Zoo City New York
A Valentine’s Day in the Animal Kingdom
A recent scientific study purports to have isolated the hormone (or pheremone or whatever, it’s science, which is hard) in prairie voles that facilitates that genus’ monogamy. Having isolated this “love” chemical — which happens to be very similar to the one found in humans — scientists of course proceeded to figure out how to repress it, thus ruining several very happy prairie vole relationships. The key, here, is that this process may also work in people. Yes, that’s right, there may be an antidote to love. Whether or not you think that’s a good thing, we thought we’d take a look at the love lives of other animals to see what we might learn about ourselves. The answers may astound you (or not).
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The Jealous Types: FOXES
Red foxes turn out to be a lot like people, sexually speaking anyway. Females tend to mate with several males, who duke it out for the chance. But eventually she settles down with just one of them, who nevertheless remains jealous of all those other fox dudes until he dies.
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
How to prove your superiority to all the guys she’s loved before; how to be first among rivals? In the classic American film Urban Cowboy, a young John Travolta is faced with much the same dilemma, as he must win back the affections of his beloved Debra Winger from a rival (smartly played by the dangerous Scott Glenn). His solution: become a mechanical bull-riding champion. This seems pretty fool-proof. Mason-Dixon (133 Essex St) has such a mechanical bull in place; for just $5 you can prove your masculine primacy. Another option would be to set a high score at Barcade [388 Union Ave], if you are a nerd. And to cement your status as both provider and protector, buy your foxy lady dinner at a Shabu Shabu restaurant (like Shabu-Tatsu, 216 E 10th St) — not only can you pay for her food, you will prove you can also cook it, should it come to that (and should the apocalypse come with thin-sliced beef and a shallow cooking pan). Sly!
The Scary Possessives: ANGLERFISH
Researchers couldn’t figure out why they only found female anglerfish in the wild until they discovered that those little parasites attached to each one were actually dissolved males. Because the male’s digestive system collapses in adulthood, he needs to find a female to survive. He bites her and releases an enzyme that melts his mouth and her body together; their circulatory systems merge, he degenerates into nothing but a pair of gonads and the woman becomes a “self-fertilizing hermaphroditic host.” When two hearts become one — who could ask for anything more.
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
Since whatever she says goes, the anglerfishes will be attending a sex workshop on maximizing female pleasure, either “G-spot 101 and Female Ejaculation” at Babeland (babeland.com) or Moxie in the City’s “Double Your Pleasure Sex Ed Salon for Women” (moxieinthecity.net). Before heading home to try out the new tricks, the anglers will go for a romantic dinner cruise (spiritofnewyork.com, worldyacht.com or skylinecruises.com): let someone else do the swimming for once.
The Prying Moralists: VULTURES
Who knew vultures were so moralistic? If vultures catch a fellow vulture having a casual affair, they team up and attack him. And when you found out your old friend from high school was cheating on his pregnant wife, you just looked the other way, didn’t you? You’re worse than a carrion-eating bird of prey!
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
Because of their fondness for Codes of Conduct, vultures will enjoy Angel’s Share (8 Stuyvesant St), a not-so-well-kept-secret bar, up the back staircase in a Japanese restaurant, with a few strictly enforced rules: no groups larger than four, no shouting, no picture taking, no yakking on your cellphone, and no service unless you’re seated, which makes infelicitous flirting more trouble than it’s worth. And for dinner, how about some raw meat? The Cafe at Country (90 Madison Ave) has a reputation for one of the best steaks tar-tare in the city.
-img3-
The Contented Shut-ins: BEAVERS and DWARF DEER
Have you ever tried to maintain a dam? It’s really hard, as any beaver could tell you, and thus they tend to form strong family units, including monogamous parental units. Maybe what’s destroying The American Family isn’t that gays are getting married but that most of us neither build nor maintain our own homes anymore. That’s what keeps dwarf brocket deer from settling down — the lack of a home, not the gays. Native to Yucatan and South American forests, these relatively small deer stay monogamous — but only when they’re living with their mates. Single dwarf brocket deer have casual mating sessions with any nearby females.
