Scent Marked

"It's probably not urine," asserted Greg.

"I thought you were just into scat play, Poop," teased Elias. "You do golden showers, too?"

"They're scent marking," I confirmed, ignoring Elias and trying to keep the conversation out of the gutter. The sheep weren't helping, though. "That liquid is from the Skene's gland, which surrounds the lower end of the urethra in female mammals."

"Having a little taste test to see who's ready," Taz chimed in. I elbowed her in the ribs. She wasn't helping, either.

"Oh..." Vanessa said, pinkness flushing her cheeks.

The ram wasn't just smelling their pheromones to see if they were in estrus, he was tasting them, too. Each one after the other. A visceral reaction took hold of me as I watched this play out with nearly every adult female in the herd. That is, until he found one that smelled and tasted to his liking. She was only half his size yet before we knew it he mounted her and was ramming into her in a lust-fueled fury.

I have a hard time putting into words the effect that watching this had on me. I wasn't aroused per se, but a deep longing came over me at seeing such raw sexuality on naked display. There was no societal or cultural etiquette to get in the way - he just smelled and tasted the liquid offering from each of their pussies until he found the one that he liked the best and then he mounted her and fucked her raw and hard. There was a primitive part of my brain for which that resonated powerfully. And as evidenced from the prolonged silence among us, I wasn't the only one.

"Wow!" Taz said finally, breaking the quiet.

"Fuckin' A," Elias mumbled.

"Please tell me you got that..." Vanessa asked Vihaan and Eric, but it was more of a demand as in, 'you better have caught that or I'll have your asses.'

"Every juicy second of it," Eric called out.

That night over dinner we laughed and joked about what we'd seen with the bharal.

"I wonder if the ewes find it as erotically charged as the rams do?" Taz queried.

"You mean if the females cum?" asked Eric, getting right to the point.

"Well yeah, if you want to be crass about it," Taz responded, "but more if they just find it arousing, to be sniffed and tasted in that way."

"It didn't seem all that romantic to me," Jannell chimed in, scrunching up her face. "The sex lasted for all of ten seconds."

"One of the other characteristics that all mammals share - in addition to having mammary glands that produce milk to feed our babies - is the fact that, gestationally, we all begin life as females," said Greg, seemingly unable to relax and turn off his academic voice. "All mammal embryos start out as females with female genitalia and it is only by the release of male sex hormones that a clitoris, vagina and ovaries are transformed into a penis, ball sack and testes. So physiologically, they have all the necessary equipment to experience orgasms."

"Bro, I really hope you don't talk to your wife about sex like that," Elias teased. Everyone started laughing.

"Greg is right, though," I interrupted. "One question that most male biologists have never explored is that of female orgasms in other mammals. You men have always assumed that only the male orgasm is important."

"I have to admit, I've been making nature films for almost twenty years and I've filmed thousands of animals mating but I've never even thought about it," Vihaan admitted.

"To be fair," Elias countered, "the male orgasm is easy to identify. The female one... not so much."

"Shows how skilled a lover you are," Taz retorted. We laughed raucously.

"Actually a few researchers back in the 70s tried to answer the question of whether females in other species of mammals derive intense pleasure from copulation and experience orgasms," Greg informed us, "but there's no funding for that kind of research any more. What has been demonstrated in a few species - chimps, sheep, and horses - is that digital stimulation of the vagina and manipulation of the clitoris does lead to swelling of the labia, lubrication of the vaginal canal and, if stimulated with just the right touch, contractions inside the vagina."

"If researchers could produce all of that in a lab setting with the animals in a cage, I'm sure their real sex out in the wild must be better," offered Vihaan.

"The researchers or the animals?" Vanessa asked, her own sense of humor coming to the surface.

"They probably got 'em drunk first," Eric joked.

"I don't know, guys," Jannell shook her head in doubt. "I've been doing this for a while and when you watch animals mate, it doesn't last very long. Sneeze and you might miss it."

"I'm afraid she's right," Greg added. "Different species employ various amounts of foreplay, but the average copulation duration in mammals is anywhere between 10 seconds and 3 minutes."

