Secrets of women

I’m back in the Congo after an unusually pleasant flight. For once, the stewardess didn’t give me a funny look when I used the hot towel to dampen the soles of my feet. The other passengers in first class, who were diplomats and ministers, knew better than to complain about my creative use of the toiletries. An aluminium tube 30,000 feet above sea level is the wrong place for an argument with a gorilla. 

What really made the time fly was the book I was reading, a translation of De Secretis Mulierum, an ancient guidebook on the human female. It was written by Albertus “Catweazle” Magnus, a medieval theologian with unusually progressive views about women for his time, only advocating their torture in extreme cases of witchcraft or hen-pecking. The main thrust of his argument was that women should be shunned, especially when menstruating, when they emitted “evil humours” capable of killing a goat at ten paces. 

The chapter of the book I found most fascinating describes a foolproof test for female virginity, no doubt perfected after months of clinical trials. According to Doctor Magnus, a woman whose purity is in doubt should be forced to sniff a lettuce. If her flesh has been corrupted by man (or some other agent of defilement), she will then pass water. It was state-of-the-art science in its day, although one has to pity the innocent maids who gave false positives because they’d drunk a flagon of prune juice before inhaling the salad fumes. 

The only modern equivalent of this virginity test I’ve heard of is the one proposed by Vladimir Rakovsky, a Russian psychologist who runs a charm school in Moscow. According to Rakovsky, you can find out everything you need to know about a woman by watching her eat a carrot. If she blushes and nibbles, she’s a virgin; if she chews like a horse, she’s a fishwife; if she sucks before biting, she’s slept with every member of the village council. He didn’t say what kind of woman would refuse to eat the carrot. A lesbian or a prick-teaser, perhaps? In all honesty, the test sounds as if was devised by someone who spent his youth peeping at hefty farm girls during their lunch break. 

Fortunately, we now live in an enlightened age when no man of substance cares whether the woman he courts is a virgin. Take Charlie Sheen, for example. I bet he never even bothered to ask Bree Olson whether she was a virgin before inviting her to join the harem in his kingsize bed. Miss Olson, for her part, has not given any indication of feeling ashamed that Charlie was not her first lover. Indeed, her self-esteem was so undiminished that she callously dumped him by text message. 

Good for both of them, is what I say. Charlie deserves credit for believing that a woman with a past is still worthy of his cocaine-snorting lechery. And Bree deserves credit for not clinging to Charlie out of fear that no other man could afford her. I like it when famous humans set a good example for their fans.

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Iran's Space Program

The arrival of an Iranian tour party is making the chimpanzees nervous. The Iranians have recently sent worms and turtles into space, and the chimps are worried that they will be next. They haven’t forgotten how NASA ruthlessly press-ganged members of their species into rocket-service back in the 1960s. At least those hapless simians had the good fortune to blast off in the mighty Saturn-5, which was the Biggus Dickus of space exploration. The Iranian Kavoshgar-3 is more of a Naughtius Maximus by comparison, and might end up dumping its payload in Salman Rushdie’s back garden.

Our Iranian visitors are actually US residents who have nothing to do with the regime. The manager of the safari camp removed the porn channels from their rooms out of respect for their supposed religious beliefs. In less time than it takes to unpack a suitcase, a delegation of them gathered outside his office to demand restoration of the standard en-suite entertainment package. I must say I’d feel the same in their place. Although I have little interest in human porn, denying me the right to watch it would be viewed as an inhospitable act. We don’t stop humans watching apes mate in the wild, so they should extend the same courtesy to us.

I don’t want the chimpanzees to have an irrational fear of Iranians, so I’m holding a jungle symposium called “Understanding the Cultural Diversity of our Human Cousins”. It should be well attended, given that chimps are very curious about humans and love to mimic their habits. President Obama’s recent video message to the Iranian people shows he shares my philosophy. His speech was very good, although excessively tactful in avoiding any mention of beards. If most Americans believe that the Supreme Mullah in Tehran should be forcibly deprived of his whiskers, the Iranian people should hear it from the horse’s mouth. I hope the president uses his proposed “cultural exchanges” to send them the latest Gillette products. The Iranians are sure to take the hint.

As a gorilla, I am well qualified to be a mediator in human disputes of a tribal or sectarian nature. Back in my circus days, the 6th form of a local girls’ school was torn between two factions called The Virgins and The Tarts. Things had got very nasty when they asked me to intervene – hair was being pulled, cosmetics were being vandalized and tampons were being dipped in ink. So I went to the school and gave the girls a speech.

“Virgins! Tarts!” I exclaimed. “You are both essential to a healthy ecosystem, for Nature thrives on biodiversity! Without tarts, what appreciation would exist for a virgin’s maidenly blush? Without virgins, what gratitude would exist for a tart’s wanton lubricity? And yet, you are not so different! In every virgin is a quiescent tart who longs to abandon herself to the pleasures of carnal indulgence. In every tart is the memory of a fresh-faced virgin who shyly contemplated her own ripening womanhood. When your aberrant antagonism has abated, you will appreciate these truths and join hands in sisterhood.”

They looked at me in a puzzled sort of way, which seemed to take some heat from their feud. I won’t pretend one speech solved everything. I did a fair amount of work with the girls in the following weeks, both jointly and individually. But we got there in the end.

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