Penis sword plausibility

ClareGreen

Onwards, ever onwards
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 28, 2010
Messages
791
Reaction score
121
Location
England
I dunno, I think the word 'ovipositor' is perfectly fit for the job.
 

Roxxsmom

Beastly Fido
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 24, 2011
Messages
23,083
Reaction score
10,780
Location
Where faults collide
Website
doggedlywriting.blogspot.com
I knew that topic would get your attention.

OK, there's no easy way to ask this.

I have been playing with a story that has a breed of humanoid creature that shares some characteristics with wasps. Mainly, they have a stinger that becomes "aroused" during battle and may be used as a front mounted weapon that — effectively — screws people to death.

Now, I think this is hilarious, but I am hoping I can write it in such a way that it will instead be horrifying and as believable as fantasy creatures get.

My intention is not to do some sort of gender critique.

Do you think I can get this idea beyond laughable?
Does it help or hinder my case that only the females have this ability?

Well, the stinger of bees and wasps is a highly modified ovipositor, which is why only females have the stingers. And of course, with many species of bee and wasp, most of the females are sterile workers, so the ovipositer is used only as a stinger and not as an egg depositing organ. If you're modeling this species after these kinds of insects, it makes complete sense.

I don't know that real bees and wasps get sexually aroused when they sting their victims, though :) But if it's an alien species, you can do whatever you want with it.
 

AVS

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 13, 2008
Messages
529
Reaction score
73
Location
Beacon and mountain, river and road.
The island of Tauschen in the South Atlantic was first colonised/occupied by the Portuguese in the 1670s. Males from the local tribe, the Falsa, would regularly attempt to achieve dominance through the ritual of penis fighting.

Inevitably the Europeans thought this was barbaric and introduced them to duelling with actual swords.

Sadly today there are no Falsa left and the island is now home only to an abandoned whaling station and seabirds.
 
Last edited:

SamCoulson

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 19, 2014
Messages
132
Reaction score
16
Location
Near Washington DC
Parallel evolution. Stinger is left over. Something like that. Its not earth, I'm just using existing creatures as inspiration for alternative hominids. I don't think its any weirder than the average lord of the rings beastie.

Yeah, my issue in my head is the physics of it, how/why would something like that be effective on a biped? If you haven't yet, try writing an action/fight scene to test out the aesthetics.
 

Bolero

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 2, 2013
Messages
1,080
Reaction score
106
Location
UK
THAT would be super creepy. I'm suddenly imagining something akin to Aliens only way freakier.

Read The Fresco by Sherri Tepper

A relatively minor plot point, and not about dominance, but alien ovipositors come into play.
 

DanLett

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 17, 2014
Messages
97
Reaction score
11
Location
South Surrey, BC
Makes you see it in a whole different light when a yellow jacket lands on you and starts jamming her stinger in over and over again for the sheer joy of it. Evil little insects.

Indeed. I'm interested in wasps because I was stung by one at a very early age, but also recently while out running. It flew into my mouth and stung my inner lip. It was a brutal day. I am getting quite giddy with the idea of the ovipositor impregnating people with something, but I'm not sure if I want to go all the way with that thought.
 

Buffysquirrel

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 12, 2008
Messages
6,137
Reaction score
694
You might want to take a look at Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shadows of the Apt series. It features humans with insect characteristics, including wasps, which have a kind of magical sting (if I interpreted it correctly).

But weirdly, Tchaikovsky made them male.
 

Roxxsmom

Beastly Fido
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 24, 2011
Messages
23,083
Reaction score
10,780
Location
Where faults collide
Website
doggedlywriting.blogspot.com
For the same reason Seinfeld played a worker bee, with stinger, in that bee movie. People tend to be ignorant of hymenopteran biology. I've even had people argue with me about it. I had to pull the encyclopedia out to convince my fifth grade teacher. I was such a biology geek.
 

Little Anonymous Me

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 24, 2012
Messages
5,191
Reaction score
1,184
Location
Florida
But weirdly, Tchaikovsky made them male.

According to the author's blog, the female Wasps are actually stronger, and it's the societal structure that has the kinden going about war bass ackwards.

