for Traveller’s two most popular
alien races
by Mike Metlay
rev 1.0
8 March 1993
The sexual anatomy and practices of the Vargr are not that far removed from those of their forebears, the Terran dog and wolf. They have, however, been modified to some extent by the development of manipulative appendages and sentience.
The average adult male Vargr, 1.5 m tall and weighing 50 kg, has a penis which when fully erect is approximately 200 mm long, about 50 mm longer than the human average. More importantly, though, for “practical” purposes, is its shape: it’s sharply pointed at the tip, with a diameter of about 30 mm for the first 100 mm or so and the last 25 mm or so. Near the base of the penis is the knot, an approximately spherical swelling of about 50 to 70 mm diameter when fully aroused (about the size of a cue ball). The penis has a central bone structure that prevents it ever becoming completely flaccid, and when not aroused is contained inside a sheath on the lower abdomen. The testicles hang far back between the thighs, almost but not quite under the root of the tail, and come forward slightly via the tightening muscles when aroused. They average 40 to 60 mm in diameter, noticeably but not extravagantly larger than a Human’s. They are extremely sensitive and delicate; a kick to the groin can kill a Vargr instantly, if the kick is well-aimed enough to reach the unprotected testes. Groin protection is an integral part of all Vargr military and law enforcement clothing.
The female Vargr has a set of six breasts, three on each side, that range from a top set placed slightly lower than they would be on a human woman to the lowest pair at about waist level. In a female Vargr that is not pregnant or lactating, the topmost pair of breasts are only slightly visible as raised parts of the fur around the chest ruff, which is usually shaped to accentuate what little shape the breasts have, and the lower pairs are entirely invisible, with the nipples only evident upon careful searching under the fur. The nipples are extremely sensitive to touch, and comprise an important erogenous zone when the female is in heat. When the female becomes pregnant, the breasts engorge to many times their original size and become quite evident, outgrowing the ability of the female’s fur to cover them. The female’s weight can increase by over ten kg just from this increase, producing posture problems and requiring the use of special clothing. Brassieres are considered maternity clothing among Vargr, a classification that has led to the mistaken impression that Human and Aslan women are perpetually lactating or pregnant. The vagina and urethra share a Y-shaped opening under the base of the tail, with the clitoris covered by a large cowl of flesh.
Vargr women enter estrus or “heat” twice every year for a period of approximately two to three weeks. The only outward appearance change due to estrus is a marked alteration of the female’s behavior and a strong shift in her scent. The female may become irritable, edgy, quick to anger or tears, or even violent in the early stages of estrus; this gradually shifts to a more receptive mood, marked by coyness, flirtation, coquettishness, and in some cases fierce jealousy of other females. However, Vargr are sentient sophonts, and can and do engage in sexual activity for pleasurable purposes at any time, although a great deal more attention must be paid to the female to assure her enjoyment of the sex act. The Vargr male is sexually active and capable of arousal at all times, much as a Human male or a male Terran dog.
The standard form, if there is such a thing, of Vargr sexual congress is an analog of the sex act for the Terran dog, modified for the changes in anatomy between dog and Vargr. Foreplay and romantic contact between Vargr consists of licking, nibbling, and biting one another, especially the insides of the ears, the muzzle, the neck, the nipples (on male and female), the root of the tail, and the genital area. This biting can be hard enough to draw blood in a Human, but a Vargr’s skin is generally tough enough to resist damage. When the female is sufficiently aroused, she hikes her tail up and back over her spine or to one side and presents herself to the male, who inserts his penis. Penetration generally occurs in two stages: the first involves penetration up to but not including the knot, and is extremely fast and almost violent, causing a great deal of sexual excitement in both male and female. Eventually, the combined lubrication of the female’s vagina and the male’s penis, which begins to leak lubricating fluid almost immediately upon the beginning of sexual arousal and does so copiously throughout the sex act, allows the male’s knot to penetrate the vagina. The female’s sphincter muscles in the region are extremely strong and partly involuntary in nature; when a male penetrates a female past his knot, the sphincter tightens down and the knot swells in size at the moment of orgasmic climax, and the two Vargr remain “tied” or “locked” together for anywhere from one to thirty minutes afterward, with five to ten minutes being the norm. This is usually a more tender, quiet period, almost one of afterglow; because movement is difficult and can be painful, it is customary for both partners to remain as still as possible at this time.