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
Out on a double date to show the reluctant male dwarf brocket the wonders of monogamous couple-hood and shared living spaces, the do-it-yourself home-building beavers and deer are looking for inspiration on an architecture tour with either the Tenement Museum (tenement.org) or the Municipal Art Society (mas.org). After that it’s back to the beavers’ stylish den for an at-home cooking class with Home Cooking New York (homecookingny.com), which offers two and a half hour classes on any number of cuisines, with a flexible schedule. The young couples picked the Vegetarian Indian menu, as neither species has ever been to India.
The Cerebral Prudes: BATS
Researchers have found that, in bat populations with promiscuous females, the males have bigger testes and smaller brains. In monogamous populations, the males have bigger brains and smaller testes, suggesting that sometimes there’s an “evolutionary trade-off between intelligence and sexual prowess,” as one biologist tells MSNBC. So much about our own lives makes sense now.
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
The resources of our own mind are inadequate to the task of imagining what it is like to be a bat with a small brain and large testicles, just cold hittin’ on promiscuous ladybats. But we can tell what it would be like for us to behave as a bat with a big brain and small batnuts. Once it got dark on Friday the 13th, for instance, we would flap down to McNally Jackson (52 Prince St, RSVP via mcnallyjackson.com) for “How History Was Made: Books That Inspired A President,” a panel discussion in which authors, critics and journalists talk about the literate dude who’s running the world now, and the books what he’s read.
Once there, we might even meet a similarly right-minded individual to take, on the following night, to BAM (bam.org), for their currently running star-studded production of The Winter’s Tale, by noted small-testicled egghead William Shakespeare, at the Harvey Theater (651 Fulton St) and/or the mind-expanding late free show from bubblegummy art-damaged noise-punks Japanther, at the BAMcafé (30 Lafayette Ave). Remember, big brain, small nuts, ok.
The Mom and Pop Lifebloggers: SPARROWS
Half the time, male sparrows help raise chicks they didn’t sire. “We see infidelity all the time,” one researcher says, talking, we assume, about sparrows. Despite their promiscuity, sparrows avoid inbreeding, even in small populations in which aunts, uncles and cousins are everywhere. They don’t even socialize with relatives, lest they give into temptation one enchanted evening.
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
So, your life revolves around your intense but highly secluded family life (you probably blog about it, in search of a book deal). Luckily, you don’t need to ask Mom to watch the kids on V-Day: there are fine home dining options right where you are in Park Slope. Local slow-food eatery Luscious Food (59 Fifth Ave, lusciousbrooklyn.com) will cater a private just-like-home-cooked dinner (and they’ll help you plan the menu, though, alas, it’s already too-short notice to book a waiter). Then, for the evening’s entertainment, fire up the P.C. to download an audio file of noted daddy-blogger Neal Pollack’s Alternadad: The True Story of One Family’s Struggle to Raise a Cool Kid in America ($37.87 on audible.com), or, if the organic comfort food has already worked its sensual magic, to get in the mood with the homemade porn movie “Georgia O’Keefe — Sensual Flowers” (www.youtube.com/watch). Thanks, “Southernmom1983”!
The Midwestern Puritans: PRAIRIE VOLES
Like high school sweethearts from your Midwestern hometown, male prairie voles tend to mate exclusively with the female vole to which they lose their virginity. Going above and beyond the duty of husbandry, though, they don’t just hold back from the temptation to cheat — they actually attack other females.
You’ve seen couples like this, haven’t you? The fresh-faced kids sitting in back of the bar while the burlesque show goes on, coolly (but perhaps nervously) ridiculing the performers together — “um, yes [giggle], shake it all about, dearie, if you feel that you must” — and then going home and tearing each others’ clothes off while secretly, angrily, thinking about pretty much any person in the world except the one they’re having sex with.
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
Well, if that’s what gets you off: the Slipper Room (167) is a reliable venue for naughty-naughty entertainment, and the weekly Mr. Choade’s Upstairs/Downstairs (Saturdays at 10:30pm; $5 cover) has an especially retro-kitschy V-Day line-up set.
Experience has also taught us that being drunk helps. Like a sudsier version of Beijing’s World Park, the Village Pourhouse (64 Third Ave) offers “Drink Around the World” specials allowing you to sample beer selections from close to two dozen countries — without ever leaving the East Village. It’s the next best thing to actual variety.
with...
Their Slutty Cousins: MEADOW VOLES
Unlike its responsible, prairie-dwelling cousin, the meadow vole tends to mate with multiple partners — until, that is, scientists discovered they could make them monogamous by transferring a single gene from its do-goody cousin. Next stop, Spitzer.
