I smell a rat

We expose a subject that has kept men indiscriminately sharing their their Easter eggs for thousands of years: Infidelity.

Did you know that 97 percent of all mammals are polygamous by nature? Unfortunately, my three female readers, even if you complain to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources about it, men will never belong to the monogamous three percent (And with a diabolical grin plastered on their faces, several hundred men furiously scribble down this factoid with the hope that they can use it when loss of limb is imminent.)

Men and women have always been on that quixotic search for that “one true love” with whom they will form a lifelong bond that will not require shackles, illegal substances and cattle prods. Many societies value a culture of monogamy, so much so that monogamy has been elevated into the form of religious doctrine, valid law and corporal punishment.

But most monogamy laws are like most local laws: just because they’re there doesn’t mean they have to be followed. And men, if the book is to be believed, have the propensity to be unfaithful. In one of the many polls on infidelity, 72 percent of married American men claimed that they’ve been unfaithful. We wanted to conduct our own survey among Pinoy men, but whenever we approached them with questions, they would look around nervously and retort, “Sinong nagpadala sa inyo, ’yung asawa ko (Who sent you, my wife)!?” then scamper away cursing.

Monogamy just doesn’t seem to be compatible with the male operating system, despite the constant threat of dismemberment. According to The Natural History of Love, the reason that men have the tendency to meet, mate and stray (even when cattle prods are involved) is that men have a different set of biological priorities from the female. And, because the discussion was going to end up here anyway, let us take the example of the male ejaculate.

An average man’s ejaculate can shoot out at 28 miles per hour, which is faster than most cars trawling EDSA during rush hour. Can you just imagine the type of pressure that is building up in the average man’s gonads when he is standing at attention? At that speed, his ejaculate could puncture tires, take down slow-moving mosquitoes and cause eye injuries (or so I have been told). Well, you would probably feel that much pressure inside your bikini briefs if your ejaculate contained about 200 million sperm. Theoretically speaking, that means that the No Girlfriend Since Birth (NGSB) seated beside you holds an army that could conquer this world 20 times over and maybe even some neighboring planets. That is, unless he has bought latest issue of FHM this morning.

  (As an aside, I participated in several novenas during the Holy Week and encountered a practice that made me question my examination of conscience. During the tail end of one of the novenas, the prayer book said I should perform several hundred ejaculations. This was something that I had counted on doing, was not keen on doing, and probably did not have the capacity to do in front of all those parishioners. But being raised in a strict Catholic school, I was taught in religion class to “Believe or burn in hell.” I later found out that, in grammatical terms, an ejaculation is an utterance that expresses a feeling often in the form of an exclamation. Oh well, I will never be invited to a novena prayer again.) 

This is where the struggle between men and women is constant, a struggle that is more constant than deciding who should be in charge of the remote control at home. Because of the colossal pressure that is building up inside a man’s pink parts, a man has two choices: to follow his biological dictates and spread his DNA by impregnating as many females as possible before he is shot down, caught, tortured and turned to mulch; or to spontaneously explode. If I may be cruder than a noontime game show host, this is because a man’s biological imperative is to “love’em and leave’em.” 

Meanwhile, from a Darwinian perspective, a female can only produce one egg a month and has a limited, usable supply of these eggs in a lifetime. If she becomes pregnant, she will be more vulnerable and less able to support herself over the next nine months. On top of that, she will nurse and look after the child for years. Therefore, it is in a woman’s best interest to choose a man who will not lie about spontaneous explosion and stay with her to support the child. If I may channel the demi-goddess Oprah, this is because a women’s biological imperative is to find a man who will stay put with her or else he will need to be put down. 

Roosters have an even better excuse to crow about infidelity: Because Colonel Sanders demands it. A rooster can copulate with more than 60 hens in one mating period. He cannot, however, for reasons that even Colonel Sanders is frustrated with, mate with the same hen for more than five times in one day. By the sixth hen, Foghorn Leghorn can’t even get his cock-a-doodle to doo. But if the rooster is presented with a new hen, his drumstick will rise again to the occasion. They even have a name for this cockamamie conundrum: Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps call it the “Rooster Effect” (duh). According to the book, this is nature’s way of making sure that a species survives and propagates, until it finds its way to your dinner plate. This gives new meaning to the word “Chickenjoy.”

