THEATRE MANAGEMENT INVESTIGATION OF FEMALE PROMISCUITY: PREGNANCY AND ABORTION IMPACT ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATIONAL THEATRES IN NIGERIA

This study investigates promiscuity impacts, pregnancy impacts and abortion impacts of female undergraduates on management of the University of Benin educational theatre program, with implications on general theatre practice including Muson and Nollywood, in Nigeria. There are widespread speculations that female undergraduate theatre students are promiscuous and therefore highly prone to pregnancies and abortions for reasons or factors not confirmed by research. At least no such specific extensive study has been carried out in the University of Benin Theatre on this topic. Yet many female students are branded and treated merely as ‘debased females and prospective prostitutes’, and do not enjoy the goodwill, support, respect and honor their counterparts in the social, basic and environmental sciences as well as other fields of academic studies enjoy. This would be tantamount to a great disservice and injustice that need to be urgently addressed if a rigorous academic inquiry proves otherwise. Not to mention the undiscovered negative impacts the problem may have had, or currently be having on the training and practice of theatre arts in Nigeria: hence this investigation. The methodology, the subjects of study and study sample were carefully and systematically determined. The findings are mostly positive regarding the negative behavior investigated. Hence the recommendations point to measures aimed at checking and restricting these vices as well as their impact to a minimum as well as towards improving the moral, academic and managerial framework of educational theatre programs in Nigeria.

Cephalopod mating systems as models for the study of sexual selection and alternative reproductive tactics: a review

Cephalopods are a remarkable group for studies on sexual selection, due to their complex reproductive behavior, pronounced sexual dimorphism, polygamous behavior, as well as cumulative evidence of pre- and postcopulatory male-male competition and female choice in the group. is paper provides a review of sexual selection studies on cephalopods, with an emphasis on the loliginid squid mating system. In this system, males may adopt alternative reproductive tactics (ART) and display male intrasexual dimorphism, with each morph generally exhibiting distinct behaviors and ejaculate traits. Consort males typically transfer ejaculates to the female mantle cavity, while sneaker males typically transfer ejaculates to the female buccal region, where a sperm storage organ is located. Each site provides distinct fertilization environments for the ejaculates of each morph, differing in the availability of eggs, gamete protection, and timing between mating and fertilization. Accordingly, the ejaculates of each morph show putative adaptations for each site, differing in size, morphology, sperm release duration, and sperm behavior. Although solid evidence is lacking for most loliginids, cryptic female choice may occur in this system through, for example, spermatangia removal or egg string manipulation during fertilization. In addition, recent evidence for one loliginid species indicates that adoption of male ART is ontogenetic and may represent two alternative pathways: from immature males (i) directly to consort phenotype or (ii) going through a sneaker phase, then switching to consort morph. The second pathway would, therefore, imply striking change in behavior, physiology, and ejaculates. Moreover, data on the age of this species suggests that the adoption of sneaker tactic early in life may be associated with extending the male mating period by 25%. With such a peculiar system, loliginids should prove useful not only for comprehending the evolution of female promiscuity and ART in cephalopods, but also as an emerging nonvertebrate and nonarthropod model for testing sperm competition models.

Copulation calls in wild Mueller’s gibbons (Hylobates muelleri)

Mating activity of a wild Mueller’s gibbon group (Hylobates muelleri) was observed in the Danum Valley Conservation Area, Sabah, Malaysia. The purpose of this study was to investigate the function of copulation calls in gibbons. The female emitted copulation calls at the time of intromission and pelvic thrusting. Copulation calls were composed of two notes and one of them was sung only while mating. Approximately half of copulation calls were sung near the range boundary. Mating with copulation calls sometimes occurred while singing. According to the model that female copulation calls have evolved under the selective pressures of risk of infanticide and sperm competition, copulation calls should be rare in species with little female promiscuity. As gibbons usually live in pair-living social organization and have a monogamous mating system, no vocal signals by female gibbons are considered to be needed. However, clear copulation calls were emitted by the female. It suggests that the relationship between paired gibbons is unstable. Copulation calls by the female Mueller’s gibbon may function to increase mate guarding and strengthen the pair bond.

The role of genetic constraints and social environment in explaining female extra-pair mating

Why females of socially monogamous species copulate with males other than their partner has been a long-standing, unresolved puzzle. We previously reported that female promiscuity appears to be a genetic corollary of male promiscuity (intersexual pleiotropy hypothesis). Here we put this earlier finding to a critical test using the same population of zebra finches Taeniopygia guttata. After three generations of artificial selection on male courtship rate, a correlate of extra-pair mating, we assess whether female promiscuity changed by indirect selection and we re-examine the crucial genetic correlations. Our new analyses with substantially increased statistical power clearly reject the hypothesis that male and female promiscuity are genetically homologous traits. Our study highlights that individual females show low repeatability in extra-pair mating behavior across different social environments. This emphasizes the potential importance of pair bond strength and the availability of favored extra-pair males as factors explaining variation in patterns of female promiscuity.