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
Take it from your fellow voles (please, and be clear about affirming that you believe them), monogamy can be fun! Though The L Magazine does not recommend gene therapy to cure you of your sluttishness, there are other ways of getting the nudge. Babeland (94 Rivington St), for one, carries all sorts of fun toys for you and that special someone to spend lazy Saturdays playing with together. You know, like a train set, except actually not anything like a train set. (For the most part.) The night after Valentine’s Day is a “Naughty Valentine’s Day Wine + Chocolate Bash” (8pm, $40; register at babeland.com), featuring giveaways of lots of “couples-themed” sex toys, among other helpful and instructive aids to sleeping with the same person a lot.
-img4-
The monogamous Patriots: BALD EAGLES
Bald eagles mate for life. (USA! USA!) Obviously, as a symbol of our morally pure Christian nation, the bald eagle would never actually live here in Sodom-on-the-Hudson (except as the teary image on a sweatshirt sold at the 9/11 Memorial Construction Site™). So, what does the romantic eagle couple do to satisfy such patriotic lust in New York City?
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
Well, we were once in an Internet cafe in Paris, and a big, husky woman stumbled in and shouted, in English, “wherez da Hard Rock Cafe?” Classic Americans love them their Hard Rock Cafes, so bald eagles, in their bald eagle sweatshirts, will enjoy supper at the Times Square incarnation (1501 Broadway). And since eagles presumably like high places, they can finish off the night at Top of the Rock (30 Rockefeller Plaza), the city’s premier sky-level lookout since the Towers fell and the Statue of Liberty’s torch became off-limits. For a slightly more adventurous New York experience (and yet thoroughly American), they could head down to the Ear Inn (326 Spring St), one of the oldest bars in the city — they say parts of the bar were built from timbers salvaged from the great fire of 1776 (an important year for patriots).
The Opportunists: OTTERS
Scientists believe that marine otters tend to sustain monogamous relationships — unless there are a lot of potential mates around, that is, which reminds us of every human couple we’ve ever known.
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
The conundrum: you and your significant other want to go out and live it up, tonight of all nights — but, tonight of all nights: everywhere you go, temptation! Tinkling laughter, darting eyes, everywhere the damp smoky secret scent of flesh… sorry. Anyway. The solution: a snug! No, silly, we’re not suggesting you make a blanket fort under the table of a local bar (although…). We mean an enclosed booth, like the private-roomy front tables at Local 138 (138 Ludlow St), which even allow you to order your drinks through a window, lest the bar’s overwhelming pheremonal charge (and sweet, sweet alcohol) drive you to choose a moment’s pleasure over everlasting treasure.
You’ll want to eat, too: just the far side of Houston Street is the alchemical Latin spot Yerba Buena (23 Avenue A). There’s only a dozen or so tables, minimizing the potential targets for wand’ring eyes.
The Cougars: CHEETAHS
Researchers found female cheetahs to be perpetually unsatisfied; after analyzing DNA samples from mothers and their cubs, they discovered that no female cheetah that had several litters had had more than one with any individual male. Don’t settle, Cheetah Girls!
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
Back in high school they called you “fast,” but your muscular gams and purring predatory confidence have helped you become the polished maneater you are today. “Cheetah” is basically another word for… We swore we weren’t going to do this. Damn it. Ok. Ok. Ok. Cougar. There. Cougar. Cheetahs = Cougars. So. Shitfuck. So. You and your girls are out on the prowl on V-Day. Magnolia Bakery? Nah — Sex and the City is so Bush administration. To establish properly intimidating cultural bona-fides, go to a Chelsea art opening — like the one for the “ambivalent realist” German painter Thoralf Knoblauch, at Tony Shafrazi Gallery (544 W 26th St). Then cab it down to the L.E.S. (much like that “Brooklyn” you’ve been hearing so much about, it’s not just for artists and ugly people anymore!) for dinner at so-exclusive-you’ll-have-to-know-someone-or-else-act-like-you-do lounge Chloe 81 (81 Ludlow St). Then finish up by making younger European guys buy you $13 lychee martinis at Thom Bar, in the lobby of Soho’s tony Thompson Hotel (60 Thompson St).
The Party People: LIGHTNING BUGS
Fireflies light up to attract partners: it’s their mating call. Some female lightning bugs flash one way to attract males of one species for mating, and then they flash another way to attract males of a different species — not to mate with, but to eat.