So, are there alternatives to male infidelity, my three female readers? Should you just contemplate a vow of celibacy? Should you try to evolve into a hermaphrodite? Should you take a pair of rusty pliers to a man’s philandering body parts and show him what it means to sacrifice for monogamy? I guess you should know that there are other ways to cure a man’s infidelity that does not involve the snipping of pink parts — and that cure is with rats. Or voles — a ratlike rodent — to be exact. 

Researchers from Emory University have been doing some interesting work on the genetics of attachment and pair bonding among voles. The first type of vole is the prairie vole.  He is the type of vole that makes all the other voles look bad. Why?   Because this rodent belongs to the three percent. The prairie vole comes packaged with monogamy software built into his genes. To install the software, the prairie vole requires a 20-hour mating period (At this point, do you still think I am making this up?) with the female prairie vole. But after reaching a climax that would make Sting feel inadequate, the male prairie vole enters blissfully into reclusion perpetua with his impregnated partner. No threats to pink parts need ever be made again.

In contrast, we meet the prairie vole’s pabling (playboy) cousin, the montane vole. Although the prairie vole and the montane vole share 99 percent of the same genes, the montane vole makes Ramon Revilla look like an amateur when it comes to infidelity. After mating, the montane vole shockingly abandons the female instantly, and has no role whatsoever in raising the offspring. And, even more shockingly, no researcher has documented the length of a montane vole’s mating period. (“Hoy, ‘di ako magpapatalo kay prarie!” — Montane vole).  

The saving grace behind the prairie vole’s monogamy. (Yes, I assure you it is a saving grace. Forget what the D.O.M.s have told you) is a hormone called “vasopressin,” which is released when it has intercourse. Emory University scientists measured the vasopressin levels in both species of voles. They discovered that, although both types of voles had the same level of vasopressin hormones, the receptors for these hormones in their brains were different. Scientists further discovered that if vasopressin is suppressed in the prairie vole, he will grow some sideburns, swagger like a drunk, start making porma to the first female vole he smells and proclaim, “I don’t know what you did to me, but line me up for two more shots!” On the flipside, these scientists inserted a vasopressin suppressor into the montane vole, which rendered him as monogamous as his prairie cousin (And with a diabolical grin, several hundred women furiously scribble down this factoid because inserting vasopressin suppressors might be cheaper than chopping off limbs).

But before they could start mass-producing vasopressin suppressors and injecting them into the Pinoy male population, a rabid pack of D.O.M.s and roosters stormed the laboratories, freed the vasopressin suppressed prairie voles (“Volare my friends! Volare!” the D.O.M.s hollered. “Bok! Bok! Bok! Bok! Bok!” the roosters cawed), and razed the lab to the ground. (“Never again.” the D.O.M.s cried while reaching for their inhalers. “Never again.”)

My three female readers, may I recommend a stopgap measure that will not only protect you from random acts of D.O.M. terrorism, but will also protect hapless monogamy-happy from further vasopressin suppression research?  And it even makes good use of “The Rooster Effect.” A little caveat, though: this solution may only be applied to those who are matrimonially bound, or else I will burn in hell.

For argument’s sake, let’s say that you and your husband exercise your biological imperative five times (if he is able to exercise his imperative five times, he will probably not be able to exercise it with anybody else).  After the fifth time, you revive your husband with smelling salts, and he suddenly blurts out:

 “Pangga (Dear), remember what we read about the rooster effect?”

“What are you trying to say, sweetheart?” you reply.

 “Well, this is our (ubo, ubo) our fifth time to consummate our marriage this evening.”

“I see,” you sneer. “And you want to see if it’s true?”

He shrugs his shoulders (and whatever body part he can still shrug). “Weeellll….”

You smirk.  “Go ahead. Try it out.” And it’s your turn to shrug your shoulders. “I’ll even pay for it!”

His eyes grow large.  “For the woman!?”

“For the chicken.”

(And, somewhere out there, vasopressin-suppressed prairie voles are laughing.)

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