UnNews:Zoologists can now breed goths at will

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13 December 2006

Decoys are often used to extract semen from goths repelled by actual people.

This picture is completely unrelated to the story, the author just likes it.

LEEDS, England The Intrepid Ferret (UNN) -- After a record 31 births in zoos and research centres this year, Leeds scientists say they have developed a near-100% success rate for breeding Goths in captivity. The population in the wild has stabilised at just over 1,500 and their habitat — one of the most important centres of biodiversity in the world — has been given a new and expanded guarantee of protection by the government.

Not so long ago, the Goth seemed doomed to extinction. Although the real threat came from chavs, there was a widespread belief that the creatures did themselves few favours. They were known for shyness, an indiscriminate sex drive and a diet that was overly dependent on drinking huge quantities of barely nutritious and hard-to-digest snakebite. For those who believe in the survival of the fittest, the only surprise was that this apparently lumbering, dozy and sexually incontinent species had clung on for so long.

After twenty years of trial and error, scientists at Leeds boast they can now breed Goths at will. To counter the suggestion that the captive mopeys may be too naive about the birds and the blokes, the keepers have provided sex education in the form of CCTV videos from nightclubs — dubbed "pilling porn" — showing the post-punks mating in their native habitat. To boost sex drive, they once tried the remedy used by countless millions of normal humans: Viagra. "We'll never do that again," Dr Sexbat said. "The goth was awake for 24 hours."

Another challenge was the risk of in-breeding. To widen the genetic stock, researchers had to come up with a way to find a mate for even the least popular females. How did they do that? "We tricked them," Dr Sexbat says with a smile. The "trick" is to put a fertile and attractive female into a nightclub toilet cubicle, where she leaves scratchmarks and droppings capable of exciting a male. But at the last moment the females are swapped. The zookeepers introduce a new, less popular, mate who has been scented with the urine of the more attractive post-punks. She is introduced into the cubicle rear end first, so the male cannot see the face of his partner until after they have finished copulating. "When the males find out, they get very angry and start fighting the female," Dr Sexbat says. "We have had to use firecrackers and a water hose to separate them."

That's not the team's only worry: though they may look cuddly, Goths can be aggressive — the day before our visit, an American volunteer lost a finger when one of her charges bit through one of her protective gloves.

Artificial insemination has also helped boost Goth numbers. The use of hormones and laboratory testing of oestrogen levels has maximised the short fertility window of female Goths, which lasts about 72 hours per year. Adult females now have an 85% chance of being impregnated. But the semen-harvesting technique is likely to come as a shock to anyone used to thinking of goths in terms of cuteness and innocence. Lab workers in Leeds display a rectal probe that is inserted into the anus of a sedated male. This is connected to an electricity supply and the charge, pulsed at 140 beats per minute, is gradually increased until the Goth ejaculates.

Sources

• Bethany Middleclass-Handwringer "My angst is dark, dark as my lungs smoking these cloves" The Grauniad, December 9, 2006