Of Man and Dog - A Guest Post by Catherine Brown

Penguin, 2012

I have recently read In Defence of Dogs by John Bradshaw, biologist and founder-director of the Anthrozoology Institute at the University of Bristol. The font is academically-small and intimidating. The book is good.

I will pass on its arguments as though they are true. For Bradshaw has done a great deal of research into canine behaviour and, though his findings and inferences are controversial, I have no independent reason to doubt them. In any case, whether they are true or not, they have prompted some interesting reflections in me about pooches and people.

I.

Bradshaw describes the generic mutt; for example, the village dog that one finds all over Africa. They all look roughly alike and share a common evolutionary history that made them perfectly fit for purpose. Selective breeding, however, at the hands of man over millennia, has necessarily produced dogs which are rather less fit. Unfortunately for them, dogs no longer get to choose their own sexual partners and the characteristics for which they're selected, such as utility or good looks, often don't have anything to do with ensuring their survival or improving their health.

It's little wonder therefore that veterinary science is now needed to bridge the fitness-gap that's been opened up and that animal trainers and psychologists are required to deal with dogs that are deemed suboptimal companions. Given that we don't breed certain types of dog primarily for fellowship, it's a bit rich when we complain of aggression or anxiety in our animals, as though these traits were not entirely of our own creation.

Fortunately, we humans, by contrast, resemble village dogs. Except in aristocracies, which have their own problems with fitness, we breed more or less at will, in order to be all-round, well-adapted men and women. Ease of long-distance travel has broadened our gene pools still further. Huxley's Brave New World gives us one vision as to what would happen were it otherwise. Dogs give us another. Were we to be bred by a scientific elite or an alien master race, it's perfectly feasible (and amusing to imagine) that we too might become subdivided into human equivalents of Schnauzers, Dobermans, Bichon Frises, Golden Retrievers, Boxers, Borzois and the rest.

So, in short, most dogs in the Western world are now more pedigree than mongrel; even what is called a mongrel is likely to have at least one pedigree parent or grandparent. By contrast we are for the most part comfortably and healthily mongrel. We don’t need annual vaccinations and monthly worming, as our dogs do, and we are all the better off for it.

II.

Dogs are wolves at arrested stages of development. Even the skull of a little Pekingese resembles that of the wolf foetus; it just doesn’t keep growing into the long, narrow skull of the wolf. Unlike wolves, however, dogs continue to play when they are adults, and are dependent on humans throughout their lives. They therefore never become psychologically mature and independent, as wolves do. Because of the consistency of food supply throughout the year, they are fertile all the year round, unlike wolves, which mate in winter in order to give birth in spring. But because the food that humans can spare for dogs is limited, they are smaller than wolves. They are less fussy about sexual partners than are wolves, which pair-bond, whereas dogs are promiscuous.

And so we, people, are more dog than wolf. We are smaller than earliest man because of our more herbivorous diet (we are only now re-approaching the size of early humans). We are fertile all the year round, and, although we pair-bond to a degree, we are more promiscuous than wolves are. We play, with our child toys or our adult toys, at our child games or our adult games, throughout our lives. Of course, this dogginess is unsurprising, given that we bred dogs in our own image.

Yet the wolves from which we created dogs are not today’s wolves. Since we have persecuted wolves almost to extinction, we have negatively selected those which are most distrustful of us to be the survivors. It is likely that dogs descended from wolves living around 20,000 years ago which had a mutation which enabled them to form relationships with more than one species - our own as well as their own. This mutation served them well; their numbers now dwarf those of wolves.

But, especially in the twentieth century, dog psychology has misleadingly tried to understand dogs with reference to a) modern wild wolves, which are a distrustful, persecuted minority, and b) captive wolves, which, not being able to form and dissolve their own packs, are far more agonistic and violently hierarchical than are the internally-peaceful nuclear family packs of the wild. These false reference points, combined with the false assumption that dogs are essentially wolves in dogs’ clothing, has led to the stress on dominance in dog training.

The assumptions are: every dog wants to be top dog; dogs treat humans as members of their pack; every attempt at dog dominance must be thwarted, and so on. In fact, dogs relate very differently to humans as compared to others of their own kind, and tend to be far more dependent on the former, even in households of multiple dogs. At our own best, we are dog-like in our sociability with all other members of our species, not just within our nuclear families. Where we become wolf-like, in our rivalry with and violent hostility towards other packs, is at the level of the nation. Best to keep dogs within our sights.