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
If it’s cannibalism you’re into, they have message boards for that, apparently, but as far as strobe-lit meat markets go, check out the shiny happy disco-ballin’ glitter kids at LUSTR, the regular Saturday night “underground disco” dance party at Label (174 Rivington St).
On the morning (or, rather, mid-afternoon and night) after, Film Forum (209 W Houston St; filmforum.org) shows Baby Face, the ultimate in pre-Production Code Hollywood sordidness: Barbara Stanwyck’s purring performance as the backwater call girl who sleeps her way up the corporate ladder will light up your voracious, vicious heart.
The Frat Boys: CHIMPANZEES
Chimps are kinky in a frat-party kind of way: several male chimpanzees will often have sex with a single female, one after the other. Evolutionary biologists say this sort of promiscuity accounts for their giant testicles — that there’s usually a correlation between testicle-to-body size ratio and the number of sexual partners. [Insert self-deprecating testicle-size/number-of-sexual-partners joke here. Please.]
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
Just south of Central Park are a Hooters and a Hawaiian Tropic Zone within walking distance of each other, so chimpanzees can divide their time between busty beer-wenches and bikini-clad burger slingers.
If they get bored, they could wander down to HeadQuarters Gentlemen’s Club (552 W 38th St), which boasts a steakhouse upstairs (because chimps are never sated) and several “private rooms.” Or they could hop on the subway to Brooklyn and hit up Pumps (1089 Grand St), the only strip club in the Williamsburg area (aka Bushwick). It’s seedy like a strip club should be. Is its “Don’t Touch the Girls” sign a command or a recommendation? Happy Valentine’s!
The Sexually Curious: BONOBOS
Famously, bonobos will essentially have sex (genital or oral!) with any bonobo, at any time, in different positions, in groups or in pairs — all of which makes us wish we were bonobos. They’re also all bisexual.
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
In truth, the bonobo’s life is already a perpetual sex party, but today they’ll be sampling what the city has to offer the polyamorous and sexually fluid. They’ll start gently with the intimacy workshop Cuddle Party (cuddleparty.com), then attend a Chemistry sex party (chemistry-nyc.com, register in advance), and end the night strapped to the tilt board at one of Submit’s LGBT sex parties (submitparty.com). If they still have energy left, which they usually do, the bonobos might check out some amateur jello wrestling (jellowrestle.com) — the females who attend the pre-party lesson will end up in the ring.
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The Jealous Types: FOXES
Red foxes turn out to be a lot like people, sexually speaking anyway. Females tend to mate with several males, who duke it out for the chance. But eventually she settles down with just one of them, who nevertheless remains jealous of all those other fox dudes until he dies.
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
How to prove your superiority to all the guys she’s loved before; how to be first among rivals? In the classic American film Urban Cowboy, a young John Travolta is faced with much the same dilemma, as he must win back the affections of his beloved Debra Winger from a rival (smartly played by the dangerous Scott Glenn). His solution: become a mechanical bull-riding champion. This seems pretty fool-proof. Mason-Dixon (133 Essex St) has such a mechanical bull in place; for just $5 you can prove your masculine primacy. Another option would be to set a high score at Barcade [388 Union Ave], if you are a nerd. And to cement your status as both provider and protector, buy your foxy lady dinner at a Shabu Shabu restaurant (like Shabu-Tatsu, 216 E 10th St) — not only can you pay for her food, you will prove you can also cook it, should it come to that (and should the apocalypse come with thin-sliced beef and a shallow cooking pan). Sly!
The Scary Possessives: ANGLERFISH
Researchers couldn’t figure out why they only found female anglerfish in the wild until they discovered that those little parasites attached to each one were actually dissolved males. Because the male’s digestive system collapses in adulthood, he needs to find a female to survive. He bites her and releases an enzyme that melts his mouth and her body together; their circulatory systems merge, he degenerates into nothing but a pair of gonads and the woman becomes a “self-fertilizing hermaphroditic host.” When two hearts become one — who could ask for anything more.
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
Since whatever she says goes, the anglerfishes will be attending a sex workshop on maximizing female pleasure, either “G-spot 101 and Female Ejaculation” at Babeland (babeland.com) or Moxie in the City’s “Double Your Pleasure Sex Ed Salon for Women” (moxieinthecity.net). Before heading home to try out the new tricks, the anglers will go for a romantic dinner cruise (spiritofnewyork.com, worldyacht.com or skylinecruises.com): let someone else do the swimming for once.
