sex, art, and politics

science:

The dinosaur is right; bedbugs mate by traumatic insemination, meaning the males use their stingy weapon/penis-es to pierce through the female and ejaculate. To accommodate this, the females have developed “paragenitialia” at the site where the males most often stab — in effect, a second reproductive system in addition to the original genital tract, which is only used for laying eggs. Males, though, do not have these paragenitalia. Which is bad for them, since male bedbugs mate with everything and everyone of their species, male or female. They use special pheromones to signal to each other that “Hey, I’m male, don’t stab me and ejaculate into my body kthx”. If you remove their ability to send out these pheromones, though, you’re in for a penis stabfest of epic proportions. (Yes, I very much enjoyed writing that last sentence.)