Finally, one of the things that makes us human (and dog-like) is our ability to interact with, and nurture, multiple species. This is apparent in the story of the evolution of dogs from wolves. The explanation that wolves were initially tolerated as scavengers in villages is not sufficient by way of explanation of the beginnings of domestication - why would wolves prefer human scraps to the far better and more plentiful food that they can hunt for themselves? Nor is the idea that humans consciously took wolves to train them for various useful purposes, such as those for which working dogs are used today, sufficient as an explanation.

The evidence is that hunter-gatherers, past and present, adopt a variety of baby animals to bring up alongside their own young, simply for the joy of the process, a delight in their cuteness, a delight in play, and, in some cases, the status that accrues from having pets. Amongst today’s Penan of Borneo, and the Huaorani of the Amazon rainforst, parrots, toucans, wild ducks, raccoons, small deer, rodents, opossums, and monkeys are all adopted. Indigenous Australians foster dingo puppies, which, when they become unmanageable adults, are simply driven away to reproduce in the wild. It is likely that the same happened with wolf puppies - and that, eventually, a few of the puppies became domesticated as well as tame, so that they consented to reproduce in a human environment, and thus were set on their course to become dogs.

This is one of the most charming things about humans that I know - that we care about the survival of species other than our own, for reasons other than utility. We delight in nurturing, cuteness, and play, will spend our limited resources on these things, and have done so for as long as we have been human.

Catherine Brown is an English literature academic who also blogs, tweets, and writes for the media. Her literary interests centre on novels and plays of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the wider cultural histories of England and Russia. Her tweets tend to be about D.H. Lawrence; her blog posts are mostly reviews of books, films, plays, and exhibitions, or reflections on politics and religion. 

Catherine appears here as part of the Torpedo the Ark Gastautoren Programm and I am very grateful for her kind permission to reproduce, revise and edit this text, which originally appeared on her own blog. 

Gotta Gettaway (Confessions of a Desperate Housewife)

Front cover to SLF single Gotta Gettaway 

(Rough Trade, 1979)

Although Daventry Road is far, far removed from Wisteria Lane - and although I'm certainly no Bree Van de Kamp - it appears that my Essex exile has resulted in my becoming a desperate housewife caught up in an endless cycle of cooking, cleaning and caring.

None of these activities are particularly objectionable in themselves, I suppose. And it's true that Lawrence was never happier than when baking bread or attending to the daily chores whilst Frieda lounged in bed smoking cigarettes and thinking of her lovers. 

But the domestic life isn't for everyone: even as a young child I despised carpets and comfortable chairs, potted plants and knick-knacks. I could see they were covered not only in layers of dust, but in falsehood. 

As I grew older, I realised that at the heart of every family home lies none of the humility and sweetness spoken of in the song, but secret hatred and unspoken disgust between the sexes and generations.

And this was why the Stiff Little Fingers single Gotta Gettaway (1979) struck such a powerful chord with me at the time and continues to resonate even now ...  

Reflections on Exile

Able was I ere I saw Essex

It's been suggested, rather snidely, that my Essex exile is entirely self-imposed; something voluntarily entered into and which I'm thus responsible for.      

Of course, I'm far too fatalistic a thinker to accept this piece of naive psychologizing which rests upon the rational-moral fallacy of a free-willing subject exercising complete control over the course of actions and events.

But, however it came to pass, my Essex exile is an unfolding reality and a profoundly unpleasant one at that.

It's not that I feel banished from a beloved homeland - something that the Greeks regarded as a fate worse than death - so much as shut-out from a way of life which, limited as it was in opportunity and human contact, was nonetheless my own; i.e. a piece of chaos to which I'd given style. 

Thus my Essex exile is more a form of aesthetico-existential deprivation rather than geographical displacement. I do miss London: especially Soho. But mostly I miss the series of small habits, daily routines and rhythms that enabled a reassuring and necessary consistency and continuity of self (or at least the impression of such).

As Deleuze and Guattari note, even nomads happy to wander homelessly in that savage realm of dangerous knowledge outside the gate have to keep enough elements of subjectivity in order to be able to respond to the dominant reality when they wake up in the morning.

And so, as poets from Ovid to Oscar Wilde have discovered, exile isn't much fun or easy to bear if it involves a loss of soul and not merely a loss of familiar streets and favourite haunts.  

Gokkun: Notes on the Swallowing (and Spitting) of Semen

Artist's impression of a woman drinking semen

wikipedia.org 

Whilst it's certainly the case that semen can contain some nasty surprises - and whilst I'm not insisting anyone should swallow if they'd rather spit - the fact is protein-rich, fat-free male ejaculate contains a harmless (arguably beneficial) mix of elements including amino acids, sugars, minerals, and other nutrients.

