A reader writes:
So the portion of Carin Bondar's post that claims that the analogy doesn't stand up when looking at this from the male perspective is critically flawed. It is premised that "human males want sex" where as male anthropods "want reproduction". Evolutionary behavior that helps ensure that subsequent generations are produced does not have to be driven by a desire to procreate. In other words, maybe all the crickets really want to do is get off, which happens to be pretty good at ensuring the survival of the species.
A few commenters on Bondar's blog had the same beef with her analysis. Another reader:
I work as an entomologist, but while I have graduate school training in entomology I never actually received a degree in the field and I can't call myself an expert in animal behavior. I don't know whether Dr. Bondar has ever studied entomology per se or not, but given the published research articles she lists I conclude it's possible. Certainly she knows something about the behavior of some crayfish (which aren't insects, but, as crustaceans, are still arthropods).
It's very difficult to study animal behavior without anthropomorphizing the organisms one studies. Behaviorists have to guard against that all the time. So far as I'm aware the reality is we don't know what either the male or female insects Dr. Bondar writes about "want". We know something about what they do, but that doesn't mean we know how they feel about what they do, or if they feel anything at all. No one has ever demonstrated that any insect is "conscious" in the way humans are conscious.
Because we don't know what (if anything) the insects feel, we can't say for sure whether the males only mate to pass along their genes or if they also mate because it "feels good".
The Dish 