The Prying Moralists: VULTURES
Who knew vultures were so moralistic? If vultures catch a fellow vulture having a casual affair, they team up and attack him. And when you found out your old friend from high school was cheating on his pregnant wife, you just looked the other way, didn’t you? You’re worse than a carrion-eating bird of prey!
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
Because of their fondness for Codes of Conduct, vultures will enjoy Angel’s Share (8 Stuyvesant St), a not-so-well-kept-secret bar, up the back staircase in a Japanese restaurant, with a few strictly enforced rules: no groups larger than four, no shouting, no picture taking, no yakking on your cellphone, and no service unless you’re seated, which makes infelicitous flirting more trouble than it’s worth. And for dinner, how about some raw meat? The Cafe at Country (90 Madison Ave) has a reputation for one of the best steaks tar-tare in the city.
-img3-
The Contented Shut-ins: BEAVERS and DWARF DEER
Have you ever tried to maintain a dam? It’s really hard, as any beaver could tell you, and thus they tend to form strong family units, including monogamous parental units. Maybe what’s destroying The American Family isn’t that gays are getting married but that most of us neither build nor maintain our own homes anymore. That’s what keeps dwarf brocket deer from settling down — the lack of a home, not the gays. Native to Yucatan and South American forests, these relatively small deer stay monogamous — but only when they’re living with their mates. Single dwarf brocket deer have casual mating sessions with any nearby females.
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
Out on a double date to show the reluctant male dwarf brocket the wonders of monogamous couple-hood and shared living spaces, the do-it-yourself home-building beavers and deer are looking for inspiration on an architecture tour with either the Tenement Museum (tenement.org) or the Municipal Art Society (mas.org). After that it’s back to the beavers’ stylish den for an at-home cooking class with Home Cooking New York (homecookingny.com), which offers two and a half hour classes on any number of cuisines, with a flexible schedule. The young couples picked the Vegetarian Indian menu, as neither species has ever been to India.
The Cerebral Prudes: BATS
Researchers have found that, in bat populations with promiscuous females, the males have bigger testes and smaller brains. In monogamous populations, the males have bigger brains and smaller testes, suggesting that sometimes there’s an “evolutionary trade-off between intelligence and sexual prowess,” as one biologist tells MSNBC. So much about our own lives makes sense now.
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
The resources of our own mind are inadequate to the task of imagining what it is like to be a bat with a small brain and large testicles, just cold hittin’ on promiscuous ladybats. But we can tell what it would be like for us to behave as a bat with a big brain and small batnuts. Once it got dark on Friday the 13th, for instance, we would flap down to McNally Jackson (52 Prince St, RSVP via mcnallyjackson.com) for “How History Was Made: Books That Inspired A President,” a panel discussion in which authors, critics and journalists talk about the literate dude who’s running the world now, and the books what he’s read.
Once there, we might even meet a similarly right-minded individual to take, on the following night, to BAM (bam.org), for their currently running star-studded production of The Winter’s Tale, by noted small-testicled egghead William Shakespeare, at the Harvey Theater (651 Fulton St) and/or the mind-expanding late free show from bubblegummy art-damaged noise-punks Japanther, at the BAMcafé (30 Lafayette Ave). Remember, big brain, small nuts, ok.
The Mom and Pop Lifebloggers: SPARROWS
Half the time, male sparrows help raise chicks they didn’t sire. “We see infidelity all the time,” one researcher says, talking, we assume, about sparrows. Despite their promiscuity, sparrows avoid inbreeding, even in small populations in which aunts, uncles and cousins are everywhere. They don’t even socialize with relatives, lest they give into temptation one enchanted evening.
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
So, your life revolves around your intense but highly secluded family life (you probably blog about it, in search of a book deal). Luckily, you don’t need to ask Mom to watch the kids on V-Day: there are fine home dining options right where you are in Park Slope. Local slow-food eatery Luscious Food (59 Fifth Ave, lusciousbrooklyn.com) will cater a private just-like-home-cooked dinner (and they’ll help you plan the menu, though, alas, it’s already too-short notice to book a waiter). Then, for the evening’s entertainment, fire up the P.C. to download an audio file of noted daddy-blogger Neal Pollack’s Alternadad: The True Story of One Family’s Struggle to Raise a Cool Kid in America ($37.87 on audible.com), or, if the organic comfort food has already worked its sensual magic, to get in the mood with the homemade porn movie “Georgia O’Keefe — Sensual Flowers” (www.youtube.com/watch). Thanks, “Southernmom1983”!