So it appears to make good sense - on slightly spurious health grounds at least - to gobble down as much of the stuff as possible whenever you have the opportunity to do so (unless you happen to be one of those unfortunate individuals who suffers from the rare condition known as seminal plasma hypersensitivity).    

Of course, there's always the issue of taste to consider; not everyone is going to like a mouthful of spunk, no matter what the reputed health benefits may be. Some find it bitter, some find it salty, and some - because of the high zinc level - find it slightly metallic on the tongue. Others just find the very thought of it disgusting; Anaïs Nin, for example, rather surprisingly listed penis-sucking as among her pet hates, even though her formula for happiness involved having multiple male lovers.

Obviously, the health and diet of the donor will significantly contribute to the flavour. If you want to sweeten up your semen then drinking lots of fresh pineapple juice is advisable. Other ingredients that are said to improve the palatability include cinnamon, lemon, and green tea. (It's probably best to lay off the red meat and black coffee unless your partner happens to like that distinctively sharp-strong taste.)

Interestingly, a study conducted in 2002 suggested semen may even act as an anti-depressant for heterosexual women - but only if absorbed through the walls of the vagina, so that's not really pertinent to our discussion here. Also, despite their regular contact with and consumption of semen, homosexual men have statistically higher rates of depression. Thus one should probably exercise a degree of skepticism in relation to this question of semen and its beneficial properties.

Whilst ingesting it is not going to kill you, neither will it really work wonders for your physical and psychological well-being. For despite what some people like to believe, seminal fluid really isn't a magical elixir of life.

And those men who take mortal offence when their partner's prefer not to swallow - as if it were an outrageous slight on their precious manhood - are usually just wankers who narcissistically fetishize their own virility and bodily fluids; which is fine, but not when it results in coercion in the bedroom.

Everyone has the right to refuse to engage in sexual acts they are uncomfortable with or find unpleasant: everyone has the right to spit.      

On the Cancerous Downside of Cunnilingus (with Reference to the Case of Michael Douglas)

Image: someecards.com

I've long admired the work of American actor and producer Michael Douglas; ever since his days alongside the magnificent Karl Malden in The Streets of San Francisco in fact. 

For whatever reason, throughout a period stretching across three decades Douglas displayed a brilliant knack for making critically interesting and commercially successful movies that perfectly captured the cultural, political and sexual concerns of his era. These include The China Syndrome (1979), Fatal Attraction (1987), Wall Street (1987), Basic Instinct (1992), and Joel Schumacher's controversial drama Falling Down (1993).

Sadly, in 2010 it was announced that Douglas had been diagnosed with an advanced form of throat cancer (later revealed to actually be tongue cancer), for which he would undergo chemotherapy. As well attributing the cancer to stress, heavy drinking, and a lifelong cigarette habit, Douglas also indicated in a 2013 interview with The Guardian that he blamed it on his penchant for cunnilingus.

Whether the latter was a contributory factor or not, I don't know. But it's certainly the case that human papilloma virus (HPV) can be spread via oral sex and is known to cause cancer. In fact, it's estimated that around a quarter of all mouth cancers and a third of throat cancers are HPV related.

It's also known that HPV related oropharyngeal cancer is twice as common in men than women and is most common of all in heterosexual men. This indicates that giving head to a woman is not only more complex and uncomfortable than fellating a man, but also a far riskier proposition; the thinner, moist skin of the cunt containing a much higher concentration of the virus than the dry skin of the penis (though it should be noted that HPV can certainly be passed on in semen).               

All of which is unfortunate for devotees of pussy-licking - though health concerns happily never deter illicit lovers ...  


Note: despite the advanced stage of his cancer, I'm pleased to report that the treatment Michael Douglas recieved was effective and he is (as far as I know) presently in good health. 

Vaginal Seeding: Why C-Section Babies are Dipped in Love Juice

Illustration by Cara Gibson (2015) of vaginal seeding procedure. 

The left panel shows a sterile gauze incubating in the vagina prior to C-section. 

The right panel shows the gauze colonized by vaginal microbes being swabbed on the newborn. 

mostlymicrobes.com

In the UK today approximately 1 in 4 births are by Caesarian section. This figure is lower than the US and Australia where around a third of babies are delivered via surgical incisions in the abdomen and uterus, but it has significantly increased during the last couple of decades. In 1990, for example, still only around 10% of births were C-sections and these were mostly carried out on medical grounds to protect the well-being of mother and child.  

