What can cicadas teach us about sexual desperation? By Benjamin Davis

Brood Sex

Cicadas are obese, sex-deprived, creepy butterflies that are about to slip into everyone’s DMs. They are unique among plants, animals, reptiles, and insects in that scientists have decoded the full scope of their cicada language. It consists of two words: Let’s fuck.

There are plenty of other examples of this kind of sexual desperation in the non-human kingdoms: cats spray, dogs hump, birds dole out do-me-eyes. These displays are uniquely animalistic, inscectistic, reptilistic, and, in-essence, non-human. Cicadas, on the other hand, perfectly reflect the annoying spirit of a man in the throes of desperation. Americans don’t know it yet, but Brood X – the continent’s largest group of periodical cicadas – are waking up this year from their 17-year cycle of fuck-nap-fuck, so they’re about to find out. This is a learning opportunity.

Rather than hold your ears, curl up and cry under a bush – as is the appropriate response to cicadas – I think they might offer an opportunity for self-reflection, and behavioral correction therapy for the next time you’re having a rough patch of sexual deprivation (which is more likely these days than ever). Right now, men all over the world are emerging from their pandemic hibernations, back on the dating scene, eager for human contact. These Cicada Men are going to be desperate.

A few years ago, I went to a beach town in Korea. It was a shithole. After 30 minutes, my girlfriend and I decided to get back on the two-hour bus ride to spend our money on a hotel staycation rather than embrace camping on a poo-scented beach. While waiting for the bus, a creepy dead-eyed little boy stood beside us holding a cicada between his fingers. It hollered and hollered but the boy didn’t let it go. We stood like that, the three of us, waiting for the bus. 

It reminded me of my roommate in college – he’d go through dry spells, as we all do, but then he’d whine about it to his friends. He’d lament and groan and get drunk and then go out with some of his cicada friends to pester women at the bar. The longer it went on, the worse it got, especially when women were over. He’d sit too closely, talk too loudly, and then, when it became unbearable, he’d go out at night, climb trees and scream for a mate.

Yes, I know that some people walk through the forest path hearing the cicadas and think, “Oh boy! The song of nature!” Well, the song of nature is about fucking – and this isn’t just about cicadas. Nature fucks. Cicadas are just shameless and in your face about it. 

That’s the lesson people should take as cicadas wake up to fill the air with desperation. Everyone has dry spells. Everyone has the urge to have sex sometimes. But no one likes having to hear about it constantly. It’s annoying and a major turn-off. Just think, if the cicadas’ desperate fuck music was the least bit efficient, we’d only have to listen to it once.