herbgart’s incite site

I love great art, no matter the medium.

I love great art, no matter the medium.

I love great art, no matter the medium.

House Ethics Committee, "behind closed doors and without a public announcement," killed a requirement that lawmakers disclose who picks up the tab for their "all-expenses-paid trips around the world."

I love great art, no matter the medium.

The Man Who Swam To St. John (Emancipation Day)

By Scott Fagan

In 1985 Shaky Acres (the recovery program that Tuts and I had started in 1981) was going along fairly well, but was in need of a fund-raiser or two. Tuts heard (along with everyone else) of a proposed St. John swim (everybody heard of it because it was considered impossible by most folks, and suicidally dangerous by local folks who knew that there were sharks, starvin’ hungry sharks, out there the size of the battleship “Bismarck”). The UDT (The Frogmen, The Navy Seals, The toughest hombres on or under the sea) while training for many years in St. Thomas, had given up on swimming to St. John because it was simply too crazy and dangerous a deed.

The well-intentioned local lady legislator who had proposed “the swim” was unaware of the deep and dark difficulties inherent in the “big fun fundraiser”

When Tutsie was a young boy, riding back across Sir Francis Drake’s Passage coming home with his Mother from a harvest festival in Cane Garden bay in Tortola, he looked out from the deck of “The Joan Of Arc” or “The Bomba Charger” at Pillsbury Sound (The five-mile stretch of wild water that separates St. Thomas and St. John) he said to her “I cou’ swim ‘crass dat yu kno” His usually gentle and loving mother, scared to death by what she was hearing, tried to discourage this crazy idea once and for all by replying “Man hush up yu schupid mout, why yu like tu talk such schupid craziness?” Tuts didn’t see any reason to discuss it any further, but, he says, the conviction that he could do it, was locked in his mind for ever after.

It was July the third, 1985, Emancipation Day in The Virgin Islands. (Emancipation Day is the day in 1849, on which it became official that the slaves in the Danish West Indies had won their freedom and were now and forever more free) Freedom was a long time coming for the children of Africa in the DWI, and very hard-won, as was Tut’s own personal freedom from drugs and alcohol.

There were forty eight entrants all together, most of them young white kids from the hot-shot St. Croix “Dolphins Swim Team”, they came prepared and ready to succeed, with sleek buoyant body suits, well fitted goggles and the best fins that money could buy

A number of the St. Thomas swimmers, were runners down from the states, budding tri-athletes, an elderly white gent determined to show his wife he still “had it” and half a hand full of locals with a mismatched assortment of masks and fins..

Tuts on the other hand was wearing one pair of big and baggy boxer trunks, y nada mas…

As the other swimmers did warm ups and calisthenics on the sand at Vessup bay, Red Hook, a tough old Tortola sailor, pulled Tuts aside and said” Buaayyy yu, yu crazy buaay? Yuh following de damn schupid white people dem? Yuh don kno de real name fo red hook is shak waff? Buaayy!! Shak ow de biggah den uh submarine! Yu is a black man gon follow dem schupidy white people? Buaayy wha rang wid yuh, yuh crazy o something?”

Tuts concedes that the strongly delivered warning did cause him much concern, but that he had already told everybody over and again that he was going to do it, told them in the strongest terms, in the face of the harshest ridicule. It was common knowledge that no (sane) black person from the Islands could ever, should ever and would ever attempt to make that swim. Therefore, as his sanity was in question, it was also a crucial moment for recovery in the Islands.

At this moment he was demonstrating clearly (to local folks) that local people who went to fellowship meetings “wid de crazy white people dem” were demonstrably nuts (just like they thought) and for him to chicken out before he even hit the water would have sealed it once and for all. Tuts has since confessed that on that particular morning he had decided that he would rather be eaten alive, than quit.

Once the old Tortola man realized that he was not talking to a sensible gentleman of color, he began to encourage him with information about what to expect in terms of currents and where to find what he called “soft spots” in the sea. He stated flatly that “yuh can’t swim directly East ta St. John, yuh have tu swim for “Loango” (Loango Key, a small Island East North East of St. John) and as yuh hold Loango as your goal, the current will be sweepin’ yuh south, look sharp! Buaay, dat is de onliest way to get dare”.

