Sexual Autonomy Matters

Ducks were the portal to discovering the role of sexual autonomy in preserving beauty and goodness

Photo by Kerin Gedge on Unsplash

Ducks are the last group of birds anyone would hope to look to for beauty.

In evolution, beauty is given the least amount of focus at the expense of adaptation. Survival of the fittest is the mantra and beauty appears to be in contrast with this desideratum. Beauty disturbed Darwin so much that he confessed it in one of his letters, expressing disgust whenever he saw the argus pheasant.

The argus pheasant is one of the prettiest birds you will ever encounter. Two to three times longer than the female, the male has an elaborate mating display more intricate than the mere shimmering of the peacock’s plumage. These two birds are often the highlight of the role of beauty in birds.

Not ducks.

Ducks, however, are the key to understanding sexual autonomy and its impact in shaping the evolutionary trajectory of bird species.

Duck sexual organs

Ducks have penises.

This is another essential feature of this explanation. Ducks are one of the few avian species that have preserved the phallic organ.

It also means female ducks have vaginas.

While in humans the shape of the vagina is relatively conserved, the duck vagina comes in various shapes. This is largely determined by the female. The varied shapes are the products of the sexual autonomy of the female ducks.

Ducks tend to have a skewed sexual ratio, with males being more than females. Males therefore have to compete among each other to impress the ladies. They do this through mating practices and displaying their beautiful ornaments.

Different species have different display features and practices. The ruddy duck species, for instance, expands its breast and releases a low-pitched sound by tapping its bill on its chest while its feathers ruffle the pond water.

For all the male displays, the female chooses which male it prefers. In addition to the skewed sex ratio, male competition is very stiff. It’s an example of survival of the sexiest, not the fittest.

The reason for this phrase is that sexual ornaments can evolve to the point that they affect the fitness of organisms and species. Survival is not only of the fittest but among birds, the sexiest gets picked by the ladies. This is one of the first and most important features of sexual autonomy. The ladies choose.

Once chosen, the pair migrate to the breeding grounds where the male continues to defend her and once she’s ready, she will give the distinctive pose. Usually, she lies her body horizontally and fluffs her rear upward. At this point, the male mounts her in an explosive erection of its penis.

After breeding, they leave their separate ways. The mother typically takes care of the clutch. Males have little role in bringing up the chicks. This is the peaceful side of the story.

There’s the harsh one.

Forced copulation — the equivalent of human rape

Ornithologists prefer the use of the word ‘ forced copulation’ even though the behaviour is similar to the human equivalent of rape.

Male ducks can force copulation with females. Usually, this happens when the feeding sites are scarce. Most ducks would therefore spend their time on the relatively resource-rich grounds.

Due to the scarcity of food resources, males lack territories. Automatically, male competition for female attention becomes stiffer. However, females still choose which male they want.

The harsh and unexpected twist to this story is that after copulation with the chosen male, the female can get attacked by an unruly gang of males. These gangs move in groups to overpower female efforts against their ill intentions. The gang then forces their way on and in her.

During these scuffles, the females could get severely hurt and in some instances, die. Unlike rodents who can self-abort when a new male appears (another version of mate choice), these birds don’t have that ability. Here’s where the sexual organs come into play.

Territorial ducks don’t have this violent behaviour. Females will choose their mates and copulate peacefully. The result is their sexual organs are as simple as they can get. The male’s penis is short and smoother, while the female’s vagina is just as short and accommodating of the penis.

In non-territorial ducks, where violent gangs exist, the penises are long and rugged while the female vagina is convoluted in ways shaped to prevent penises from successful penetration.

Distinctive among ducks is that their penises unfurl like a coiled pipe-shaped balloon when air gets blown into it. It is also shaped in a counterclockwise screw pattern. The female vagina, on the other hand, is shaped in a clockwise fashion and with various dead ends and is just as lengthy in the scanty resource territories.

Basically, the female vagina anatomically changed its shape to make it difficult for penile penetration. This is the other important feature of sexual autonomy.

Female ducks possess this power intentionally to protect them from the gangs that would otherwise force the copulation. Males, in turn, have shaped their penises to try and force themselves inside just as much, having ridges and hooks shaped in ways that claw their way inside the convoluted vagina.

These birds, the selfish and violent types, should have therefore been the dominant ones. But they are not. Genetic studies show that the children of these gangs are as little as 2–5%. How is that so?

It turns out that the males the females choose have it easy. Female lubrication and the relaxation of the vaginal muscles facilitates the ease of penile penetration and successful deposition of sperms. The distance created between the eggs and the lengthy convoluted vagina is shorted when the female duck wills it.

As for the males who enforce copulation, the vaginal muscles are taut, and the mucosal lining is dry making it difficult to successfully penetrate despite the explosive penile erection of the duck. I insist on the explosive bit because it unfurls just as fast. The Muscovy duck penis can achieve a speed of up to 1.6 meters per second as it penetrates the female vagina.

Such explosive forces can bruise and wound the females. The same features the female possesses, however, stop their successes from happening. This is the important bit about sexual autonomy.

The remaining 97% of other bird species lack this penile-vaginal relationship. But it is an extension of the same underlying theme — sexual autonomy. Banyard hens can prevent the sperms deposited by the roosters from getting into their cloaca. Despite losing the penile-vaginal anatomies, they have preserved the autonomy to select which male they prefer by accepting or rejecting their seed. In return, birds have had to evolve other means of competing.

