Hey, Faggot:
Hey, WTCACOIW:
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Since there’s not much difference between big kitties and little kitties–tigers are basically enormous house cats–I thought a zookeeper could offer a stimulating perspective on cats in heat. Perhaps a death-defying perspective: house cats in heat will take on pencils, furniture, humans, anything at all. My family’s cat humped my father’s Chevy Nova–god alone knows what a tiger in heat might do to an unsuspecting zookeeper. So I called Lincoln Park Zoo on the north side of Chicago. I grew up in Chicago. Lincoln Park Zoo is the zoo my parents took me to on Sunday afternoons; the zoo my grade-school classes went to on sunny-day field trips; the zoo where when I was five years old I stunned medical professionals by throwing up nearly three times my body weight in cotton candy, hot dogs, ice cream, Milk Duds, and french fries–all over the floor of the Great Ape House. So, I thought I’d be true to my zoo and call the nice folks at Lincoln Park Zoo, site of so many happy childhood memories.
So, when they do get bred, do the females get off? Do they dig it? “That’s a difficult question. For the male there’s definitely pleasure, but it’s grayer for the female. When she mates, she’s fulfilling something inside herself, a deep urge, but it is actually painful for the female. The male has barbs on his penis, and when he pulls out the barbs scratch the vaginal canal, which stimulates ovulation.”
Send questions to Savage Love, Chicago Reader, 11 E. Illinois, Chicago 60611.