As the swim began, the fast and the fancy took off due East for Cruz bay and before you knew it half of them had been swept away and were heading backwards around Cabrita Point towards Big and Little St. James, then out over the Anegada Trench, (The deepest trench in the Caribbean, on the bottom of which the scariest bug eyed things on earth, with jumping, wiggling electro “bait worms” dangling in front of foot long razor teeth, swim around four miles down, snapping steel trap jaws, and saying fish prayers, to get their dribbly lips around something, anything, soaked and slathered in coconut oil, or greasy mango scented sun tan lotion) and then south and west for St Croix, Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo, Haiti, The Caymans, The Isle of Pines Cuba, and New Orleans. (of course by the time they got to New Orleans there would be nothing left of them but a Speedo tag and whatever plastics they’d swallowed along the way) needless to say, an armada of rescue boats started pulling people in over the gunnels, like langustas on parade, on a fish pot Saturday night.

Tuts was heading for Loango .

Shortly after the fast and the fancy fiasco, the old white gent’s wife, standing in his rescue boat started screaming hysterically “A Shark! A Shark! Oh my God, I see a Shark!” Pull my husband out, pull my husband out, pull him out right now!! Oh my GOD! Pull my husband out right now!

Tuts says the poor old gent was utterly dejected as they pulled him up, his bathing suit drooping below his pale old, pink old, shiny old hiney.

Next went the dapper sharply outfitted “high color” attorney from the states, who had looked most disdainfully upon our man’s baggy boxers and boney bare feet but was now being dragged, thoroughly defeated, flat on his back from the sea to flat on his back on the bottom of the heaving boat.

The boats were heaving now because the seas were heaving now, they were coming into “The Big Blue”. A section of the sound a mile or more wide, in which, or perhaps I ought to say, through which, big serioso, fast moving, megalo mountains of Big Blue Heavy Water Waves (Waves of the sort that make you say “Good Lord” or “Mama Mia” or “Holy Freakin’ Toledo” when you first see them even though you (if you have good sense) are looking at them from your perch on the deck of a big passenger ferry, ten or fifteen feet above the water line.

If you are in the water “down in the hollow” splashing along on your belly and craning your neck up trying to see the top of the wave, you will probably say a lot more than good lord, and if you are Tutsie and your rescue boat is manned by one “Fisherman John” a continental dipso juicehead, that you recently helped to drag off the junk heap of life, but now haven’t seen for over half an hour, most of it will not be printable in a general audience mem.wha? such as this one. But you can believe me when I say, you have probably never heard anything like it.

Eventually, Tuts discovered that if he swam like crazy faster and faster as he got closer and closer to the top and he could then flip over to his back at just the last second the wave would crest and the curl would break over his shoulders. He could “hang there” for seconds, (perhaps one or two of the longest this side of eternity,) and contemplate his mounting misery and helplessness before having to roll over and slide headfirst down down down, ah..down down down, ah down down down, down. (Knowing that some thing is surely waiting in the “trough” to open its porky yaw and scrape the heck out of your back, belly and sides as it swallows you whole)

As I may have mentioned casually a short while ago, this section of the sound was just a splash over a mile or more wide, can you guess how many times your whole life can flash before your eyes before you get completely bored with it?

What you don’t get bored with is the fact that you cannot see either Island or for that matter any thing at all when you are down in the valley, nothing but deep dark blue. So the desperate hope that you might be able to see something, anything, hinting at where you are, (is it Puerto Rico? Is it Berlin?) at the top of the next wave is a powerful draw, and can keep you going for many a repetition.

One time he did see some thing recognizable back on St.Thomas, it was the two super poles that mark the spot where the undersea cable goes down beneath the sea. way down to the bottom, that’s the bottom way way down in the pitch black darkness beneath his own bottom. Better to see nothing he thought, than things as scary as that.

Pretty soon his primary concern had shifted from monstroso seas, to waves slapping him in the face, slap slap slap slap and he realized that he was in a different kind of swim now, the big blue was behind him, and he was battling offshore currents, lucky he had gone for Loango, because now, in spite of his forward motion he was being swept sideways, southward towards “Stephens Key”, a small flat island outside of the Bay of Cruz Bay or Cruz Bay Bay, comprende?

Tuts knew that if he allowed himself to be swept southward beyond Stephens Key, he would be out in the Anegada Trench, and then as likely as not his rescuers would be the Venezuelan Navy. He determined that he had to get to and make it through the spiffy currents around Stephens Key

If the current was running in his favor it could be a breeze, he was exhausted, but just on the inside of Stephens Key was the outer entrance to Cruz Bay. He was almost, almost there.