Consequently, the guarding role female ducks play preserves their evolutionary changes in their interest. If violent behaviour were to be passed down, then the bird species would have easily gone extinct. But by facilitating only the successful penetration of the males they prefer, the kind of females they will hatch will prefer these males and the males in themselves will not incline towards violent copulation to reproduce.

Female ducks therefore preserve the goodness of males while rebuking the violence of the rest. You could say they are the guardians of the species. They are also the key to understanding the evolution of beauty in birds.

By exercising mate choice, they can pick which males they like. Elimination of the penis in birds would have blunted the strategy of forceful copulation and left the only remaining means of competition — beauty.

Male birds would then compete with each other by flexing their ornaments and features. With the most beautiful ones being selected, indeed, it is the survival of the sexiest. Hence, the appreciation of the beauty seen in birds is a product of female mate choice.

Female ducks and their experiences have helped shape our understanding of the preservation of the ‘gentlemen’ and the amplification of the ‘beautiful’ ones.

To cap it, J. Cole raps:

Purple emojis with horns on it
Like the devil, but ain’t nothin’ devilish, babe
In fact, it’s a Heaven-sent thing
Black angel with the regular name
F- strangers, I could never contain my passion for you
I’m grabbin’ on you in public, I know that you love it
I’m tryna put one more lil’ boy in your stomach
No frontin’, I keep it one hunnid
If you was to leave me, I know I’m gon’ plummet
I know I’m gon’ plummet

Two organisms

This explanation serves to show that survival is not usually of the fittest. The sexiest can shape the outcome of a species. Essential to this explanation is the importance of female mate choice in determining the evolutionary progress of the males and indirectly, the females in the species.

Successful reproduction results in more males who are ‘gentlemen’ and females who prefer these gentlemen over the brutes. They indeed guard the fate of the species. The key assumption is that behaviour is inherited as indeed it can be.

The underlying force, mate choice, is my biggest clue to shifting our perspectives about evolution. Evolution is a function of the active process of organisms. We are not passive, letting nature take its toll and like the magic hat in Harry Potter, sort us as it so fits.

In the same movie, Harry asks the hat to be placed in Gryffindor. Organisms have a choice. Evolution by natural selection downplays the importance of choice. My theory, Organismal Selection (OS), is built on this core principle — choice.

One of the features of OS is mergers. Mergers are stable when the role of one organism serves another and vice versa. For instance, the role of the female duck exercising its sexual autonomy serves the male who has an easier chance of successfully fertilizing the females. As a result, the role of the male serves the female, who will get the kind of offspring it desires — that is, females who will desire the gentle albeit beautiful male ducks. This is a stable merger.

It is also seen in the territorial ducks, where the role of the male in protecting the female just before breeding serves the female. The role of the female in only permitting this particular male during copulation and easing the steps toward fertilization serves the male. This is a stable merger.

According to OS, mergers are stable when they aim to prolong the stay of the organisms since organisms will do anything to avoid death.

Mergers also result in new organisms, which can be tested by subjecting them to credible imminent threats. In such cases, the organisms resist or fight this threat. Or they can opt to flee. The fight or flight response is born of this organismal trait to assert its existence.

For instance, the territorial ducks will have the male fight off enemies. The two — male and female merger — constitute an emergent organism. Reproduction also serves to produce entities which the parents can form mergers with. The female would not want to create mergers with the violent ones, so it hinders successful penetration as much as it can, even if it gets fatal wounds. The result is resistance.

This indicates that in non-territorial species, there exist two types of organisms—the gentle and the violent. Mergers can help us distinguish between the two.

Regarding the violent ones, the role of one aggressive male supports another because they can move in groups. This enhances their ability to overpower a female while simultaneously increasing their chances of successful fertilization. This represents one type of organism. The other type is formed through acceptance from both sides: the gentle male and the consenting female ducks.

Organisms tend to avoid annihilation and form mergers to that effect. Thus, the mergers among the violent ducks will be preserved and the ones among the gentle ones will also be preserved. These relationships help to identify where the violent ones come from — from the gentle organisms who were rejected by the females.

Rejection can be painful. So much investment is made only for a female to say no. This is the classical preamble to the rape cases we hear about even among humans. Indeed, it is a credible imminent threat to the male because it will deny it a chance to form mergers and prolong its stay. So it turns violent and tries to forcefully fertilize.

But the other organisms, the gentle ones, would also be threatened. So the female guards the gentle organisms by reducing the chances of successful fertilization by the violent ones: it will not lubricate its mucosa; it will tighten its muscles; it will convolute its vagina; it will create various cul-de-sacs; it will shape its vagina in a clockwise direction; opposite to the counterclockwise shape of the males.

The beauty of OS is it explains the emergence of these two behaviours through two organisms. Natural Selection thrives through survival of the fittest, but it downplays the importance of choice and in this case, mate choice.

Sexual selection underpins the importance of autonomy and choice, but it does not explain the emergence of violence and gentility. It only does this by borrowing a leaf from Natural Selection, which stresses the importance of reproductive success. Organismal Selection explains both the importance of autonomy and the emergence of these two traits.

What I’m trying to say is …

Insights come from the most unexpected of places, people, and in this case, ducks.

As remnants of birds still possessing penile-vaginal relationships, female ducks are the misfits who help us understand the importance of sexual autonomy.

What these ducks tell us is choice matters.

And by extension, sexual autonomy matters.

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This song inspired some of the lines used in this article. Source — YouTube