This short story is an entry in the 2003 Soc.Sexuality.Spanking Summer Short Story Contest and is copyright by the author and commercial use is prohibited without permission. Personal/private copies are permitted only if complete including the copyright notice. The author would appreciate your comments
Category: Edge
A graduate student's account.
Field Report -- Summary
By
Y Lee Coyote <YLeeCoyote@juno.com>
We accidentally encountered the group resting by the lake in the heat of the mid-afternoon. It appeared to be an extended family with three adult males, five adult females, several adolescents and juveniles. (See Appendix A.) We were able to observe unnoticed for a couple of hours before a thundershower caused the group to run off.
As expected there was constant interaction among the group members. Most of it was mutual grooming, kissing and sex -- everything from genito-genital rubbing to full intercourse. (See Appendix B.) There was even sharing of the fruit that had fallen from the shade-providing trees. In short, it appeared to be a peaceful, well adjusted group behaving as expected.
The most frequent sexual activity (at least this afternoon) was face-to-face genito-genital rubbing among the adult females and penis-fencing between an adult and an adolescent male. One instance of heterosexual coitus was observed in the missionary position. All of these behaviors have been previously well-documented by other observers.
What we were fortunately able to observe was the disciplining of one of the pre-adolescent males. He had grabbed the stick that one toddler had been playing with. The toddler howled and was immediately picked up and comforted by one of the adult females and even encouraged to suckle. One of the adult males grabbed the miscreant who immediately assumed a deferential attitude and also started to whine. The adult then sat on the ground, pulled the pre-adolescent over his out-stretched legs and held him down. He then applied about fifteen spanks to the buttocks of the youth who responded with howls surely indicating distress at this turn of events. From the observer's distant observation point it was not possible to determine if the youth was crying. When released, the youngster scampered a short distance away and was quickly surrounded by his peers who evidently provided succor as his howling ceased almost immediately.
It is most unfortunate that our video camera failed and thus we can not document this previously unreported behavior of Bonobos.
The End
Author's Note: All save one of the behaviors described above have been reported for the bonobos [Pan paniscus] -- a small chimpanzee of the swamp forests in Zaire. One reference: Frans B. M. de Waal: Bonobo Sex and Society in Scientific American, March, 1995 songweaver.com/info/bonobos.html. That a closely related species developed such a definite discipline method like us Homo sapiens is edgy for this writer.
© Copyright A.I.L., 14 July 2003
Reviews
Warm Hand Jack
This field observation would certainly be noteworthy: initially, of course, because of the previously unnoted behavior among non-human primates...but perhaps more importantly (and the reason it belongs on this site) because it suggests that 'wiitwd' [What It Is That We Do] is "natural": not unique to our species, and having its origins in our evolutionary past. Since only adult/child discipline was seen, however, none of our less obvious motivations (adult discipline, fun, sharing, eroticism, whatever) is similarly legitimized. The writer may have felt that such a scene would be unbelievable; I think that, carefully done, it would have added immensely to the significance of the report (to the SSS audience, at least).
Given that the writer made that choice, however, there is little to criticize. IMHO: The discipline paragraph would work better if the situation were allowed to unfold as observed, without being telegraphed in the opening sentence. One should not have to read the reference link to know that missionary position is known behavior for this species (and was not an error, which I thought at first). Among very few minor errors, 'heterosexual' was probably meant to read, 'h...activity.'
While not particularly erotic, humorous, or even edgy (in the dark sense), this piece does have bits of all those elements. It's well-written, well-researched (!), realistically worded as a straight-forward (and therefore straight-faced) report, and highly original. Good work.
Sassy Jo <sassy_jolene(at)hotmail(dot)com>
Perhaps I watch too much Discovery Channel, but I wasn't surprised we were talking about Chimps. However, it is pretty interesting and takes a twist I haven't ever seen. I think the way the story itself is told is very original in that the author uses a documentary approach. The content though isn't incredibly original. Good work nevertheless.
Ted <quixotoes(at)aol(dot)com>
It's a good thing that this scientific journal entry was, due to technical failure, unaccompanied by a video, because no visual evidence could do justice to this compelling account of natural discipline. If true, this field report could turn evolution on its head, or at least over its knee. In sum, clever and dry, appealing to our higher sensibilities.