (known as an unguis) is closely related to the claws and hooves of other animals, so I suppose one could just as legitimately suggest a zoosexual origin to the love of fingernails.

Whilst some readers will best like fingernails in their natural state - i.e., unvarnished and unadorned - I have to express a preference for added colour; preferably red or black. I know there's a wide variety of other colours and shades available, but they don't excite my interest so much. Nor do I care for overly decorative designs and fancy finishes.

Finally, whilst clearly having something in common, I think that amychophilia is quite disinct from onychophilia; the latter is a love of fingernails as things in themselves; the former a love of the pain they can inflict, when grown long and sharp.

In other words, the amorous subject who desires to be violently scratched is a kind of masochist; whilst an onychophile, in the purest sense, would be more aroused by simply observing the following scene, described in fetishistic detail by Daphne du Maurier:

"The Marquise lay on her chaise-longue on the balcony of the hotel. She wore only a wrapper, and her sleek gold hair, newly set in pins, was bound close to her head in a turquoise bandeau that matched her eyes. Beside her chair stood a little table, and on it were three bottles of nail varnish all of a different shade.
      She had dabbed a touch of colour on to three separate finger-nails, and now she held her hand in front of her to see the effect. No, the varnish on the thumb was too red, too vivid, giving a heated look to her slim olive hand, almost as if a spot of blood had fallen there from a fresh-cut wound.
      In contrast, her fore-finger was a striking pink, and this too seemed to her false, not true to her present mood. It was the elegant rich pink of drawing-rooms, of ball-gowns, of herself standing at some reception, slowly moving to and fro her ostrich feather fan, and in the distance the sound of violins.
      The middle finger was touched with a sheen of silk neither crimson nor vermilion, but somehow softer, subtler; the sheen of a peony in bud, not yet opened to the heat of the day but with the dew of the morning upon it still. [...]
      Yes, that was the colour. She reached for cotton-wool and wiped away the offending varnish from her other finger-nails, and then slowly, carefully, she dipped the little brush into the chosen varnish and, like an artist, worked with swift, deft strokes.
      When she had finished she leant back in her chaise-longue, exhausted, waving her hands before her in the air to let the varnish harden - a strange gesture, like that of a priestess." 


Notes

* There has been at least one recorded case in which an illicit lover derived pleasure from eating the nail trimmings of corpses (necro-onychophagia), thereby lending support to the theory that nail fetishism has a far darker and more ghoulish undercurrent. See R. E. L. Masters and Eduard Lea, Perverse Crimes in History: Evolving concepts of sadism, lust-murder, and necrophilia - from ancient to modern times (Julian Press, 1963). 

D. H. Lawrence, 'Why the Novel Matters', in Study of Thomas Hardy and Other Essays, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 193.

Daphne du Maurier, 'The Little Photographer', in The Birds and Other Stories, (Virago Press, 2004), p. 160.

The photo on the left at the top of the post is of a 19th-century nkondi figure belonging to the Arts of Africa Collection of the Brooklyn Museum, NY. The photo on the right, is an advertising poster for a nail bar, available to buy on eBay: click here.

Lady Chatterley's Orang-Outang

Oliver Mellors as we might imagine him

Although Lady Chatterley's Lover was set in England and not the rainforests of Borneo or Sumatra, it sometimes amuses me to think of Mellors as an orang-outang and, indeed, there is plenty of good reason to do so ...

For one thing, Mellors has reddish fair-brown hair like one of these great apes and prefers to spend most of his time alone among the trees; so much so that he is known to French readers as l'homme des bois. He is also highly intelligent and adapt at using a variety of tools with his nimble-fingered hands - again, just like an orang-outang.  

Further, as a gamekeeper, his life is endangered by poaching and he knows that his wooded home is under increasing threat of destruction by the modern world, whose inhabitants he regards with suspicion and hostility.  

Of course, the comparison between literature's most famous gamekeeper and King Louie only stretches so far. Physically, for example, there isn't much resemblance; Mellors being relatively slim-bodied with handsome limbs, whereas the latter is a large and bulky beast, with a thick neck, very long arms and short, bowed legs.