Alas, the current was not in his favor (unless he wanted to turn around and “go with the flow” back to the “Cabrita express” and the afore-mentioned many points beyond) and this part of the swim took everything but the very best of him. The very best of him was all that kept him kicking; the current was so strong that the surface water was rippling backwards in protest. That’s when the “water under water” is moving too fast for the water “on the water” to keep up, so the surface ripples backwards in tiny little cascades of confusion, all of which seemed to be going right up his nose, and down his throat.

They say that the children of Africa can’t swim. My friend Tutsie has proved time and again, that that is a racist lie, or put another way, demonstrably untrue. Although it is true that Tutsie’s Mother, Miss Meu, born in Dominica, was one half Carib. And although the present effort of the Carib/Arawak Federation is to dispel the myth that they say King Charles of Spain used to promulgate and excuse the genocide of the indigenous Peoples of the Caribbean, specifically, that the Caribs were so wild and savage that they ate people, there is no question that the Caribs were and are among the toughest of the toughest human beings that have ever lived. So our man, three quarters African, One quarter Carib (with a smitter smatter of French and, British, both in the African part of the pie) is lying all but dead in the water, having just burst through the impassable current hole at Stephen’s Rock.

Tuts aka “El Toro” aka “Peperino” aka Skarpy aka “The Rabbi” (that’s another story) aka a hundred other desperado descriptors, is ready to give it up. If only he had the strength to raise his arm to signal surrender or the voice to beg to be dragged out of the sea, he would have done so. But just then the cheerful voice of Fisherman John came sing-songing across the water, “Make it look pretty Tuts! Make it look pretty! We’re almost there man!, Make it look pretty!!!.

Some day I’ll build a statue at Cabrita Point to Victor Antonius “Tutsie” “El Toro” Edwards, one portraying a skinny little mahogany or Brass hued dude in baggy boxers, tilting forward on one leg, the other angled up and out behind, with hands clasped (as in prayer) just above his head, Poised to dive into history.

Tuts became that day the first native Virgin Islander to EVER in all time, swim from St. Thomas to St. John.

It wasn’t pretty as he crawled and dragged himself ashore (water streaming from every orifice), and it wasn’t pretty as he collapsed on the sand, unable to stand for a full three minutes. But in his defense, he was forty freakin’ years old and working with a body that had been ravaged by drugs and alcohol.

The kids on the Dolphin swim team have much to be proud of, they did in their wetsuits, fins and organized swim formations, what the rough and tough UDT had given up on, they made the swim.

I know that where ever these kids are in the world, and where ever they will go, they will always remember that “once upon a time, when we were kids in the islands, my friends and me did the impossible together” they will also remember with awe and admiration “that skinny little fellow in the baggy boxer trunks” that did it alone and bare footed, and then, passed on the champagne and praise, because “that’s not why he was there”.

Tutsie made the swim because it was Emancipation Day, and he wanted to demonstrate and celebrate freedom, he wanted to demonstrate freedom from fear of the sea and the ignorant idea that “Black people can’t swim” He wanted to demonstrate that “recovery is macho” and that black people now need to be emancipated from the chemical slavery that is alcoholism and addiction, and because even though she was long gone, he wanted his mother to know that he could do, what he said he could do, and now it was time to go home… And oh yeah, he did it for Shaky Acres.

Of course we were celebrating Tutsie long before we started Shaky Acres and he swam to St. John. I first recorded “Tutsie” for BANG Records in 1965, (we wore it out on the Juke box at Duffys) and then again for RCA in 1975 as La Biega Carosuel/Tutsie. If you listen closely to this more recent recording of La Biega Carousel/Tutsie (made in St. Thomas in 2005) you’ll hear our friends Jeff Medina, Morgan Rael, Lennie Monsanto, Richard Spencley, Cliff Finch, and Robbie Roberts, strummin’ and bangin’ out the groove and the beautiful ”Of GOD”, Mighty Whitey and April Moran AKA “The Trader Dan’s Forever Memorial Choir” on the choruses. God Bless Emancipation Day and God Bless Us Each And Every One.

Scott Fagan
La Biega Carousel/Tutsie

Copyright 2012, Scott Fagan Music ASCAP.

STADIUM ACTS

Are not bitching about what everybody else is. Money is not their issue. Everybody wants to be in business with them.

The transition in the business is evidenced by the fact that those who consistently sell out stadiums are younger generation acts, baby boomers cannot. Bruce Springsteen can do stadiums overseas, but not in the U.S. U2 may have been off the road long enough to try stadiums again, but without a hit new record, they probably shouldn't.

