These two interesting creatures are meeting upon a sleeping nest made of cotton stuffing and cut trees.  The rectangular pad rests upon a frame formed from melted earth ore.  This is typically where humans mate.  The female is generally smaller and less muscular than the male.  Contrary to other species, she is more colorfully ornate than her mate and the fur on her scalp is longer than the male’s and often teased, shaped and dyed a variety of colors ranging from yellow to brown to black.  The balance of her facial plumage is also artificial, consisting of crème, beige and red powders and waxes extracted from animal fats or plant by-products.  She has plucked, cut or otherwise removed almost all of the fur from her body.  Her ear lobes have been perforated with sharp, pointed implements to allow insertion of dangling metal ornaments.  This strategic combination of plucking, coloring and bodily perforations is intended to have the overall effect of attracting the human male.

            Body mutilation is not solely for the female.  Notice the male’s penis.  The forward most tip of flesh was sliced off shortly after birth.  Some humans believe that this mutilation is a spiritual imperative.  (Special Note # 1:  Humans spend a great deal of energy contemplating an Unseen Force that they believe initiated All Existence.  These contemplations have led to numerous instances of inter and intra-group killing.  In many cases, these same contemplations have also led to the described genital mutilation).  Other humans believe that this mutilation enhances the aesthetic appeal of the male’s genitals.  Whatever the reasons, the mutilation is quite common among human males.

            Even more fascinating than ear-lobe and genital mutilation, note that both the male and the female walk upright on their hind legs, making for untraditional mating positions that include an unusual face-to-face configuration.  Perhaps it is this anomalous face-to-face position that has resulted in the human tradition to precede mating with a strange, sometimes melodious and often times cumbersome series of oral communications, none of which enhance the reproductive efficacy of the actual mating.

            For example, notice the male leaning close to the female, exhaling on her neck and projecting various sounds into her flapless ear.  He is telling her that she is the most desirable mate in their territory.  This is clearly untrue.  Her skin is wrinkled and she is rapidly approaching infertility.  She can no longer bear cubs and neither the species nor evolution will be served by this mating.  Yet she accepts the male’s communication by stretching her mouth from side to side, revealing her teeth. 

            The female now leans forward and mutters sounds into the male’s ear.  She is telling him his genitals are the largest in their territory.  This is flagrantly incorrect and both the male and the female know that this is the case.  Yet the male accepts the statement and stretches his mouth horizontally, baring his teeth, some of which contain small insertions of rare metal ore intended to provide structural integrity to his aging teeth. 

            They now touch mouths and probe each others’ oral cavities with their tongues.  Their eyes are closed, presumably to focus on the tactile rather than the visual aspects of their present activities.  The female leans horizontally onto her back and the male mounts her face-to-face and belly-to-belly.  Humans are the only animals who regularly mate in this unusual and unique position, sometimes referred to as the “missionary position.”  (Special Note # 2:  Here again, human behavior is affected by the precepts that this species attributes to an Unseen Force that they believe initiated All Existence.  Many humans believe in a monotheistic and patriarchal Unseen Force that strongly advocates fruitful procreation but also maintains that the act of procreation in and of itself is unclean and should, therefore, only be practiced between the same female and male pair and then only if they have jointly participated in an anointing ceremony ostensibly designed to announce their choice of mate to their larger familial and social groups.  The humans who self-select to teach and remind other humans of this and many other edicts of the Unseen Force are called missionaries.  Missionaries purportedly advocate this male-upon-female mating position because they believe that it is the least offensive mechanical position for human mating).

            Although the preparatory activities of human mating may last for as long as it takes the Sun to complete 1/24^th of its full sweep across Mother Earth (humans call this an hour), the actual act itself lasts roughly 1/6^th of the duration of its preparatory activities (humans call this ten minutes).  At this point, as you can see, it’s over.  Immediately upon exchange of reproductive fluids, the male has become sleepy and inattentive towards the female.  While the male quietly slips into sleep, the female lays awake.  Her eyes are open and periodically blinking.  She is now thinking.  (Special Note # 3:  Humans “think.”  This internal process of invoking, arranging, rearranging, interpreting, misinterpreting and attributing personal meaning to various images and past experiences is not wholly unique to humans.  Indeed, you Leopards and your four-legged brethren use thinking as an effective tool for hunting.  However, humans tend to use (and most times misuse) thinking for more abstract applications.  For instance, they often use thinking to self-assess their individual standing within their local social order.  They also use thinking to independently infer what other humans are thinking.  They often act on these inferences as if they were verified conclusions.  In fact, the genesis of the aforementioned Unseen Force has its roots in human thinking).

            The female lightly strikes the male in the stomach with her elbow.  He awakens.  She is murmuring sounds to him, consciously avoiding eye contact.  Although he understands and acknowledges the literal meanings of each sound, the female accuses him of not understanding the sounds’ collective and deeper implications to this couple’s long-term union as mates.  The male is now re-sounding the sounds that he heard the female make, attempting to glean the female’s intended meaning while simultaneously demonstrating that he has correctly interpreted the deeper implications of her sounds.  He fails. 

            In jerking motions, the female quickly moves off the flat rectangular box made of cut trees and cotton stuffing.  She is on her hind legs making loud, distressful sounds and gesturing wildly in the male’s direction with her right front paw.  The male now makes equally loud and distressful sounds, imploring the female to stop making loud and distressful sounds.  The female releases a final, high-pitched accusatory bark and dashes away on her back legs to an area separated from the area with the rectangular box made of trees and cotton stuffing.  She has enclosed herself in a location reserved for bowel and urinary functions. 

            So ends human mating.

            Thank you for your interest in this educational documentary.  You and your leopard brethren are invited to join us for our next installment in this series, titled “Human Laughing:  A Darwinian Imperative for Survival?”