Nor does Mellors possess the distinctive cheek flaps made of fatty tissue, known as flanges, that characterise adult male orang-outangs, though one can't help wondering if Connie would have found him more or less attractive if he did (female ourang-outangs certainly display a marked preference for males with such, over those without). 

This might seem like a rather ridiculous question, but the sexual relationship between humans and orang-outangs is an interesting one. Amongst the native peoples of Sumatra and Borneo, for example, there are legends and folk tales involving interspecies shenanigans, including acts of copulation - some of which were said to involve rape.*

No wonder then that Connie is a little frightened by Mellors, the ape-man, when she first sees him emerging from the trees with such swift menace - "like the sudden rush of a threat out of nowhere", as Lawrence writes. He may not have flanges, but he does possess a gun and gaiters, a red moustache and the strange potency of manhood - ooh-bi-doo!

*Note: this is not simply a belief amongst supposedly primitive peoples; it is also a popular and persistant fantasy within the pornographic imagination of Westerners that apes, including male orang-outangs, find white women sexually irresistible and will kidnap and forcibly copulate with them if given the opportunity. The racial - and, indeed, racist - overtones of this King Kong complex are well-documented.

Some readers may also be interested to discover that a female orang-outang, named Pony, was rescued from an Indonesian brothel in 2003; she had been shaved and chained and made available for sexual exploitation by customers with zoosexual proclivities.   
 
See: D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover, ed. Michael Squires, (Cambridge University Press, 1993). The line quoted from is in Ch. 5. 

Musical bonus: a magnificent instrumental track by Bow Wow Wow entitled 'Orang-Outang', from the album See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang, Yeah! City All Over, Go Ape Crazy! (1981): click here.

Entomophilia 1: Insect Fetish

Ian Moore: Formicophilia (2014) 

MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art)

Entomophilia is more than just a fondness for insects. It's a form of zoosexuality which might involve being crawled upon, nibbled, tickled, or stung by insects, spiders, or other small creatures such as slugs and snails.

Arguably, it also includes squashing these things underfoot, though some see this as an entirely separate form of sadomasochistic activity based upon animal cruelty rather than animal love; an illicit fetish, rather than a legitimate sexual orientation. I'll discuss the controversial topic of crush fetish in part two of this post.

Here, I want to speak about the innocent practice of applying insects to various parts of the body, including the genital and perianal areas; a practice sometimes known as formicophilia, though, as indicated, it often involves more than simply having ants in your pants (some, for example, are aroused by the gentle touch of a butterfly's wing beating against their nipples, or stimulated by having a cockroach scuttle up their inside leg - and mosquitoes are apparently very popular amongst insect-lovers with a thing for flies).     

Not that there is much more to say; academic research in this area has been extremely limited, so one mostly has to rely upon anaecdotal evidence and personal testimony provided by entomophiles in online chat forums. And, ultimately, there are not that many entomophiles in the world. In fact, as paraphilias go, this one is extremely niche.    

However, in her Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices (1992), the American author and sexologist Brenda Love does describe how one melissophile chanced upon the joy of bees, having discovered that stings to his penis not only greatly increased its size (girth, not length), but also extended the duration and intensity of his orgasm.

Realising that stings to his penis were relatively painless compared to other parts of his body and delighted with the results obtained, the man soon developed his own procedure which consisted of first catching two bees in a jar and vigorously shaking it to ensure the insects were dizzy and thus unable to fly away:

"They were then grabbed by both wings so that they were unable to twist around and sting. Each bee was placed each side of the glans and pushed to encourage it to sting. (Stings to the glans do not produce the desired swelling and the venom sac tends to penetrate the skin too deeply, causing difficulty in removing them)."

Sadly, having performed what was required of them, these cockstinging bees then die, which raises an interesting ethical question that comes into much sharper focus when we discuss the insecticidal aspect of crush porn, a fetishistic practice which certainly offers a new and kinky perspective upon the question of cruelty in relation to eroticism and animal welfare (as well as bringing to mind the line from King Lear involving flies, wanton boys, and killing for pleasure). 


See: Brenda Love, Encyclopedia of Unusual Sexual Practices, (Barricade Books, 1992). 

Readers interested in part two of this post on crush fetish should click here. 

And for a vaguely related post on D. H. Lawrence and field bees, click here.