So the number one worldwide stadium act is One Direction, which breaks merch records wherever it goes, which has more sponsorship/endorsement deals than you can count. If you think the music business is in trouble, you're unfamiliar with their income. It only pales in comparison to those in finance/investment.

Then comes Taylor Swift. The opening act doesn't matter. She made it on her music. If you hate Taylor Swift, either you were involved with her or she wrote a song about your or both, but Ms. Swift is everything that's right about the music business, she told the story of her life in catchy songs, and you wonder why everybody is lining up to give her money?

And then there's Luke Bryan, who fills the structures with support acts, as does Kenny Chesney, still Luke's headliner status cannot be denied. He's had years of hits and makes music in a style trendsetters and tastemakers say is unfashionable, i.e. rock and roll, even though they call it country.

More acts, however thin the layer, are selling out stadiums than in years. This is a good thing.

ARENA ACTS-NEW

Radio hits got them here. That's the power of FM. They might have gotten their start online, but radio is selling 15,000-20,000 tickets a night. More than ever, these acts are pop, because that's what radio is. Will Katy Perry and Rihanna still sell ducats when they run out of hits? History says no, but we're rewriting history as we sit here.

Ticket prices are astronomical, so even though recorded music revenues are down, today's arena acts make more money than yesterday's. In the heyday of the early seventies, tickets to the arena were less than ten dollars. Today?

ARENA ACTS-CLASSIC

And the classic example is the Eagles, who go clean everywhere at prices so high that there's enough money to fly private and everybody takes home millions. Sure, it was easier to stay home and count record revenue than plying the boards, still, there's a lot of money out there for classic acts that can still sell out arenas.

And then there are the neo-classics, like Metallica, which still make new albums that some people care about and may not do stadiums in the U.S., but do so outside of it. Illustrating, once again, the myopia of those who don't realize there's more money to be made outside the U.S. than in it.

FESTIVAL HEADLINER-REFORMED ACT

The quintessential example is Outkast. Stay away long enough and festival promoters will pay you uber bucks to reunite and headline their weekend. Because festivals need a draw, and novelty sells. Payment is high, work is relatively easy, but when the festival season is over you'd have better saved your money, because your earning days, if not through, will probably not reach this stratospheric level again.

FESTIVAL UNDERCARD

They've got to fill out the bill. If you're a real name, who can sell tickets elsewhere, welcome to a decent payday. If you've done something and are new you'll get an appearance. But do not believe playing the undercard means you will work next year, or get booked on festivals the following year. The festival is not about you. And only a few attendees care about you. And almost no act breaks out of, never mind is revived out of, festivals. Want to make money at a festival? Be the promoter!

SHED ACTS

Tend to be repackaged classic rockers. There's a lot of money in it. Hundreds of thousands of dollars a night if you can sell tickets. The owners have to fill the seats, to satiate sponsors. They need draws. So Styx can work every year, as can Def Leppard, but most of these acts do have to work every year, income is good, but not enough to retire. You may be able to take one season off.

Then there are the new acts playing sheds. Occasionally there's a breakout headliner, oftentimes it's packages. These acts are on the way up as opposed to experiencing a victory lap. They are not rolling in dough. They are on the cusp. They're not bitching about Spotify payments, but they're looking at every avenue to make coin. They're hungry for sponsorships, they want to get their music out there. They've broken through, their desire it to stay there.

THEATRE ACTS

It's good business if you can get it. It means a few thousand people want to see you. If you cut it to the bone, you can make money on the road, but if you cut it to the bone, will people want to see you next time?

Younger acts invest more in the shows. Older acts, and those skewing older demographically, focus more on the music, that which resonates with their audience.

Theatre acts usually the hot ones. Those with the sound hipsters are talking about. The ones promoted by the public radio station and SiriusXM. They wish it were easier. They wish they could make money off of album sales. They wish there was a meaningful radio outlet that could blow them up. But either they need another hit single, yes, nascent Top Forty acts play theatres, or they're caught in limbo, they can't break through the ceiling. And there's a good chance their audience won't maintain.

So the good news is someone cares. The bad news is not enough. And going one step up is so hard.

CLUB ACTS

There are two kinds of clubs. Ones holding over a thousand people, and there are many, like the Wiltern, are akin to theatres, the acts that play them are theatre acts.

And then there are the true clubs. Which hold a few hundred people at most.