Doubtless there are many reasons for this development; pregnant women in the West are often now much heavier and much older, for example, and this may necessitate the real or perceived need for a Caesarian.

But we must also mention the narcissistic arrogance of those women too posh to push who regard giving birth 'naturally' as messy, painful, inconvenient and archaic. For such women, a Caesarian is not so much an emergency procedure as it is a combination of human right, professional expediency, and a sign that one can afford to be bang on trend when it comes to the latest fashion in obstetrics.

Of course, it's not simply the mothers-to-be to blame; as with the boom in cosmetic surgery the medical profession is doubtless complicit in the insidious rise in the number of C-sections performed and the normalization of such. It's worth noting that in the US a hospital can charge many thousands of dollars more for a non-vaginal delivery.

And then there's the Hollywood factor: I read recently in a popular fashion and gossip magazine, that it's not only the biggest names in film, TV, and popular music who are electing to have their babies this way: Even C-list celebrities are crazy for C-sections.

Whatever, the reason, the sad fact is that children born in this manner seem to be more prone to a range of medical conditions including asthma, obesity and, later in life, diabetes. The reason for this brings me back to a topic currently of much interest: vaginal fluid.

It seems that babies born via the birth canal receive a sticky coating of lubrication containing a vital cocktail of immune-boosting microbes. Babies delivered surgically, however, miss out on this and as a result suffer a bacterial deficit which, some scientists now speculate, may be a key factor in the health problems more frequently found in those born by Caesarian.

I find it interesting and amusing that the same salty elixir that is deadly to sperm due to its acidity and which commonly carries the cancer-causing HP virus that nearly did for Michael Douglas, is so beneficial for babies that even C-section newborns are now being swabbed with their mother's cunt juice.

Pussy Juice (Isis Unveiled)

Isis Unveiled - Print by Linda Hill (2014)

theredseeds.wordpress.com

One of the most pleasing aspects of Lawrence's rewriting of the Resurrection myth is that the man who died at last surrenders to the temptations of the flesh and finally discovers the unique joy of deeply penetrating the interfolded warmth of a living body.

By going unto the woman of Isis, he overcomes his fear of physical touch and exchanges the stale smell of the tomb for the exquisite scent of her cunt, which, Lawrence writes, is like the essence of roses. The man who died thus learns that there are many ways of entering into holy communion and serving God without having to deny the world or martyr oneself. 

In other words, between the limbs of a pagan priestess the man who died abandons his virgin idealism; she washes away his youthful fanaticism, his self-disgust and his pain, not with tears, but with the secretions of her vagina.

Being a fertile young woman, sexually aroused by a stranger she mistook for Osiris (i.e. the god for whom she had long searched in order that he may fecundate her womb), we can assume her cunt to be naturally well lubricated at the time of coition.

But it's interesting to note, is it not, that the actual lining of the vagina contains no glands and it's plasma seepage from the vaginal wall due to vascular engorgement that is thought to be the chief source of moisture. This is topped up by mucus from glands located near the vaginal opening and cervical secretions at the time of ovulation (the fact that the priestess is impregnated by the man who died provides us with evidence of where she was on her menstrual cycle).  

The resultant fluid, or pussy juice as some like to call it, varies in consistency, texture, colour, odour and taste depending on a variety of factors. These include the level of arousal, time of the month, health and diet. Although some lovers like to think of it as sweet honeydew, vaginal lubrication is actually quite acidic in composition, normally somewhere between 3.8 and 4.5 on the pH scale, in (deadly) contrast to the neutrality of semen which is typically between 7.2 and 8.0.  

Thus, ironically, although a kind of paradise offering those who enter a form of bliss that is immanent to desire, the cunt is a fairly inhospitable environment; not only actively hostile to sperm, but a place where insects and deities lose their way.


See: D. H. Lawrence, 'The Escaped Cock' in The Virgin and the Gipsy and Other Stories, ed. Michael Herbert, Bethan Jones and Lindeth Vasey (Cambridge University Press, 2014). 

Of Mites and Men (Notes on the World of Dust)

Apart from having to listen all day (and often all night) long to my mother's babbling stream of consciousness - an inane interior monologue involuntarily made public thanks to her dementia - one of the more depressing aspects of my Essex exile is living in a home in which dust is a permanent and triumphant feature.

Like many people, I used to subscribe to the comforting myth that dust is essentially made up of dead skin cells; i.e. human in origin and harmlessly inert. But, thanks to Mr Sheen, I now know that this isn't the full story. In fact, the composition of dust is far more complex, far more vital, and potentially far more menacing.