The Ukrainian-Russian Virtual Flashmob against Sexual Assault

Feruza Aripova – PhD Candidate in World History, Northeastern University; Center Associate, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University; Visiting Scholar, Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia, New York University, USA. Email: [email protected] Janet Elise Johnson – Professor of Political Science and Women’s & Gender Studies, Brooklyn College, City University of New York; Visiting Scholar, Center for European and Mediterranean Studies at New York University, New York, USA. Email: [email protected] This article examines the 2016 Ukrainian-Russian virtual flashmob that took on the issues of sexual assault, including childhood sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and rape. Begun by a Ukrainian activist on Facebook, the flashmob resulted in more than ten thousand original posts and led to a broader discussion on violence against women in Ukrainian and Russian. Many women (and some men) for the first time publicly disclosed excruciating details of physical and psychological coercion and the lasting trauma they suffered. The commonalities across the posts and the public visibility of the flashmob directly confronted the stigma attached to the topic of sexual violence. The media reactions to the flashmob ranged from empathy toward the victims and condemnation of the perpetrators to criticism of female promiscuity and victim blaming. The flashmob had concrete results: criminal cases were opened against teachers at one of Moscow’s prominent public schools and a series of initiatives were directed against sexual violence in Ukraine. This article provides the first systematic documentation and analysis of these posts as well as their reception in mass media and the impact so far of the flashmob, situating this flashmob as the same kind of activism that was seen in the bigger 2017 #MeToo campaign. In these ways, we contribute to what little social scientists know about violence against women in the post-Soviet region and assess this new tactic of feminist activism. Unsurprisingly, such activism does not change societies in one fell swoop, but the Ukrainian-Russian flashmob shows how virtual activism can nudge towards progressive change.

Sperm competition games when males invest in paternal care

Sperm competition games investigate how males partition limited resources between pre- and post-copulatory competition. Although extensive research has explored how various aspects of mating systems affect this allocation, male allocation between mating, fertilization and parental effort has not previously been considered. Yet, paternal care can be energetically expensive and males are generally predicted to adjust their parental effort in response to expected paternity. Here, we incorporate parental effort into sperm competition games, particularly exploring how the relationship between paternal care and offspring survival affects sperm competition and the relationship between paternity and paternal care. Our results support existing expectations that (i) fertilization effort should increase with female promiscuity and (ii) paternal care should increase with expected paternity. However, our analyses also reveal that the cost of male care can drive the strength of these patterns. When paternal behaviour is energetically costly, increased allocation to parental effort constrains allocation to fertilization effort. As paternal care becomes less costly, the association between paternity and paternal care weakens and may even be absent. By explicitly considering variation in sperm competition and the cost of male care, our model provides an integrative framework for predicting the interaction between paternal care and patterns of paternity.

Micropyle number is associated with elevated female promiscuity in Lepidoptera

In the majority of insects, sperm fertilize the egg via a narrow canal through the outer chorion called the micropyle. Despite having this one primary function, there is considerable unexplained variation in the location, arrangement and number of micropyles within and between species. Here, we examined the relationship between micropyle number and female mating pattern through a comparative analysis across Lepidoptera. Three functional hypotheses could explain profound micropylar variation: (i) increasing micropyle number reduces the risk of infertility through sperm limitation in species that mate infrequently; (ii) decreasing micropyle number reduces the risk of pathological polyspermy in species that mate more frequently; and (iii) increasing micropyle number allows females to exert greater control over fertilization within the context of post-copulatory sexual selection, which will be more intense in promiscuous species. Micropyle number was positively related to the degree of female promiscuity as measured by spermatophore count, regardless of phylogenetic signal, supporting the hypothesis that micropyle number is shaped by post-copulatory sexual selection. We discuss this finding in the context of cryptic female choice, sperm limitation and physiological polyspermy.

Sex, long life and the evolutionary transition to cooperative breeding in birds

Long life is a typical feature of individuals living in cooperative societies. One explanation is that group living lowers mortality, which selects for longer life. Alternatively, long life may make the evolution of cooperation more likely by ensuring a long breeding tenure, making helping behaviour and queuing for breeding positions worthwhile. The benefit of queuing will, however, depend on whether individuals gain indirect fitness benefits while helping, which is determined by female promiscuity. Where promiscuity is high and therefore the indirect fitness benefits of helping are low, cooperation can still be favoured by an even longer life span. We present the results of comparative analyses designed to test the likelihood of a causal relationship between longevity and cooperative breeding by reconstructing ancestral states of cooperative breeding across birds, and by examining the effect of female promiscuity on the relationship between these two traits. We found that long life makes the evolution of cooperation more likely and that promiscuous cooperative species are exceptionally long lived. These results make sense of promiscuity in cooperative breeders and clarify the importance of life-history traits in the evolution of cooperative breeding, illustrating that cooperation can evolve via the combination of indirect and direct fitness benefits.