Once upon a time, record companies kept clubs in business, by buying tables and drinks. They don't do this anymore. Clubs have to make it on their own. So they can't afford name talent and they need acts that can sell tickets. So frequently clubs feature acts many have not heard of and don't draw. And it's easier to break through online than it is to go on a club tour, unless you're a great live act or a developing metal or punk band. You can get your business started, but it's up to you to make it bigger.

HOUSE CONCERT ACTS

You were someone once. Or you play adult-oriented folk. You complain that it ain't the way it used to be. On the other hand, it can be a very good middle class living, but it's the last stop, the dead end. You can make new music and sell it to those who attend, but no one else cares. It's frustrating, but radio doesn't want old people and old people, other than the ones who come to your shows, don't want new music.

YOUTUBE SENSATIONS

You must have millions of plays to be a sensation. Hopefully, double digit millions. If you hit triple digit millions, go on your instant victory lap, like PSY or Carly Rae Jepsen, that's all you may ever get.

So if you've got millions of plays, pat yourself on the back, you've accomplished something. But not much.

How can that be?

There's too much info, everybody's a grazer, what have you done for me lately... You're not even a one hit wonder, you're making almost no money, you think you're entitled to more but you're not. You rail that no one's buying your album. And you complain that streaming pays a pittance. But the truth is you're just not big enough.

SIGNED TO MAJOR LABEL

Congratulations, someone believes in you! Probably because you racked up a few million YouTube plays. Someone's got money to invest, hopefully they'll push you on the radio and get you started in theatres. But maybe not. The regime might change, tastes might change, maybe your record isn't that good. And if the label cares, it's not going to release that LP until they believe it's got a hit. It's their money, they don't care about you, but them. Save every penny you can, it's all you may ever see.

SIGNED TO INDIE LABEL

You can tell your friends and family you have a deal but there will be almost no investment in you and you'll still be doing all the work. Sure, some indie albums break through, but those are the ones with labels attached to the major label machine, who decide to make you a priority. You think you're in the music business, you think you deserve more, and you're frustrated where you end up. The indie acts complain louder than anyone. They're passionate about what they do so they believe everybody else should be too. They just can't understand why they can't get paid. They work so hard, they're getting screwed by Spotify, they yearn for the pre-Internet era, not realizing in those years they wouldn't be allowed to play at all, recording would be too expensive and they wouldn't be able to get distribution into physical retail. Just because you're on iTunes that does not make you an act worthy of attention.

THE HOBBYIST

Is in their basement, concocting tracks, devouring all the information on the web. While the top liners are too busy making money to dive into the minutiae, the hobbyist knows everything about Pandora and Spotify and voices their opinion constantly. The hobbyist wants to be in the game. But most don't take action. They don't want to give up their day job, they don't believe in themselves enough. They'd rather complain about the game than play it. Beware of the words of the hobbyist.

THE WANNABE

The mirror star. The "Voice" expert. The couch potato. Someone who consumes media and plots their way to the top believing it's all about short cuts and no hard work. They believe the business is a game alternately in their favor or stacked against them. They believe the judges really have power. They will do anything for stardom. Which bothers those further up the food chain, who believe they're paying real dues. In reality, they're passionate fans, who usually need a few more years to give up their dream.

I love great art, no matter the medium.

A female mallard duck feeds in a pond, her mate following closely. The pair has spent the winter together and is now searching for a nest site. Other drakes also feed and swim nearby, seemingly uninterested in the couple. Suddenly, an unknown male rushes the female, bobbing his head up and down. Her mate chases him, and she flees to the edge of the pond. Other males are drawn to the activity, and before long, the hen is mobbed by the group, despite her quacks and attempts to escape. The males grab her by the neck and forcibly mate with her, one after the other, while her partner watches helplessly from afar. (See photograph above.) He may have lost this battle, but, luckily for both him and his mate, the rogue males almost never win the long-term war to pass on their genes.

PENIS VERSUS VAGINA: The mallard duck penis (right) is a coun­terclockwise corkscrew-shape organ that can force itself into the female reproductive tract (shown dissected at left), which has blind pockets and clockwise spirals to block full penetration. PATRICIA L.R. BRENNAN As many as 35 percent of all copulations with a mallard female are forced by unwanted males, yet these males sire only 3 percent to 5 percent of her offspring.1 In mallards, reproductive success is not a simple function of mating frequency. Rather, female mallards have a say in which sperm fertilize their eggs. A convoluted vaginal anatomy can prevent a penis—which in mallards and other ducks is a long, counterclockwise corkscrew-shape organ that can explosively inseminate a female in less than a third of a second (see photograph at right)—from fully everting inside her oviduct. Specifically, blind pockets and clockwise spirals in the vagina can physically block a penis, causing the sperm channel that runs along the outside of the male organ to ejaculate to the side, rather than at the tip, far away from where the female reproductive tract stores sperm for fertilization. (See illustration.) Thus, drakes may be able to force female mallards into unwanted copulations, but females, it seems, have the final say. If the female is receptive to a male’s advances, contractions in the oviduct likely open up the lumen to allow the penis to bypass the barriers.