The Vargr palette of sexual responses and activities is as varied as the Human’s, but with different emphases. Fellatio is virtually unknown among Vargr who have no contact with other races, as the mouth and jaw structure do not encourage such activity. Cunnulingus as a form of producing orgasm, however, is commonly practiced, as is the surprisingly non-sexual practice of grooming one’s partner’s (or one’s own) genitals by licking. Face-to-face sexual congress is possible but requires some flexibility, and other positions take advantage of the powerful haunches and flexible backbone of the Vargr. Homosexual relations are more common between males than between females, as heat tends to produce feelings of antipathy in females whereas males are easily aroused at any time. Anal sex is practiced almost exclusively in homosexual relations—most females dislike the sensations. Fetishes among Vargr are often scent-based rather than visual, and charisma differences combine with sex to produce intricate sex-play rituals of dominance and submission.
The classic aliens-in-love scenario in erotic fiction throughout the Imperium is that of Vargr male and Human female. The anatomy of the two races, differences in size and sexual response, and prurient mental images on both sides tend to encourage such couplings, especially in areas where Vargr and Human live in harmony. The only part of the Vargr’s body that is not covered with fur is the genital area under the tail, and this can lead to a Vargr view of the naked, pink Human as being “all genitals.” The large breasts of the Human female, her ability to become sexually aroused easily at any time, and the talents of the human mouth, all combine to make Human women the ideal sex machines of many Vargr males’ fantasies. In return, Human women are excited and aroused by the idea of copulating with an “animal,” an effect heightened by the unusual Vargr penis. Actual sexual congress can be difficult and painful at first, until the woman learns to tie with the male; there are also difficulties with fellatio until the male learns to trust the female not to bite him.
The reverse situation, Human male with Vargr female, is much more rare; the Human male’s small, unknotted penis is not as stimulating to the Vargr female in need, and the Vargr female’s almost invisible breasts make for a lack of sexual differentiation in a Human’s eyes. But there are exceptions to this rule, of course. Somewhat more common are homosexual relations between Humans and Vargr; anal sex is much less dangerous and painful to a Vargr coupling with a Human than to one coupled with another Vargr, and the lack of the threat-association with the scent and taste of a female Human tends to put the Vargr female at ease.
The average adult Aslan has equipment which has somewhat similar appearance and function to a Human’s or Vargr’s, but with differences that point up the non-Terran evolutionary origins of the species (i.e. feline models are not really applicable here).
As you know, when a Human child is conceived and begins to develop in the mother’s womb, it initially is not clear what sex the child will have: there are two organs that contain the future sex cells, and a third organ with nerve endings, and so on. As the child develops, the two organs are internalized at the end of a tube to become the ovaries and uterus/vagina and the nerve-ending cluster remains vestigial as the clitoris, OR the two organs externalize and become the testicles and scrotum while the nerve-ending cluster becomes the penis. (This is greatly simplified, of course, but basically accurate. I hope.)
When an Aslan child develops, similar patterns are followed, but the essential parallelism is carried much further into development, with attendant differences in the anatomies of the male and female Aslan. Both sexes have well-developed birth canals, internalized sex cell producing organs, and developed external nerve-ending clusters that serve as genitalia, not only through birth but well into puberty. The only easily visible difference at birth is that the birth canal of the male is sealed shut and the penis is slightly larger and more prominent. Secondary sexual differences consist of the development of the thick mane, the fully operative penis and testicles in the male, and the development of breasts, ovaries and heat cycles in the female. In this regard, Aslan are actually far more similar to the Terran hyena than to cats of any sort.
The male sexual equipment consists of the penis in its sheath, the sealed birth canal, and the testicles, which normally are retained inside the body a short distance up the canal. The penis is made of an extremely pliable flesh, even more so than the Human’s, and the corpus cavernosum makes up much more of the structure of the organ. When the Aslan male is not sexually excited, the penis is retracted entirely into the sheath and has a length of less than 40 mm, and the testicles are stored inside the body. (Kicking an Aslan in the groin is painful, but no more sexually damaging than kicking a Human male in the stomach. The Aslan male who knows anything of humans, however, will recognize the intended dishonor of the attack, and can be expected to deal accordingly with the attacker.) When the male becomes sexually active, the penis extends from the sheath and swells to a length of 200 to 300 mm and a diameter of 35 to 60 mm, but does not achieve the rigidity of the Human or Vargr penis, although it is quite firm enough for all “practical” purposes. At a later stage of sexual arousal, the testicles descend down the birth canal and pop out, one by one, through a sphincter into the tissue of the seal, which relaxes and stretches out to form a scrotum. The testes are approximately 50 to 75 mm in diameter and quite heavy and sensitive; their dangling can be painful to the male, who retracts them as soon as orgasm is completed, although erection may persist for several minutes after orgasm.