"It is hard to imagine any female getting off on that," Taz said solemnly.

"Plus, for many species, the sex can be rather violent: scratching, biting and maiming... you name it," Greg added. The Bharal were no different, I thought to myself as I listened to them debate. As erotic as their foreplay was, when the ram found the ewe he wanted to mate with, he head-butted her into position then grabbed her violently around the hips and bit her neck as he fucked her roughly for all of 7 seconds. She managed to escape his grasp but then he hopped back on for a second round that lasted all of 8 seconds. The quality of his pregame was so much better than his final performance - I felt cheated for her.

"Maybe females in the rest of the animal kingdom are more honest to the fact that rough sex gets them off," said Elias, looking like he'd just told a forbidden secret. He made a point of making eye contact with me, trying to gauge my reaction.

"It's not always the guys roughing up the girls," I reminded them, "just ask any Black Widow, Praying Mantis, and many species of octopus."

"True dat!" exclaimed Taz. Elias just smiled and gave that universal nod that means, 'touché.'

"There are those species where we know both males and females engage in sex for pleasure and not just for procreation, Bonobo chimps for instance," Sonam chimed in as if he'd been waiting for the right time to drop some wisdom.

"That's right," Elias added. "They do it to strengthen social bonds within the group."

"And surely the clitoris isn't a redundant organ in virtually every other mammalian group save for humans," I argued. "That just wouldn't make sense, and it would be totally inconsistent with how nature does almost everything else. Rather than assuming that humans are some kind of special exception, it is more scientific to assume that similar organs have similar functions across species."

"She's right about that," Greg nodded.

"We know from our own experiences as humans that female arousal makes copulation better for both parties, and female orgasms increase the chance of conception. Why would this not be true across the animal kingdom?" I argued.

"Can the girls of other species really be getting off from such brief and rough sex?" Jannell pondered.

"If they are, I wonder which aspect turns them on the most?" Taz continued, following the line of reasoning. "Is it the musky scent of the males in heat? Is it watching the guys fighting each other for the right to mate with the females? Is it the rough and violent way that males typically mate with them, brief as it is?"

"Who knows," I said, but it's not what I was thinking. The topic had suddenly become too risky for me to voice my honest opinion in mixed company. Likely all of those factors aroused the females, I thought, but, as much as I hated to admit it, my bet was that it is mostly the rough sex. The feminist in me cringes at voicing this but we girls tend to enjoy a rough ride.

Maybe 'rough' is not the best descriptor. Perhaps a better way to describe the phenomena is that we want our man to be so attracted to us that his need and desire manifest themselves aggressively. But only the men we like! Lord knows we don't want that from all men. Now, I've known my share of women, traumatized by past sexual encounters and unwanted aggression from men, who consequently desire soft and gentle lovers. For me, however, soft and gentle is for foreplay and cuddling afterward. When it comes down to the dirty deed, bite me, spank me and pound me senseless and I'm one happy girl. My problem has always been finding a guy who understands this without being a prick about it.

Chapter 4

The following night our conversation centered much more around our task at hand - finding and filming the leopards now that we were on the trail of their main food source.

"Ok," Vanessa began, bringing us to attention as we ate. "Snow leopards are solitary, except for females with cubs. They rear them in dens in the mountains for extended periods. An individual snow leopard lives within a well-defined home range that may vary greatly in size, anywhere from 40 square kilometers (15 square miles) and up to 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles). It will be hard for us to cover that much territory on day excursions."

"Like most animals, snow leopards use extensive scent marking to communicate with one another," I interjected.

"Yeah, but a terrain with so much harsh freezing winds and snow is not conducive to preserving scent marks, is it?" Vanessa asked. "With territories so large and spread out, it could be weeks or even months before another leopard comes along to smell another's scent marking, by which point I'd think the smell would be long gone, right?" She'd done her homework and I respected her for that.

"If we just stay on the bharal and put cameras on them where they stay huddled for the night, we'll find the leopards because that's when they do most of their hunting," Elias offered.

"Maybe," Taz countered, "but maybe not. If they've caught one recently they can eat off of that one carcass for weeks. Then if we're not following the right heard, we could miss them altogether."