The ducks that I study are not the only animals to have evolved such elaborate genitalia in the name of reproductive control. In bed bugs, the male’s penis is a piercing needle used to stab the female and deposit sperm into her coelomic cavity. This reduces female control of where the sperm end up and gives males a reproductive advantage, often at the expense of female fitness. More recently, researchers described a genus of cave-dwelling barklice in which females have evolved a spiny, penis-like organ that is inserted into a vagina-like male receptacle in order to grab sperm packages known as spermatophores that provide not only sperm but also nutrients.2 (See “Geni-Tales.”)

TWISTED SEX: In mallard ducks, forced mating is common, with unwanted suitors forcing as many as 35 percent of a female’s copulations. But the battle for paternity of her offspring doesn’t end there. The female’s convoluted, corkscrew-shape vagina, which has numerous blind pockets, can prevent successful penetration by unwanted suitors, such that 95 percent or more of her chicks are fathered by her partnered male. See full infographic: JPG | PDF © CATHERINE DELPHIA These and other amazing genital adaptations illustrate an evolutionary war that plays out during and after copulation. More often than not, female animals mate with—and collect sperm from—more than one male per reproductive cycle. As a result, competition for fertilizations is intense. Males try to fertilize more eggs by releasing more or faster-swimming sperm into the female, and/or by plugging her reproductive tract when they’re through. Meanwhile, females have evolved ways to use sperm from preferred males to fertilize their eggs by managing where and how sperm are stored, used, or disposed of. These tactical strategies—known as sperm competition and cryptic female choice, respectively—are at the root of a perpetual battle of the sexes.

Females in charge

When Charles Darwin developed his theory of sexual selection, he was unaware of these hidden reproductive battles. He envisioned a straight line connecting mating and reproductive success, with males competing and posturing to secure a reproductive encounter with a monogamous female. But in the last four decades scientists have discovered that, in most species, females mate with multiple males, and that paternity of offspring in a single brood is often mixed.

Although the trauma of mallard mating illustrates that promiscuity can sometimes be forced upon females, most examples of multiple mating by females are entirely volitional. A promiscuous female stands to gain direct benefits—such as extra paternal care, food in the form of nuptial gifts and access to a territory, or protection from other males—as well as indirect benefits for her offspring, such as better genes or greater genetic diversity to fortify her brood against unpredictable environmental challenges.

Females have often evolved sophisticated behaviors and morphologies to maximize the benefits they receive from multiple mates. For example, female chimpanzees often mate with both low- and high-ranking males to confuse paternity and reduce the chances that any male will kill her offspring. However, females mate more often with high-ranking males closer to estrus, increasing the chances that their offspring will inherit better genes.

Outside of behavioral adaptations that play out through copulation, the females of some species have evolved intricate sperm-storage organs that keep sperm alive. In many ants and other social insects, for example, the queen mates only once before going underground to start a colony where she will lay eggs for the rest of her life. Queens have specialized paired spermathecae that allow them to store viable sperm for decades. In other animals, such as bats, sperm can remain viable for several months, swimming in place along the walls of the female’s uterus.

SEX BOTH WAYS: Hermaphroditic flatworms engage in what’s known as reciprocal mating, in which two individuals will both inseminate and be inseminated simultaneously via the penetration of the stylet (flatworm penis) into the antrum (flatworm vagina). The worms are capable of sucking out the sperm following copulation, but some worms have evolved filamentous structures on the sperm heads help protect against such manipulation by anchoring the sperm inside the antrum. See full infographic: JPG | PDF © CATHERINE DELPHIA Females can also eject unwanted ejaculates from their reproductive tract. In hermaphroditic flatworms, for example, a single worm will both inseminate and be inseminated by its partner, a phenomenon known as reciprocal mating. However, inseminated worms will often suction the sperm out of their female genital opening using their mouth when copulation is over.3 Some worms have also evolved countermeasures against such rejection: filamentous structures on the side of the sperm heads that anchor the genetic packages into the body cavity.4 (See illustration.)