The female’s sexual equipment consists of the opened birth canal, the ovaries, the breasts, and an organ called the aileih or “claw of love.” Aslan women have four breasts, two at approximately the same location as those of a Human woman and two immediately underneath them. The upper breasts are well-developed and always fully functional for the purposes of feeding children, but the size and development of the lower pair vary widely from woman to woman. The lower breasts are believed to be holdovers from a period of Aslan evolution when litters were larger, and may well be becoming vestigial. On some women, they are almost nonexistent, and on others they may be as large as the upper pair, although this is an extreme case. On average, the lower breasts are approximately one-third to one-half the volume of the upper ones on any given female. The breasts are proportioned slightly smaller on average to the size of the ribcage than on a Human, but keep in mind that the ribcage itself, like the rest of the Aslan anatomy, is much larger than on a Human. The nipples are large and sensitive to touch at all times, and on many females produce a fluid similar to colostrum throughout the female’s sexually active years. The upper breasts are more usually thought of as anatomy relating to the care of kittens, whereas the lower pair are often the focus of sexual attraction.
The aileih is a vestigial organ similar in construction to the penis, that normally stays sheathed close to the vaginal entry and only becomes engorged when sexually stimulated, in a manner somewhat similar to the Human clitoris. However, the aileih is a more practical organ than the clitoris in terms of physical functionality: it provides a urine duct similar to the male’s penis, and a connection to the glands that provide sexual lubricant in the male, which are still functional in the female at this stage of Aslan evolution. When the female becomes sexually stimulated, the aileih engorges and becomes erect in a fashion similar to the penis; it usually extends from the sheath to a length of about 80 to 100 mm, and has a diameter of about 20 mm at the tip, flaring conically with a slight “waist” (like a Coca-cola bottle) to a base diameter of 45 to 70 mm. The vaginal canal is similar in relative dimensions and shape to a Human’s, but there are no labia minora and a much greater concentration of nerve endings along the inner surface of the canal, analogous in sensitivity to the Grafenberg Spot in Humans.
The Aslan female’s bodily cycles lie somewhere between those of Humans and Vargr. The female has a period of intense sexual stimulation for approximately two days before the beginning of each menstrual cycle, referred to in Aslan society as “The Time of Need.” Normally, the Aslan do not react as strongly to odor-based cues in relations with one another as do the Vargr, but the Need is an exception; one Human observer euphemistically referred to the effect of the smell of a female in Need on a male as “boiling the poor guy’s brains in testosterone soup.” On the other side of this issue is the fact that is is almost impossible to sexually arouse an Aslan male in anything more than a superficial manner without the Need as an odor cue. A male can appreciate the beauty of a female, hold and caress her for the sake of the pleasure one derives from holding and being held, and yet be completely free of sexual tension, right up until the moment that the scent of Need strikes his nostrils.
Female Aslan usually suppress the Need with drugs, a common practice that allows them to maintain their usual efficiency even during periods of Need. The drugs are prophylactic rather than preventive in nature in almost all cases; generally the female feels the approach of the Need before it becomes externally obvious, and takes the appropriate pills to head off the effects. A complete suppression of the Need is considered far too drastic a measure, because to an Aslan female the Need cannot be separated from sexual enjoyment. When an Aslan woman becomes sexually aroused, her autonomic nervous system triggers the Need at that moment. So, in a sense, Aslan women have heat cycles like Vargr women do, but are also capable of enjoying sex at other times, not by feeling sexual arousal without estrus (as in a Human or Vargr), but rather by inducing estrus spontaneously within themselves.
The Aslan tend to have a very narrow range of sexual congress techniques. This is because the Need tends to disrupt the higher reasoning faculties of the male to some extent—not enough to produce an effective lowering of intelligence, but enough to strongly discourage sexual experimentation as a waste of time and energy. Nonsexual intimate contact includes preening with the dewclaws, licking and grooming, and gentle biting and chewing of the face, neck and ears. In sexual situations, the range of attention includes the licking and biting of the nipples (particularly on the lower breasts) and the genitals. The male and female usually have no need of such foreplay when the female naturally comes into Need, but use such contact to encourage the Need in situations where it is not yet due, thus producing a sort of emotional feedback loop similar to that of Human or Vargr foreplay. Unlike Vargr foreplay, which tends to be coy and playful, however, Aslan foreplay is quite serious, attended to with the same care and attention that the Aslan bring to everything they do. To excite one’s mate in a careless or haphazard fashion is dishonorable in the extreme, and one does not mate without full focus of one’s ao upon the task. Sex, in essence, becomes a form of dual meditation.
