June 2011

Cicada FAQ

Where we live, the steady, annoying hum of the cicada is finally dwindling to a low murmur, but for a few weeks it was so loud we couldn’t even hear our own music inside the house. Sure, they’re only here every thirteen years, and by the time they come again we’ve already forgotten that they existed in the first place; I told my five-year-old that by the time they come again, it will be a complete surprise for her, as surely she won’t remember them. But boy are they annoying.

Even as they slowly fade out, they still interrupt our lives quite a bit. From drowning out outdoor plays to hitting us stupidly in the back as if they’re bad drivers careening out of control in the air, they’re a bloody nuisance—and while I would normally advocate any insect’s right to live as much as we do, they are about as wonderful to have around as mosquitoes. Thankfully, we won’t have to deal with them for too long!

In fact, just in case you were wondering, here are a few facts about the cicadas—and just how long we’ll have to deal with them.

  • Most of them have a lifespan of around six weeks, and they mate after they die; so once they’ve all mated we can expect them to leave us alone. Once they are gone, however, the annual cicadas will come out to play!
  • Once they leave, we’ll also have their dead, red-eyed bodies all around us like a post-apocalyptic bug mess, and they are supposed to stink like it, too.
  • Insecticides don’t work well on cicadas, so don’t bother to buy any just for them. (We even tried with some spray to verify this claim; it’s true! Some died but it sure didn’t change the magnitude of the sound.)
  • Mesh netting and other preventative devices are pretty much a waste of time, too.
  • Cicadas are not harmful to humans and generally do not bite. However, they can sometimes bite if they land on an arm or leg and mistake it for a tree—so be sure to shake them off if they do land on exposed skin.
  • The name cicada comes from the Latin language and translates to “tree grasshopper.”
  • That awful noise they make is their mating call—a sound that the males make to attract females, who actually think it quite nice.
  • Once the mating is complete, the female cicada will lay her eggs in a tree. She can lay up to thousands of them.
  • Once the eggs hatch, the cicada nymphs fall to the ground and burrow until they are ready to emerge, shed their skin, and mate as their parents did.
  • Most species remain underground for only two to five years. Others can last longer—such as the ones plaguing us now, or even the 17-year cicada.
  • They aren’t just sleeping underground; the nymphs actually dig a lot, and drink root juice to survive.

J. Michael Bailey's no stranger to pissing people off

J. Michael Bailey made headlines in March for his controversial sex toy demonstration at Northwestern University. If you don’t remember, there was a huge public outcry from students and the media and Bailey later apologized. This is not the first time Bailey’s behavior and work has caused uproar. Working under the umbrella of human sexuality, Bailey most commonly studies homosexuality, transsexuality and arousal patterns, publishing a number of potentially offensive articles and books. Here’s a little more about Mr. Bailey’s controversial psychological history:

--Twin studies. Bailey wanted to see if sexuality was genetic.  In the early 1990’s, Bailey, along with Richard Pillard, designed an experiment to see how often twins had the same sexual orientation, searching for a “gay gene.” He called for twins and siblings in the newspaper. Among identical twins, 52% had the same sexual orientation, fraternal twins, 22%, adoptive and biological siblings of the same sex, 11%.

--Sex typical and atypical behavior in homosexuals. Bailey’s studies have argued that homosexual men and women recall being more gender nonconforming children than their heterosexual counterparts. Bailey’s studies have been called into question because there is a difference between what people remember about their childhoods, especially when they are homosexual adults and predisposed to certain perceptions of themselves, than what actually took place during their childhoods. 

--Homosexual choice.  Bailey has said that he thinks it’s morally acceptable for parents to choose their children’s sexual orientation, if there were methods to do so.  He doesn’t advocate for killing gay kids or aborting gay fetuses, just changing the gay gene when and if it becomes possible to isolate it. 

--Male bisexuality does not exist.  Bailey’s studies show that men’s genital arousal was consistent with their sexual orientation, but women’s was not. He found that men were particularly influenced by female-only erotic stimuli, followed by heterosexual stimuli, but were not influenced by homosexual imagery.  Alternately, women of all sexual orientations were equally stimulated by homosexual and heterosexual stimuli. In this same fell swoop, Bailey discredited male bisexuality.  Bailey studied men’s penile arousal to sexual stimuli.  75% of bisexually identified men were only aroused by homosexual images and 25% were only aroused by heterosexual images—no men were aroused by both images equally.

--Transsexual women. In 2003, Bailey published the highly controversial book, The Man Who Would Be Queen.  He makes two predominant claims about the nature of transsexual women in the book. The first is that transsexual women are gay men who underwent sexual reassignment surgery to have sex with more men. The second is that transsexual men are really only attracted to themselves as they would be if they were women.  In essence, transsexual women transition because they can better get off when they look like women.  The transsexual women Bailey used as research in this book claimed severe research misconduct.  Under pressure, Bailey stepped down as chair of the psychology department at Northwestern in 2004, but remained a professor at the university.   

J. Michael Bailey is no stranger to controversy. In fact, based on his recent exploits, it seems like he thrives on it.  There’s no way he thinks that he’s really going to get away with orgasms in class and saying transsexuals are only attracted to themselves without pissing people off.