Interactions between the two sexes and between competing males commonly occur after the pageantry of courtship and mating subsides, and the battles reach all the way down to the level of genitalia and gametes.

And even if females do end up using sperm from less-than-ideal males to fertilize their eggs, they sometimes seem able to cut their losses by investing less in those offspring, as seen in some birds. Mallard females, for example, lay smaller eggs when mated to less-preferred males, while female canaries deposit less testosterone in their eggs when exposed to less-attractive male songs. Females are not just the arenas where fertilization occurs, they are active participants with seemingly unlimited potential to influence the outcome of sex in different ways, and at different points during the reproductive saga.

The art of penetration

Females may actively seek out multiple mates, then pick and choose among them, but that doesn’t mean males don’t have a say in paternity, during and after copulation. In some taxa, males have elaborate copulatory displays to woo females. Genital structures of male tsetse flies, for example, rhythmically stroke the female while mating; experimentally altering those structures to prevent males from stroking results in reduced reproductive success.5 Even more intimate are the stimulations provided to the ridges of a sow’s cervix by the corkscrew filament at the end of the pig penis. Such stimulation helps a male secure paternity, and the artificial insemination industry has taken note, designing inseminating needles of a similar corkscrew shape.

Other features of male genitalia can also bring greater reproductive success. For example, male mice with a wider penis bone, or baculum, appear to father more offspring, while in many insects the length of penises, called aedeagi, is correlated with reproductive success.

PENETRATION TOOL: An everted and inflated rattlesnake hemipenis (yellow), its base covered in spines, laid on top of the female vagina and oviducts (white) PATRICIA L.R. BRENNAN Armored penises and detachable members work too. Like many snakes (see photograph here), male garter snakes have two spiky hemipenises that look a bit like medieval weapons and hook into the internal surface of the female’s vagina. This affords males a foothold to deposit a copulatory plug full of sperm, as well as proteins that make females unreceptive to further copulation for a few hours. Sever the big spines at the base of a male’s hemipenises, and copulation duration and plug size decrease significantly.6 In some spiders the male genitalia simply break off inside the female to plug her up, to the frustration of her subsequent suitors. This bizarre genital self-mutilation results from the very low probability that a male will ever be lucky enough to mate again.

But females do not take kindly to such manipulation, and have evolved countermeasures. Adaptations include thickened epithelia within the reproductive tract that minimize the damage penile spines can inflict; flaps and genital coverings that make penis intromission more difficult; and, in the case of the stabbing bed bugs, a whole new paragenital system that guides the penis to stab females in places where the damage will be limited. Some female strategies for thwarting sexual manipulation by the males are more subtle, such as the vaginal contractions of female garter snakes, which shorten copulation duration and may limit the damage inflicted by the male’s hemipenises. Further studies of variation in female physiology and morphology that can impact fitness will help us better understand postcopulatory selection, but for now this area of research remains in its infancy. (See “Size Matters.”)

Prodigious sperm

Even after coitus, the struggle for paternity continues. In species that practice internal fertilization, anywhere from hundreds to billions of sperm are cast into a novel molecular environment in search of ova. Each sperm vies for a coveted fertilization among a sea of its brethren in a chemical soup that can be downright lethal to the gametes, perhaps as part of the female’s plot to allow only the fittest sperm to reach her eggs.

For males, one way to get a leg up on the competition is to send in a stronger, faster, more resilient gametic army. When competition is high, producing more sperm is likely to be a winning strategy—it gives the male more tickets in the raffle. Accordingly, males of promiscuous species tend to have larger testes (in relation to body size) than monogamous animals. But most males don’t simply transfer as much sperm as they can all at once. Ejaculates are costly, and males must conserve their supply. Mating rate, mated status of the female, female identity, and female body size can all influence how much sperm some males are willing to relinquish during any particular copulation. Male chickens and their wild ancestors, red jungle fowl, will allocate less and less sperm to subsequent matings with the same female, for example, not because they are running out of sperm, but because they have already inseminated that female. Present a sex-weary cock with a new hen, and he ramps up ejaculate volume to high levels once again.7

