by Eric Tolles
As I sat down this week to compose an article for this site, I began thinking about its direction. A large part of it, obviously, is geared towards offering its readership a myriad of options for sexual gratification. As you read this, to the left and directly above this article you will find all sorts of distracting adverts featuring various forms of pornography. Human pornography. This week I am going to disseminate fact over flagrance. This week I am going to tell you all about arachnid pornography.
Some red-hot spider sex, if you will.
Human fucking, or lovemaking if you prefer, is yawn inspiring, in contrast to how copulation is performed by the denizens of subfamily Theraphosinae. It is ritualistic, life threatening and altogether one of the most romantic spectacles I have ever beheld.
As stated in another article, I moved to my previous locale for the sake of employment. Previous to my relocation I was working at an “exotic” pet store. We specialized in lizards, snakes, poisonous frogs, and venomous invertebrates, as well as all the items necessary to provide the proper husbandry of. Somehow we were able to stay below the radar of PETA, even though we sold close to 300 mice and rats a week, and 50,000 crickets and meal worms. Anyway, we had a few tarantulas, but just of the run-of-the-mill variety that never generated much in the way of sales or my interest. I was far too focused on learning about and collecting rare reptiles and amphibians.
However, one day a customer of ours asked if we would be interested in buying his collection of tarantulas. As this was the manner in which we had filled a large percentage of our enclosures, as opposed to buying from importers who have no qualms about sending us unhealthy animals, I told him to bring them by.

Unbeknownst to me, what he arrived with that afternoon would invariably determine my interest and focus for the next 5 years.
He walked through the door with 6 enclosures containing Asian, African and South American species of tarantulas. I won’t bore you with scientific taxonomy, and at the time I didn’t know myself, but I utterly lost my fucking mind over them. There were 4 Indian Ornamentals, a Feather-leg Baboon and a Goliath Bird Eater. Since that day, I hunted down and absorbed every book I could get my hands on, joined several organizations concerned with arachnid husbandry and spent countless hours observing a collection of specimen in my home.
Through some friends, I was able to contact a breeder in another state who ran a breeding and research facility who eventually would invite me to visit, and during that visit offer me the job of running it.
Of course, I accepted.
Now, some facts and physiological background before we get to the wet and sticky details of spider fuckin’.
Tarantulas are spiders, but not all spiders are tarantulas. Tarantulas fall into a sub-category of spiders, or Araneae. It is similar to saying that all trucks are automobiles, but not all automobiles are trucks, to use a simile we can all grasp. The 3 main differences between spiders and tarantulas are their size (some tarantulas can grow to the size of dinner plates), hirsuteness (or hairiness), and the mechanics of their chelicerae (mandibles). Spiders move their chelicerae horizontally, and tarantulas move theirs vertically.
Tarantulas have 8 legs. However, just like spiders, they also have a 5th set of appendages, termed “pedipalps” that are situated on each side of their prosoma (front half of a tarantula’s body). They appear as shorter “legs” just to the left and right of their mouths. They use them in conjunction with their legs to subdue their prey and in other varying fashions, such as digging and web laying. With male tarantulas, however, they serve a very important purpose and function. Once maturity is reached, male pedipalps are magically transformed into sperm delivery tools. This happens during a male’s final molt, or “ultimate” molt, as it is termed. The ends of their pedipalps swell with seed, and they each grow a thorn shaped organ called an “embolus” that through flows his “baby batter.”

