Labrat wrote:
Imp-Chan wrote:
It's so accurate, though! All kitties have a magical spot at the point where their spines become their tails... if you scritch there, every last one of them will raise their butt in the air, and most of 'em will also purr. It's vaguely obscene, really.
Does that by chance also work with women or, for that matter, men?
Unless you have been experementing with Poe as of late, I may have to do some tests of my own. For science!
Actually, it works more or less with just about any vertebrate. It usually works best with females, though males often have a toned-down response. Domestic cats are do show the response much more than other animals.
When I learned about it some years ago, I experimented with a few female human friends. I found that they didn't respond noticably to a hand on their mid-back, but pressure just above where the tail would be (if we had tails) usually got a rather "compliant" reaction. My thought was "Hmmm ... interesting ..." I haven't tried it with male humans; if anyone does, let us know how it goes. I'd predict a mild response, but not as strong as in females.
We have a bunch of pet birds, including a male/female cockatiel pair and a female conure, plus another visiting female 'tiel. The three females react strongly to rubbing the base of their tails, and the reaction is similar to what cats do. It's obviously something erotic. Two of them have even gone into a full "come-on" display, turning away, raising their tail feathers, and spreading their wings slightly. I try to explain that sex just won't work with a creature whose penis is as large as their bodies, but they don't understand.
The reaction is pretty well known among animal behavior researchers (and breeders). It's one of a list of behavior patterns that has survived through the long, branching evolutionary process, so it probably developed 200 million years ago or more.