For house dust not only contains human detritus, but also insect remains, plant pollen, animal hairs and various fibres, materials and pollutants found in the local environment all of which create a perfect feeding and breeding ground for microscopic, translucent-bodied arachnids known as dust mites.

These cosmopolitan little creatures are the major inhabitants of dust and they flourish in the dark, warm spaces provided by mattresses, bedding (particularly pillows), upholstered furniture, carpets, etc. Unfortunately, their faeces is known to contain an enzyme harmful to people, particularly those with asthma who are commonly allergic to such. Dust mites are also thought to be a cause of eczema.

As if the thought of these mites creeping about shitting everywhere weren't bad enough, scientists who have studied the subject also estimate there are more than 70,000 types of fungi and over 125,000 kinds of bacteria contained in the dust we vainly try to keep at bay and which we inhale with every breath.

One day, perhaps, it might be possible to artificially control and manipulate the dust; to fill our homes with microbes that actively improve human health. Until then, the best we can do is either wipe and vacuum with renewed vigour, or hope that Quentin Crisp was telling the truth when he observed that after four or five years the build up of dust plateaus.


Notes 

Photo of Quentin Crisp (NYC, 1999) by Piers Allardyce. 

Readers interested in dusty ecosystems and bacterial diversity might like to explore the online public science project established by the Rob Dunn Lab entitled Wild Life of Our Homes.

On Revolutionary Fun (A Message for May Day)

If you make a revolution, writes Lawrence, don't act with ascetic militancy in the name of some grand ideal, or in order to seize control of the economy; make it simply for the pleasure of gobbing in the eye of those who would assert authority and the anarchic joy of upsetting the old order.

As a manifesto, this will doubtless strike many terrorists of theory interested in preserving the pure order of politics and the serious business of revolution, as puerile and irresponsible; the sort of romantic tosh that only a poet can get away with.

Nevertheless, it rather nicely anticipates the poststructuralist thinking that flourished prior to, during, and after the festive upheaval of May '68 and, indeed, encapsulates the insouciant nihilism of punk as conceived by a Situationist-inspired Malcolm McLaren in the mid-late Seventies.    

What unites Lawrence with Deleuze and ties Anti-Oedipus to Never Mind the Bollocks, is a perverse refusal to conform to the accepted way of doing things as prescribed by tradition (be it a literary, philosophical, or artistic tradition); they challenge and change the terms of the debate and shift the zone of combat, discrediting old idols in the process.

But above all, these figures and these works show us that we do not have to be sad or self-serious in order to be radical. Thus, paraphrasing Lawrence if I may: If you want to torpedo the ark, don't do it in ghastly seriousness, don't do it in deadly earnest - do it for fun.


See: D. H. Lawrence, 'A Sane Revolution', in The Complete Poems, ed. Vivian de Sola Pinto and F. Warren Roberts, (Penguin Books, 1977). 

Some Wear Leather, Some Wear Lace

Some Wear Leather, Some Wear Lace (front cover photo)

The rapid evolution of popular music and youth culture in the wake of punk continues to fascinate many commentators, including some who weren't even born in the wildly exciting and experimental period between 1979 and 1984.

Despite their non-being during this era, Andi Harriman and Marloes Bontje have lovingly assembled a visual and written record of the time when some wore leather, some wore lace, but all of us - with a greater or lesser degree of success - wore eyeliner and adopted a somewhat gothic sensibility (transforming from punks to pagans and swapping safety pins for magical amulets).

Why things mutated in the manner they did - why kids who started off pogoing at the 100 Club ended  up posing at the Batcave - is a question that the above authors don't really address in a book which, although rich in photos, is disappointingly light on theory. But it's not one I pretend to know the answer to either.

I've heard it suggested, however, that the nihilistic energy and almost childlike joy in destruction of punk was not only impossible to sustain, but quickly became emotionally unsatisfying for those sensitive and creative individuals interested in developing a more sophisticated and glamourous aesthetic that would allow them to express feelings other than anger, boredom and hatred.

I suspect there's something in this argument.  At any rate, better Siouxsie and the Banshees than Sham 69 ...        

See: Some Wear Leather, Some Wear Lace: The Worldwide Compendium of Postpunk and Goth in the 1980s (Intellect, 2014), by Andi Harriman and Marloes Bontje. 

Note: those who are interested in knowing more about the above authors and their work should visit the Postpunk Project by clicking here.