When the female comes into Need, events proceed with great speed. The male’s penis engorges and extends with a speed other sophonts find both exhilirating and terrifying, followed soon after by the abrupt descent of the testicles into place. The female chooses whether she wishes to face the male or present her rump to him; he enters her almost without preamble, either rubbing her aileih against the fur of his lower belly if she faces him or grasping it firmly in one or both paws as his penis penetrates. Unlike the Human and Vargr, whose sexual contact consists of repeated thrusts of the penis, the Aslan sex act consists of a slow, steady feeding of the penis into the vagina, a centimeter at a time. Because of the pliability of the penis and the extreme tightness of the vagina, this task requires a literally inhuman degree of physical control. The shaft of the penis and the inner walls of the vagina are lined with an even distribution of nerve endings, rather than a concentration on the glans and clitoris as in the Terran-based species. This means that the act of penetration produces a steady ramping up of sexual pleasure, ending with contact of the scrotum with the labia and immediate orgasm. The male and female experience a swift ebbing of the Need after orgasm, followed by the retraction of the testicles and then the penis. The process rarely takes more than ten minutes to complete.
Non-copulatory sex play is generally designed to encourage Need; the male attempts to excite the female, who signals his relative success by attending to his physical stimulation. Oral-genital contact is common, but licking and sucking are performed with great care due to the rough tongue and long teeth of the Aslan. There are few common variations on the established canon of heterosexual contact in Aslan; sex is not considered a place for experimentation, in most cases. Fetishism and nonphysical stimuli are practically unheard of, and are not understood when seen in alien races.
Homosexuality is essentially nonexistent between males, for a number of reasons, chief among them the lack of appropriate nerve endings in the rectum (Aslan do not seem to be able to reinterpret the invasion of the cloaca as pleasurable in the same way as Humans or Vargr) and the lack of the necessary odor cues from the Need. On the other hand, homosexual relations between females are extremely common, perhaps more common than heterosexual relations in the light of the 4:1 female-male ratio in the Aslan. The aileih, besides having a concentration of nerve endings similar to the penis, is as rigid or more rigid than the penis when fully aroused, and is fully capable of penetration, ejaculating sexual lubricant upon arousal and orgasm. Because of the incomplete separation of the sexual anatomy and responses between the Aslan genders, female Aslan react to the odor of Need in a similar fashion to that of males. This leads to a mutually satisfying sexual activity between females that is similar in form, if not in intensity of stimulation, to that between male and female. Aslan females are rarely entirely homosexual or heterosexual by nature, and most will alternate between periods of homosexual and heterosexual mating throughout their lives. The exception tends to be a societal one—siya (unmarried) females sometimes prefer one another’s sexual company rather than risk the possible emotional entanglement arising from mating with a male, although such an extreme position is not common.
It is a hallmark of poorly written erotic fiction involving interspecies sex that the Aslan male hero is somehow attracted to the Human female heroine, and they end up having romantic, steamy, hours-long sexual acrobatics, making the Aslan a devoted follower of the “human way” and leaving the Human permanently addicted to the Aslan sexual equipment. For physical and emotional reasons, such couplings are actually quite rare and never have such outcomes. First of all, without the odor of the Need, the Aslan male is completely uninterested in sex. Unless the Human female can procure a perfume with the essence of the Need pheromone, she can expect nothing more intimate than the holding and touching that might be present between close friends, and then only if the male is comfortable enough with her to not be concerned with the possible implied dishonor of intimacy with a barbarian. Even if a Need pheromone can be obtained, the difficulties are still considerable. The Aslan male is incapable of the prolonged exertions of Human and Vargr sex, and only the most relaxed and capacious Human females can accomodate an Aslan male without being injured (to say nothing of the physical strain of being handled by an aroused Aslan male who is used to females of his own species and is not particularly strongly disposed toward being careful). While relations between Aslan males and Human females are at least possible under the right circumstances, therefore, they will usually remain in the fantasies of Humans intrigued by the tall, muscular, and enormously well-hung Aslan male.
The converse, a Human male with an Aslan female, is slightly more common due to the removal of the barrier of the Need, but the societal strictures and physical incompatibilities of the two species generally limit the enjoyment of the sex act by both partners, as repeated penetrations are frustrating to the male and quickly painful to the female. The most common coupling of Human and Aslan is female-female homosexual contact, as Human women often find the Aslan female’s sexual equipment, particularly the aileih, to be quite exciting, and Aslan women find the sex act with Human women to be only slightly different from that enjoyed with other Aslan. However, the societal bans on relations and intimacy with barbarians must still be overcome before any such relations can be enjoyed.
The material in this post is largely taken from the Imperium’s most famous book on interpsecies sexual relations, Loving The Alien by the late Dame Meriem Van Der Kloot of Anaxias, originally published in 867 and reprinted some six hundred times since then with varying degrees of censorship. Our thanks to Transform Press for permission to quote material from this, ah, seminal work.