A Beetle scholar in Helleron once remarked that the Wasps were an unnatural kinden who could not last: the example of their beasts was that the women were superior, and yet Wasp-kinden women are without rights, nothing more than the property of their menfolk.
 

Brightdreamer

Just Another Lazy Perfectionist
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 22, 2012
Messages
12,977
Reaction score
4,513
Location
USA
Website
brightdreamersbookreviews.blogspot.com
For the same reason Seinfeld played a worker bee, with stinger, in that bee movie. People tend to be ignorant of hymenopteran biology.

To be fair, the intention of films like Bee Movie, Antz, A Bug's Life and so forth is entertainment, often with a side of social commentary, and not education. Cartoon animals are anthropomorphized for a reason. (But, then, even I cringed at the previews of Barnyard... there's fudging things for entertainment and/or social commentary, and then there's just plain wrong...)

I agree that the idea of a teacher not knowing a fact found in many grade-school picture books on nature is disturbing. But, then, I had a high school art teacher who had no idea who Maxfield Parrish was.
 

DanLett

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 17, 2014
Messages
97
Reaction score
11
Location
South Surrey, BC
Yeah. It's a strange feature of modern audiences that they'll bristle about differences in genderized representations of animals to a far greater degree than they'd question the act of anthropomorphism itself.
 

kkbe

Huh.
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 23, 2011
Messages
5,773
Reaction score
1,687
Location
Left of center
Website
kkelliewriteme.wordpress.com
To me, the question isn't what that stinger thingie might look like, or how it would sting, but where in the victim that stinger would be thrust. If in certain orifices, that might be interesting (eye socket or nostril, driving up into the brain). Or, you know. Other orifices. Logistically though, no matter the orifice, it would need pin-point precision.

But if it jammed just about anyplace, driving through human tissue like buttah, that might be interesting. Driving in there, then maybe sharp thingies rip and shred on the way out. Like forward-pointing barbs.

:p

Or if it had prehensile qualities, like . . . it pierces and then searches, probes inside, slips into organs or down throats. . .

Now you're going from that original 'penis sword' thingie to something that actually scares/horrifies me a little bit.

:)
 

thedark

Weaving through the night.
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 12, 2013
Messages
1,558
Reaction score
463
Location
Not where Google thinks.
Just randomly chiming in to say that I can totally see an extendable stinger that becomes erect in battle, used to batter an enemy to death while holding them down or while wrestling/fighting.

It's creepy as all hell.

And it could be small and soft until battle, then extend and harden, like a metal snake. Still flexible, still jabbable, still stabblable, yet a hard and deadly weapon.

Creepy, creepy.

And an idea worth pulling off, if you can do it.

Good luck,

~ Anna
 

Neverwhere

Registered
Joined
Sep 11, 2014
Messages
41
Reaction score
4
This can work, really anything can work, if you make the effort. Overall I think it's a good concept if you divorce it from the codpiece humour that first cropped up in this thread.
 

zanzjan

killin' all teh werds
Staff member
Moderator
Kind Benefactor
VPX
VPXI
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 5, 2010
Messages
9,728
Reaction score
3,208
Location
home home homityhomehome
Yeah. It's a strange feature of modern audiences that they'll bristle about differences in genderized representations of animals to a far greater degree than they'd question the act of anthropomorphism itself.

Why is that strange?

Anthropomorphism, in the classic sense of depicting an animal with more human-like qualities, is not inherently judgmental (though it can certainly be rendered so) whereas the reverse -- the depiction of classes of people as more animal-like -- is often directly meant to be debasing in a gross sense, and it's only in modern times that we have started to see that as problematic. It's about using metaphor to empower/disempower.

Likewise, if you take an empowered role associated very specifically with a single gender in nature -- queen bee, for example -- that in the human world is the traditionally *disempowered* gender, and to anthropomorphize it you either disempower the role or give it to the empowered gender, you are making a statement about gender and empowerment, in a way easily construed as being either insulting or deliberately provocative. There are certainly valid reasons one would consciously do this in a work, being fully aware of the subtext of that decision and building a larger commentary around it, but "for the lulz" would not really be one of them. Things like the Bee Movie certainly weren't trying to be offensive, but they fall solidly into the category of persistent (and not very imaginative) microaggression.
 