Some species employ other sperm features to win fertilizations. Sperm are one of the most diverse cell types in nature. In some rodents, sperm have hooked heads that connect individual sperm to form a train. With tails beating in unison, hooked sperm swim faster and more quickly navigate to the site of fertilization.8 Amazingly, when female deer mice from a polygynous species—one in which males mate with several females in one breeding season—are inseminated with sperm from two males, trains form preferentially among sperm from the same male, even when those males were brothers. However, in monogamous deer mice, sperm-train formation is indiscriminate, demonstrating that sperm cooperation evolves only in species where sperm competition threatens a male’s paternity.9

More simply, sperm that live the longest and those that can swim fastest or farthest will generally outcompete other sperm. In both externally fertilizing species such as salmon and internally fertilizing animals such as birds, males with the fastest sperm sire the most young. Several bird species have evolved faster sperm cells that typically have longer midpieces, where the mitochondria are stored; longer flagella; and/or relatively small heads.

In addition to sperm, males transfer seminal fluid or other substances that can aid in fertilization. Not only do these secretions provide nourishment for the sperm cells and thwart the females’ immune defenses, but the ejaculates of males of some species, including salmon and some social insects, also inactivate sperm from other males, bettering their own chances of paternity. (See “Semen Says.”) Accessory proteins have been identified in the ejaculate fluid of many species, including humans. In Drosophila these proteins have been well studied, and researchers have shown some of them to increase females’ egg-laying rate at the expense of her survival. And in an even more dramatic example of chemical manipulation by sexual partners, some hermaphroditic snails shoot their mates in the head with a “love dart” prior to copulation. The dart is filled with mucus that makes it less likely that the shot snail will mate again, thereby increasing paternity for the shooter.10

Females are not just the arenas where fertilization occurs, they are active participants with seemingly unlimited potential to influence the outcome of sex in different ways, and at different points during the reproductive race.

Once again, however, females are not passive observers of sperm’s hustle to fertilize. In many species, females have factors in ovarian fluid that are needed to activate sperm; in others, such factors protect sperm from the murderous attacks of their competitors’ seminal fluid. And female Drosophila can employ damage-control mechanisms that limit the influence of seminal proteins, though the mechanisms are still under investigation. We know that when females evolve under monogamy for many generations, they will die sooner when mated to a male that has evolved under polygyny than when mated to a monogamous male. This is because monogamous females have not coevolved any defenses to protect themselves from male adaptations to competition.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that the evolutionary forces of sexual selection are not limited to male ornaments, courtship displays, and fights, and that females are as active as males in determining the fate of their eggs. Interactions between the two sexes and between competing males commonly occur after the pageantry of courtship and mating subsides, and the battles reach all the way down to the level of genitalia and gametes. Adaptations include anatomical, physiological, and chemical changes that have been found in virtually all taxa that scientists have investigated, and there are no doubt many more surprises waiting to be discovered. These sexual features are likely as ubiquitous as they are bizarre.

SPERM RACE: Fluorescently tagged sperm swimming inside the lower reproductive tract of a Drosophila simulans female, who mated first with a D. mauritiana male (orange sperm heads), followed by a D. simulans male (blue-green sperm heads). The sperm migrate to the female’s specialized sperm-storage organs: the seminal receptacle (tubule, upper right) and a pair of mushroom-shape spermathecae (at far right). In these organs, sperm can remain viable for weeks or months, or can be displaced by the sperm of a new suitor as the female remates. JOHN BELOTE, MOLLIE MANIER, AND SCOTT PITNICK VISUALIZING SPERM WARS

Though it is difficult to see what goes on inside a female fruit fly after copulation, recent genetic advances have allowed scientists to image sperm competition inside storage organs—the seminal receptacle and spermathecae—of female Drosophila melanogaster. Scott Pitnick, Mollie Manier, and John Belote of Syracuse University and colleagues genetically engineered flies to express red or green fluorescent protein in sperm heads. By mating males of each fluorescent color to a single female, the researchers could visualize how sperm behaved and were displaced inside the female sperm storage organs during sequential copulations.1

The research yielded striking microscopic images and revealed that Drosophila sperm behave in active and complex ways. For example, sperm can form helical aggregations inside the female seminal receptacle that may help them move more efficiently. The researchers have witnessed firsthand how sperm from a mating with one male are displaced by a second male’s ejaculate—and how some ejaculates resist displacement better than others.

Furthermore, females are able to eject sperm from their reproductive tracts and selectively draw sperm from the spermathecae and the seminal receptacle for fertilization. More recently, the team showed that females discriminate against sperm from different species,2 and that sperm from males of the same species outcompete heterospecific sperm, suggesting that sperm selection can be involved in speciation.

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