I keep meeting fox-people and centaurs in my dreams. But this hybrid of the two concepts, a foxtaur, wasn't a dream but a conscious experiment. I was recalling John Varley's elaborately worked out science-fiction centaurs in his books TITAN and WIZARD; a people even more oversexed than humans, and they had to be, for fertilization and pregnancy was a two-staged affair, first "foresex" than "hindsex"... involving three sets of genitalia, aft, middle and fore.

I didn't want to get quite that complex, so I compromised. Here we have a vixentaur, a woman; we know this because she has a fore-vagina; foxtaur men will have a wolflike fore-phallus. But both sexes have a hind-vagina and can bear pups.

Foresex is casual, affectionate fun; if fertilization results, a couple of months later a woman lays a small rubbery egg. This may be either discarded (or saved as a sentimental keepsake, or fried up and eaten if you now can't stand the guy and really want to insult him) or implanted in the hind-vagina; a second "fertilization" is needed to continue the gestation to term. Partners are usually pickier about hindsex, since this alone can result in pups (though it may not, as with foresex).

This is the exact reverse of Varley's centaurs, who engage in hindsex as freely as bonobos, transplant eggs from aft to forward womb, consider foresex intimate, and give birth to the front. This seems less logical, as you'd want to carry a full-term infant low down with quadrupedal support, and give birth through a pelvis that has the lighter load on it--surely one of the great benefits of being a taur not a human is not feeling, late-term, like a stiltwalking melon.

So a vixentaur's forewomb is small and lays an egg; the hindwomb is larger and bears pups--with, on average, far less pain and risk than human births. So foresex is fun; hindsex means love. Of course I'm generalizing! Foxtaur individuals vary, like any species. But even the wildest taurs don't raise their tails for just anyone.

Hindsex still isn't quite human love, with its tinges of jealousy. In fact taur tradition treats hindsex as a way to balance any hereditary tendencies that seem extreme--for example, two high-strung foreparents might invite a calm friend to hind-fertilize their egg as a corrective.

There's a genetic logic behind it. In truth, foxtaurs don't really manage to mix genes from three parents; instead, foxtaur semen contains a complex set of hormonal messages that regulate the expression of genes of the foreparents. The influence is substantial but not heritable.

Speaking of foreparents, it should be noted that some pups really can have, well, four parents. It's possible to plant your fertile egg into someone else's hindwomb--including one's husband! One can end up with a foremother (always female), forefather (always male), hindmother (either sex) and hindfather (male). Often the fore- and hind-father are the same, just as fore- and hind-mother often are; but not always. A pup can have two to four parents.

What else shapes foxtaur life? They like to burrow and lack claustrophobia; and they're small: mean weight is 30 kg (66 lbs). So foxtaur "houses" are winding mazes of small tunnels and irregular rooms. Ideally these vary in shape, texture and smell--a sandy room will have a passage squeezing between stones to a root-filled room. The addition of hearths and glass windows hasn't changed the overall mazelike quality; these aren't hobbit-holes, all leveled and symmetrical, but free-form sculpture one lives in. Burrows are an artform, stimulating quite as much foxtaur talk and attention as sex--and sex, as I've said, is both more public and more complex than human sex.

So is this just a nude anatomical study, or an erotic sculpture? Nudity itself means nothing among foxtaurs, of course, with their elegant pelts. They don't even wear much jewelry, let alone clothes (either could snag on roots or stones in their labyrinthine burrows.)

But yes, it's erotic, and strongly so: the final photo proves it. This vixen had to be powerfully turned on by modeling for the piece: for a taur to raise her tail like this in public is more than flirtatious. An invitation to foresex might mean casual excitement, but hindsex is the ultimate intimacy; her gesture expresses deep excitement--and deep trust.

The sculpture is red clay, unfired (so far; I hope to change that, for it's quite fragile as is; but I don't have easy access to a kiln right now). The figure's quite small, just 25 cm long and 15 tall (10 by 6").

There's no armature ("skeleton")--she's pure clay. Probably the figure would have been stronger if I'd made an armature, but I wasn't sure of my proportions at first and didn't want to box myself in. Redoing an armature can turn into nasty bone-sawing. Easy to kill the patient.

Sorry the background is so busy; I couldn't find a plain dark cloth big enough. It'd have become busy anyway, pretty fast; the soft raw clay left dust and crumbling bits all over. In fact one of this poor vixen's hind legs cracked off during the shoot and had to be mended afterward. So fragile! Hope I can bake her soon. Though these close-up photos tell me I should go back and rework some things...

I mean, don't you wish that reckless deity who supposedly molded us out of clay six thousand years ago had paid for some Darwinian beta-tests before popping us in the kiln? With us around, I'm afraid my poor foxtaurs are no competition for Half-Baked Species of the Year...

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