"Taz is right," I added. "Vanessa asks the right question, though. Snow leopards had to solve the evolutionary communication problem by developing particularly potent urinary, anal, and scent gland emissions and learn how to deposit them strategically so as not to be destroyed by the elements before the next cat comes along." Now we were in my domain. For me, the inspiration to try to find and study the snow leopard was a scientific one, all about the power of pheromones. For that reason, I figured that snow leopards were the perfect species to test out my theory about higher orders of sophisticated chemical communication of which animals are capable through their scent-marking practices.

Most cats use trees, bushes and tall grasses for scent marking. However, trees stop growing at elevations above 12,000 feet because of the harsh climate conditions and thinner air when one is up that high. Since snow leopards live at an elevation where there are no trees or bushes to scent mark, they use rocky ledges to rub against and spray. I was betting that if we found those and left our cameras nearby, we'd find our leopards.

"If we follow the same paths as the sheep," I continued, "and look for rocky outcroppings with a slight overhang between three and four feet off the ground, I bet they'll reek of leopard pee, and that's where we should place our remote cameras."

"Sounds good to me," said Vanessa. "I assume you know how leopard pee smells?"

"Taz knows better than me."

"One of my many skills," she sighed in mock arrogance, shrugging her shoulders.

"It'd be great if we could get some samples!" Greg interjected, way too enthusiastically.

"I've never seen anybody get so excited about piss and shit," Eric said, shaking his head. "I'd hate to read your FetLife profile." Vihaan and Taz fell out laughing while everyone else looked confused.

"What's FetLife?" Sonam asked.

"Yeah, tell us all about it, Eric," Elias teased, a sly smile across his face.

"Cat scat lover seeks sexy kitten for hot, wet fun," Taz cracked. More laughter as the rest of us started to get the idea.

"Very funny, guys," Greg replied sarcastically.

"No dog scat lovers please!" Vihaan chimed in. He and Taz were rolling on their sides at that point.

"It's just a uh... dating website," Eric answered finally, scratching the back of his head and suddenly not making eye contact with anyone. When Taz and Vihaan stopped laughing they both looked at each other with one cocked eyebrow. I'd have to ask her about it later.

"Ok, moving right along..." Vanessa interjected to bring us back on track. "This sounds promising. No reason why we can't employ both strategies. Tomorrow we reach our base camp, right Sonam?"

"Correct you are. Tomorrow will be our toughest day of hiking, with a fair amount of climbing. But at the end of the day we will be at 21,000 feet and we will set up our base of operations there. So get plenty of rest tonight. Tomorrow will be our biggest challenge so far."

We finished up and went back to our tent pods after dinner. Nights in the Himalayas are bitter cold - usually 20-30 degrees colder than during the day. Our tents were separated by less than 12 feet, yet traversing that short distance chills you down to your bones. Under clear skies, however, you will never see a more beautiful starscape. In the night skies of London or Berkeley I'm lucky to see a few dozen stars. In the Himalayas, up so high with no air or light pollution to drown them out, the stars twinkle by the billions. You can even discern the colour differences between those that tint blue, white, yellow or pink. It was breathtaking.

Everyone took a turn in the tent alone to relieve their bladders and bowels. The guys were courteous enough to let Taz and I go first because they took longer. Taz and I went to help collect snow to melt for our drinking water the next day while the guys completed their business. The last one to finish opened the tent flaps on both sides to air it out, then we all got in and sealed it tight to warm it up and get ready for bed.

This relative lack of privacy really unnerved me in the beginning, but I was starting to get used to it. I had no other choice. No one really prepares you for how intimate a four person tent becomes during a month-long mountain excursion. Even though we each took some alone time after dinner, its different in the middle of the night. If you wake up and have to pee, it's too cold to go outside the tent plus we're not dressed for it, so you just grab your bottle and pee into it and wait until morning to dispose of it.