The Midwestern Puritans: PRAIRIE VOLES
Like high school sweethearts from your Midwestern hometown, male prairie voles tend to mate exclusively with the female vole to which they lose their virginity. Going above and beyond the duty of husbandry, though, they don’t just hold back from the temptation to cheat — they actually attack other females.
You’ve seen couples like this, haven’t you? The fresh-faced kids sitting in back of the bar while the burlesque show goes on, coolly (but perhaps nervously) ridiculing the performers together — “um, yes [giggle], shake it all about, dearie, if you feel that you must” — and then going home and tearing each others’ clothes off while secretly, angrily, thinking about pretty much any person in the world except the one they’re having sex with.
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
Well, if that’s what gets you off: the Slipper Room (167) is a reliable venue for naughty-naughty entertainment, and the weekly Mr. Choade’s Upstairs/Downstairs (Saturdays at 10:30pm; $5 cover) has an especially retro-kitschy V-Day line-up set.
Experience has also taught us that being drunk helps. Like a sudsier version of Beijing’s World Park, the Village Pourhouse (64 Third Ave) offers “Drink Around the World” specials allowing you to sample beer selections from close to two dozen countries — without ever leaving the East Village. It’s the next best thing to actual variety.
with...
Their Slutty Cousins: MEADOW VOLES
Unlike its responsible, prairie-dwelling cousin, the meadow vole tends to mate with multiple partners — until, that is, scientists discovered they could make them monogamous by transferring a single gene from its do-goody cousin. Next stop, Spitzer.
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
Take it from your fellow voles (please, and be clear about affirming that you believe them), monogamy can be fun! Though The L Magazine does not recommend gene therapy to cure you of your sluttishness, there are other ways of getting the nudge. Babeland (94 Rivington St), for one, carries all sorts of fun toys for you and that special someone to spend lazy Saturdays playing with together. You know, like a train set, except actually not anything like a train set. (For the most part.) The night after Valentine’s Day is a “Naughty Valentine’s Day Wine + Chocolate Bash” (8pm, $40; register at babeland.com), featuring giveaways of lots of “couples-themed” sex toys, among other helpful and instructive aids to sleeping with the same person a lot.
-img4-
The monogamous Patriots: BALD EAGLES
Bald eagles mate for life. (USA! USA!) Obviously, as a symbol of our morally pure Christian nation, the bald eagle would never actually live here in Sodom-on-the-Hudson (except as the teary image on a sweatshirt sold at the 9/11 Memorial Construction Site™). So, what does the romantic eagle couple do to satisfy such patriotic lust in New York City?
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
Well, we were once in an Internet cafe in Paris, and a big, husky woman stumbled in and shouted, in English, “wherez da Hard Rock Cafe?” Classic Americans love them their Hard Rock Cafes, so bald eagles, in their bald eagle sweatshirts, will enjoy supper at the Times Square incarnation (1501 Broadway). And since eagles presumably like high places, they can finish off the night at Top of the Rock (30 Rockefeller Plaza), the city’s premier sky-level lookout since the Towers fell and the Statue of Liberty’s torch became off-limits. For a slightly more adventurous New York experience (and yet thoroughly American), they could head down to the Ear Inn (326 Spring St), one of the oldest bars in the city — they say parts of the bar were built from timbers salvaged from the great fire of 1776 (an important year for patriots).
The Opportunists: OTTERS
Scientists believe that marine otters tend to sustain monogamous relationships — unless there are a lot of potential mates around, that is, which reminds us of every human couple we’ve ever known.
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
The conundrum: you and your significant other want to go out and live it up, tonight of all nights — but, tonight of all nights: everywhere you go, temptation! Tinkling laughter, darting eyes, everywhere the damp smoky secret scent of flesh… sorry. Anyway. The solution: a snug! No, silly, we’re not suggesting you make a blanket fort under the table of a local bar (although…). We mean an enclosed booth, like the private-roomy front tables at Local 138 (138 Ludlow St), which even allow you to order your drinks through a window, lest the bar’s overwhelming pheremonal charge (and sweet, sweet alcohol) drive you to choose a moment’s pleasure over everlasting treasure.