Imagine that guys. Waking up one morning not to a stomach coated in a sticky milkshake, your belly button turned into a gene pool, but that your hands have transmogrified into purple-veined pussy penetrators. No more fingers, no more thumb, your wrists are now topped off with a throbbing mushroom cap.
The female reproductive organs are contained in the episthosoma (back half of the body), underneath and just above the book lungs. The threshold of her ovaries is a small flap of skin termed as the “epigastric furrow”, the object of affection for the mature male tarantula. This is the focal point for reproduction, where a male will risk death to slip his johnson into that sweet poon-tang.
Tarantulas do not have blood. They have a life sustaining fluid called hemolyph. A clear, viscous fluid that not only carries nutrients through the body, but also is used to build pressure in their limbs and allows them to locomote. However, hemolyph cannot perform both functions at once. For example, as they take in and process oxygen through the book lungs, hemolyph can only be used to move the oxygen through their body. They cannot move their legs while doing this. Essentially, they have to hold their breath when they move, which is why when they run, it is for very short distances. So, to dispel a myth, tarantulas don’t chase people down. It is physically impossible for them to do so.
Get on with the porn, would ya?
A male tarantula, once gone through his ultimate molt, will begin to produce jism within his episthosoma. Once the concoction is cooked, he will build what is called a “sperm web” that appears tent-like, or at least lean-to in its construction, with a base comprised of a denser silk where the male will deposit his sperm. Once he has emptied his gonads, he then climbs underneath or on one side and dips his embolus, one after the other, into the soup and sucks it up into the base of his embolus, or “bulb”. This is referred to as “charging”. Once he is fully charged he will wander out of his burrow, or retreat if he is an arboreal species, and began his vagina quest.
One thing nature did to these fantastic creatures, was to alter the growth cycles of males and females. Males mature much, much faster than females, therefore avoiding any chance of brother-on-sister relations. Males live between 5-9 years, expiring soon after becoming mature, while females can live up to 25 years. Though purportedly some have been said to breech the 30 year mark.
Female tarantulas, as well as immature males, line the opening to their burrows or retreats with a fine matting of silk that is normally used in the detection of prey. An insect or smaller animal, such as a frog or lizard, walks across the webbing and the lurking tarantula can tell by changes in tensile pressure whether or not the intruder is a viable entrée. Unlike spiders, a tarantula’s webbing is not sticky, nor used to ensnare their victims, they employ speed and very sharp fangs (and the venom therein) to subdue their prey.
Within this matting is what is termed as “chemotactics” that mature males use to locate mature females. Arachnologists are hesitant to refer to the sense of smell or taste, as arachnids have neither tongues nor noses. In any case, a male will detect these chemicals and very, very cautiously approach the female’s den.
And the dance begins.
Though varied by degrees between each species, the mating ritual of tarantulas is extremely ritualistic and a marvelous exhibition of courtship that is short on copulation, but very long on foreplay.
Once the male had located a burrow containing a mature female, he will usually begin by plucking at the strands of her webbing, much like strumming a guitar. Or, in other species, he will began stamping down on the web, one leg at a time, much like drumming. And it is louder than you may think. I can not begin to account for all the nights I spent being woke by arboreal males drumming against the sides of their enclosures at 4 o’clock in the morning. Usually this action will elicit one of two responses from the resident inside the burrow. She will either slowly come out to take a look at her suitor, or she will dart out, fangs exposed, with every intention of foregoing casual sex for a free meal.
Think about that for a moment. Consider the overnight social changes that would occur if every time we men approached a female with the prospect of bumping uglies, there was a good chance that instead of slipping her the hot beef injection, we would get completely eviscerated for our efforts.
If the former is this case, the male will slowly back up as she approaches him, his first set of legs slightly elevated above the ground and the other 6 ready to back peddle immediately is she exhibits any aggressive posturing. If she does not show any signs of aggression, the male will approach her, and with his two front legs, he will begin to stroke her front legs, or softly tap upon them and/or the top of her prosoma, just behind her ocular turret (eyes). I have seen this process take up to an hour. Once she has been amply aroused she will extend her fangs. Of course, as I stated earlier, she will also extend her fangs if she is intent on devouring the male. The difference is in the act. When she is receptive, extending her fangs serves a different purpose. Mature males (in almost every species) have what are called “tibial hooks” located on the inside of their front two legs. These hooks, well, they hook the fangs of the female in order for the male to push her upwards so that he may gain access to her epigastric furrow, where he needs to insert his embolus in order to deposit his seed.
That’s right, tarantulas fuck standing up.

Once the male has secured his paramour in an upright position, he begins to stroke or tap his pedipalps against the underside of her opisthosoma. She will respond by arching her prosoma in the opposite direction from him, thus pushing her “stomach” towards the him and fully exposing her “vagina”. The male will then unfold each embolus from under the tips of his pedipalps and slip them inside her, spraying the walls of her ovaries with arachnid au jus.
Then, as quickly and as quietly as slipping out of the boudoir of a salacious one night stand, the male scurries to safety, his wad blown and his hunger for tawdry tarantula trysts sated, if only until his next charging.
Top that, Bang Bus!