The funniest moments came if you happened to be the last person to fall asleep on a given night. As each person drifts off, their muscles relax and, occasionally, they let out the gas they've been holding all evening, trying to be polite. I was grossed out the first time I heard it. Taz and I were sleeping in the middle that night and the sound came from my right, so I knew it had to be her or Greg. Then I heard another come from my left, followed by Taz's faint giggling. What could I do? I started giggling, too. As my laughter increased, the gas that I'd been holding all night slipped out.

"Oh snap!" I blurted, then quickly slapped my hand over my mouth as I laughed hysterically. Taz was through. Trying to remain quiet, she was laughing so hard that I could feel her body shaking through the sleeping bag as she lay next to me.

"I see you never gave up on your pheromone ideas," Elias said to me as we changed, taking me out of my memory. I was surprised that he even remembered the exchange we had when I was still a grad student, when he ridiculed my ideas and embarrassed me so.

"Yup. I think there's a lot more going on with chemical communication than anyone realizes." I didn't, however, let on that I had all this gear that I was secretly hauling to collect samples to take back to my lab.

"You're barking up a dead tree," Elias said, mixing his metaphors. "We already know what animal pheromones communicate: territory, sex, and readiness for mating, whether the females are in estrus and the males in musk, that sort of thing. Their scent markings have been analyzed over and over - you're not gonna find anything more than that."

"But that makes no sense to me," I countered. "When you think about it, most animals possess a sense of smell that is hundreds or even thousands of times more sensitive than the human sense of smell. That seems like overkill for just three narrow bits of information."

"The sensitivity is about picking up those scents over a distance," Greg added.

"I don't think it's either, or," I continued. "Our problem is that we've inherited an arrogant scientific tradition that assumes humans are the only complexly communicative species, and we also assume that the only form of complex communication is language."

"Men thinking that we're the center of the universe and God's special creation," Taz offered, having my back.

"Exactly. I'm merely trying to approach my research without that arrogant baggage. I'm betting that there is an entire world of communications that animals are able to convey chemically - things like health, diet, age, lineage, overall genetic compatibility, fear, aggression, family status (like whether a female is actively rearing cubs), and who knows what else." I was betting that snow leopards sprayed some pretty chemically potent stuff, perfect for testing my theory. Now all we had to do was find the leopards.

"I just hate to see you wasting your time and your talents chasing fool's gold," Elias said, shaking his head. He seemed clueless as to just how condescending he was being in that moment.

"Not only will I prove that animals have this wider array of communication, but eventually I'm going to prove that humans still possess some of these capabilities as well," I insisted evenly, trying my best to hide my rising agitation. Elias laughed.

"Ok, now you're just being ridiculous," he said between guffaws. "I was taking you seriously for a minute. There are no known human pheromones! Study after study has tried to detect them through molecular analysis, starting all the way back in the 1950s, and each and every one of them has come up short."

"A perfume and cologne company started that myth back in the early 1990s in order to patent and sell two molecules that they wanted to advertise as increasing sexual attraction. But those molecules were never verified by strict scientific standards to actually and consistently produce a physical or behavioral response in the receiving individual," Greg added.

"Many evolutionary biologists have differing opinions about this," Taz interjected. She was my rock. "Some argue that humans don't have and make use of pheromones at all, while others argue that humans are simply more complicated in that we may use pheromones in our decision making but just don't rely on them exclusively as some insect and small animal species seem to do."

"Just because we haven't isolated them in a lab doesn't mean they don't exist," I insisted. "That's just more male scientific arrogance. And it belies common sense and the proof of human pheromones that we see every day."

"Such as?" Elias asked.

"For instance, by the end of this trip, Taz and I will be on the same menstruation cycle, as will Jannell and Vanessa. This phenomenon takes place in college dormitories and shared living spaces all over the world each and every day, and its due to our bodies chemically communicating with one another."

"She's kinda got you there," Greg said, assuming the role of referee.

"Ha! We'll see," is all he said as he crawled into his sleeping bag and turned to get comfortable. Taz squeezed my hand to let me know she was with me then killed the light. Pretty soon the sound of Greg's snoring filled the tent. Once again, I was the last to fall asleep as I lay there lost in my thoughts. Eventually, the chorus of farts as everyone drifted off lulled me out of my thoughts just enough for sleep to overtake me as well.