You’ll want to eat, too: just the far side of Houston Street is the alchemical Latin spot Yerba Buena (23 Avenue A). There’s only a dozen or so tables, minimizing the potential targets for wand’ring eyes.
The Cougars: CHEETAHS
Researchers found female cheetahs to be perpetually unsatisfied; after analyzing DNA samples from mothers and their cubs, they discovered that no female cheetah that had several litters had had more than one with any individual male. Don’t settle, Cheetah Girls!
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
Back in high school they called you “fast,” but your muscular gams and purring predatory confidence have helped you become the polished maneater you are today. “Cheetah” is basically another word for… We swore we weren’t going to do this. Damn it. Ok. Ok. Ok. Cougar. There. Cougar. Cheetahs = Cougars. So. Shitfuck. So. You and your girls are out on the prowl on V-Day. Magnolia Bakery? Nah — Sex and the City is so Bush administration. To establish properly intimidating cultural bona-fides, go to a Chelsea art opening — like the one for the “ambivalent realist” German painter Thoralf Knoblauch, at Tony Shafrazi Gallery (544 W 26th St). Then cab it down to the L.E.S. (much like that “Brooklyn” you’ve been hearing so much about, it’s not just for artists and ugly people anymore!) for dinner at so-exclusive-you’ll-have-to-know-someone-or-else-act-like-you-do lounge Chloe 81 (81 Ludlow St). Then finish up by making younger European guys buy you $13 lychee martinis at Thom Bar, in the lobby of Soho’s tony Thompson Hotel (60 Thompson St).
The Party People: LIGHTNING BUGS
Fireflies light up to attract partners: it’s their mating call. Some female lightning bugs flash one way to attract males of one species for mating, and then they flash another way to attract males of a different species — not to mate with, but to eat.
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
If it’s cannibalism you’re into, they have message boards for that, apparently, but as far as strobe-lit meat markets go, check out the shiny happy disco-ballin’ glitter kids at LUSTR, the regular Saturday night “underground disco” dance party at Label (174 Rivington St).
On the morning (or, rather, mid-afternoon and night) after, Film Forum (209 W Houston St; filmforum.org) shows Baby Face, the ultimate in pre-Production Code Hollywood sordidness: Barbara Stanwyck’s purring performance as the backwater call girl who sleeps her way up the corporate ladder will light up your voracious, vicious heart.
The Frat Boys: CHIMPANZEES
Chimps are kinky in a frat-party kind of way: several male chimpanzees will often have sex with a single female, one after the other. Evolutionary biologists say this sort of promiscuity accounts for their giant testicles — that there’s usually a correlation between testicle-to-body size ratio and the number of sexual partners. [Insert self-deprecating testicle-size/number-of-sexual-partners joke here. Please.]
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
Just south of Central Park are a Hooters and a Hawaiian Tropic Zone within walking distance of each other, so chimpanzees can divide their time between busty beer-wenches and bikini-clad burger slingers.
If they get bored, they could wander down to HeadQuarters Gentlemen’s Club (552 W 38th St), which boasts a steakhouse upstairs (because chimps are never sated) and several “private rooms.” Or they could hop on the subway to Brooklyn and hit up Pumps (1089 Grand St), the only strip club in the Williamsburg area (aka Bushwick). It’s seedy like a strip club should be. Is its “Don’t Touch the Girls” sign a command or a recommendation? Happy Valentine’s!
The Sexually Curious: BONOBOS
Famously, bonobos will essentially have sex (genital or oral!) with any bonobo, at any time, in different positions, in groups or in pairs — all of which makes us wish we were bonobos. They’re also all bisexual.
What They’re Doing for Valentine’s Day
In truth, the bonobo’s life is already a perpetual sex party, but today they’ll be sampling what the city has to offer the polyamorous and sexually fluid. They’ll start gently with the intimacy workshop Cuddle Party (cuddleparty.com), then attend a Chemistry sex party (chemistry-nyc.com, register in advance), and end the night strapped to the tilt board at one of Submit’s LGBT sex parties (submitparty.com). If they still have energy left, which they usually do, the bonobos might check out some amateur jello wrestling (jellowrestle.com) — the females who attend the pre-party lesson will end up in the ring.
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