Sollluna

keyboards: useful for typing errors
Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 8, 2014
Messages
173
Reaction score
28
Location
On the coast
Not sure how focused you are solely on wasps, but if you start looking at other invertebrates, there are actual animals that do engage in some sort of violent penis battle.

Many species of Pseudobiceros flatworms (particularily Pseudobiceros hancockanus) engage in "penis fighting". The flatworms have both male and female sex organs. They fight with their penises, and the loser gets stabbed through its skin and becomes impregnated. The winner gets to go off and have nothing more to do with the eggs/offspring. (There are many videos of this which show how dramatic and serious the fight is, the loser is often injured and clearly in bad shape compared to the winner.)

Bed bugs (Cimex sp.) breed through "traumatic insertion". The male stabs the female with his hypodermic genitalia and deposits sperm. The sperm travel's through the female's body cavity into sperm receptacles and eventually into the female's ovaries.

Male Dana octopus squid (Taningia danae) use their sharp beak and hooks to cut large (5cm+) gashes in the females of the species. They then use a penis-like tentacle to deposit sperm packets directly into the cuts.

The sea slug Chromodoris reticulata can regrow its penis. After mating, their penis breaks off and remains stuck in their partner. This help ensure that its mating is successful, and somewhat limits competitors from mating with the same sea slug. Having a broken off penis isn't bad for the sea slug, since it was only using 1/3 of it. The rest was coiled up inside its body. Once the exposed 1/3 breaks off, the next section uncoils and is ready to use (this takes about a day). After that breaks off, the final section uncoils. If all three segments are used up the sea slug can even completely regrow the whole thing (although this takes a long time).




These are just a few example. There are many other weird examples from animals, especially creatures such as: slugs, snails, insects, flatworms, sea slugs, octopus, and squid (if you're looking for species to research). Given how often something like this shows up in animals living on Earth, some sort of penis type weapon developing on an alien seems plausible, but it does all depending on how you phrase and explain it.
 
Last edited:

Roxxsmom

Beastly Fido
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 24, 2011
Messages
23,083
Reaction score
10,780
Location
Where faults collide
Website
doggedlywriting.blogspot.com
Things like the Bee Movie certainly weren't trying to be offensive, but they fall solidly into the category of persistent (and not very imaginative) microaggression.

Exactly, and they missed a great opportunity to create a kids' story with a bevy of strong female characters driving the plot.

So often, movie makers and writers excuse the default to male-centered stories and plots by saying that the subject matter is inherently biased. So if they're trying to portray a medieval society, or some kind of historical tale of war or adventure, they argue that most of the active characters have to be male, because it wouldn't be realistic to have more than a token woman or two adopting such a non traditional role in that setting.

Well fine, but don't turn around and create a story with male worker bees or ants then and claim artistic license.
 

DanLett

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 17, 2014
Messages
97
Reaction score
11
Location
South Surrey, BC
Why is that strange?

Anthropomorphism, in the classic sense of depicting an animal with more human-like qualities, is not inherently judgmental (though it can certainly be rendered so) whereas the reverse -- the depiction of classes of people as more animal-like -- is often directly meant to be debasing in a gross sense, and it's only in modern times that we have started to see that as problematic. It's about using metaphor to empower/disempower.

Oh I agree with that. What I meant was that substituting sex organs and blurring gendered distinctions is often perceived as judgmental or some kind of intentional statement, when it might just be a bit of neutral experimentation on behalf of the writer. I'm not playing down disempowerment or anything like that.

Seeing as we're on the topic. I teach sociology. What do you mean when you say "microaggression"? I'm very familiar with the term. I'm interested to know how you are operationalizing it here.
 

zanzjan

killin' all teh werds
Staff member
Moderator
Kind Benefactor
VPX
VPXI
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 5, 2010
Messages
9,728
Reaction score
3,208
Location
home home homityhomehome
"A microaggression is a brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignity, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicates a hostile, derogatory, or negative slight or insult toward people of non-dominant identities. Microaggressions are symptomatic of a larger culture of pervasive stereotypes and manifestations of privilege."

...in this particular case, I allude to the pattern, rife cross-milieu, of reassigning roles exhibiting strong characteristics of competence/leadership/dominance from female to male.