Saturday, July 08, 2006

Snail sex

The other day, I noticed that two of my giant African land snails (GALS) were mating.

This surprised me as I thought that there was only one big enough, but apparently I was wrong.

It's a little known fact that all snails are hermaphrodites, possessing both male and female sexual organs (but it still takes two of them to make baby snailies). It made me think about whether the world would be a better place if we were all hermaphrodites. And here's my argument for it.

1) No homophobia, as hetro- and homosexuality would cease to exist.

2) No problems of gay couples having to adopt or lesbians getting a sperm donor from somewhere, and the inherent problems. So you could have your own biological children with the person you love.

3) You'd never meet the person of your dreams who was perfect for you, but by a cruel twist of fate was not of your preferred gender.

4) Both of you would share the burden of childbirth.

5) If there were no men, there would be no porn industry. Not that I have anything against porn in general, but there's a fair amount of expoitation going on there, especially animal and child porn (which I do have a problem with).

6) There would be less violence. Men tend to be violent because of an evolutionary pressure - they needed to fight off other males for access to the limited resource of females (who spend a lot of time pregnant or breastfeeding and therefore unavailable as mates, while males are always available). If everyone could impregnate everyone else, there would be plenty of mates for all. I guess it follows from there that if there were no males, we probably wouldn't have war.

7) If one of a pair happened to be unable to produce fertile eggs, they could potentially still have babies "the other way round", by impregnating their partner. So there would be fewer couples who desperately wanted a child but couldn't.

8) Everyone would have breasts.

9) The toilet seat could always be left up.

10) Your husband would understand your PMT, because he'd have it too. Ha.

11) You wouldn't have to queue for ages for the ladies' loo in nightclubs, while the men's are all but empty.

12) No sexual discrimination.

Anyone think of any others?

8 comments:

  1. Uh. I'm speechless.

    I don't think I'll ever view escargot the same way again.

    ;-)

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  2. No, no, no, Anna, No.9 - the toilet seat can always be left DOWN!

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  3. I'm desperately trying to think of something that I can't do now, which I could do with additional male parts.

    Nope! Can't think of anything positive whatsoever.

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  4. Everyone would have breasts.

    NOW you're talking! I want little perky ones . . .

    A well thought-out piece, Anna.

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  5. And there would be no "ladies first" thing.....

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  6. Hi Alternative Anna,
    Came here by way of Cherrypie.

    I loved the sexy snail picture and would like to add that while there would be no war, catfights would escalate to a monstrous level. Another benefit would be that we could sit there patting our husband's hand and saying "Breathe, honey..." while he suffered through 10 hours of contractions!

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  7. I want little perky ones . . .

    Hooray! Breasts all round!!

    I'd forgotten that one of the disadvantages would be the serious increase in bitching, but I think having hubby give birth would more than make up for it!

    Welcome to oneday and carmentza!!

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  8. Uhh . . . everyone would have to come out of their shell?

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