If you've ever tried to bone someone — and look at you; you have — you know that part of getting them to do it is to make them think you suck less than you actually do.
You have to lie.
Whether that lie is told literally through statements like "I'm not a jealous person and I super like your friends," or visually through excessive makeup and Photoshop sorcery, there's no doubt that putting our best foot forward involves some fuckery and deception. After all, most of us are dumpy piles of hot garbage both inside and out … but that's nothing a little white lie (or a push-up bra … or a dick pic from the right angle) can't handle.
It's not just humans that use sexual deception to give false impressions about themselves, though. Scientists have discovered that many species, both vertebrate or otherwise, employ the fine art of sexual deception in order to get laid.
Here are some of the more titillating examples of this … and what they have in common.
Eight-legged freaks
Spiders are disgusting, evolutionarily regrettable blobs of pure evil, but we actually have a lot in common with them when it comes to laying down game. In fact, human males could learn a thing or two about romance from our eight-legged nightmare friends.
According to science, some species of male spiders present lady spiders with a "gift" in order to bribe them into having sex. Usually, the gift is just a dead bug wrapped in silk, which the female eats while the male mates with her. Hot! This is done because in Female Spider World, hunger always trumps sex, so it's important that she's satiated and satisfied before anything x-rated happens. That, or the male spider just really sucks at sex.
But, what if the male spider doesn't have a dead-ass bug wrapped in his own butt rope to give her? Or if she's not hungry?
It's not uncommon for spider-men to give ladies fake, worthless gifts. Often, they'll wrap inedible objects like seeds or pebbles in silk, thereby creating a deception that the female doesn't initially detect. As she inspects the bullshit gift, the male will mate with her, and will finish before she discovers it was fake. No word whether the male spiders then receive a "We need to talk" text, but … we'll get back to you on that one.
Simply put: crappy gifts = sex.
Transgender bi fish
When cuttlefish aren't being made into a lovely seafood bouillabaisse for your oral pleasure, they're deceiving each other to create more opportunities to fuck.
Male cuttlefish that are too small to catch the attention of female cuttlefish are actually capable of “female impersonation," meaning they can change their appearance and behavior so that they look and act like females. The only difference between them in humans is they don't have to explain the concept of gender fluidity to their parents (probably because we ate them).
This womanly disguise allows them to get close enough to mate with girl cuttlefish that are being guarded by large, knuckle-headed male cuttlefish named Brady or Kyle. As soon as Brady or Kyle concedes to girl's night between the disguised male and the female, sparks fly and banging happens.
The peacock blenny is another fish which does this, proving that a little cross-dressing roleplay never hurt anyone.
Stinky-ass plants
Plants are remarkably similar to animals when it comes to engaging in sexual deception.
The orchid does this particularly well. When it's horny, it releases a smell that mimics the scent of pheromones from female bees, thereby sending male bees into a sexual frenzy. The male bees flock to the orchids to mate with them, idiotically unaware that a female bee does not look like a giant, flat petal. The male bees then become pollinators that move from one flower to the next, helping the plants to produce seeds that eventually become more plants. And that's how forests happen!
This kind of deception plays an important role for all living things. Regardless of which species we're talking about, lying to get things to fuck you is controlled by the evolutionary drive to pass genetic material on from one generation to the next. Failure to do so has dire consequences: species extinction.
Because of that, certain species have had to adapt to the reproductive obstacles they face, creating highly creative reproductive strategies that offer them a competitive edge in the mating scene. Not all species do it, but humans? You don't have to look much further than the show Catfish or Kelly's meticulously edited selfies where she enlarges her boobs 250 percent to answer that.
For us, sexual deception is nothing more than another essential part of human nature, and without it, our Tinders would most definitely not be lit.
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