There are those who would have us believe that a marked reddening of the belly of the male stickleback and a swelling of the female belly are sure signs of a readiness for mating. Such signals act as triggers for the mating `dance', the vigour of which is proportional to the intensity of these signals. Indeed, if one were so unfeeling - and there are such people - as to artificially accentuate these triggers, the mating dance would become correspondingly more frenzied. Thus, a normal red or swollen belly is termed a 'releaser cue' whilst the enhanced versions - the caricatures - are known as 'super-releasers'. The parallels with human sexuality are irresistable except that the exact nature of human releasers is in part a matter of fashion.

'In olden days, a glimpse of stocking was seen as something shocking;
Now heaven knows, anything goes.'

Anyway, a case in point is the Great Coll Tarts' Night Extravaganza when diverse whores, scrubbers, hookers, harlots, tramps, trollops, strumpets, slags, sluts, prostitutes, tarts and jezebels together with assorted succubi, femmes fatales and women of the night, all gathered shamelessly in the Coll Hotel in wanton celebration of their timeless art. There they paraded and posed; they strutted, jutted, swaggered and swayed. All fishnet thighed and wickedly stilettoed, with primitive artifice and defiant challenge, they flaunted and protruded, coaxing with the pout of sensually scarlet lips and spurning with dark simmering eyes. In short, they displayed a pretty fair working knowledge of the super-releaser - no, no! - they didn't have red or swollen bellies; you've got it all wrong; go back to the beginning. They also ate and drank quite a lot and sang unseemly songs, one of which sounded strangely like Glen Miller's `In the Mood';

`We're in the mood; Yeah! Yeah!
We're hot and ready; Yeah! Yeah!'
 
- and so on and so forth. Not overly subtle perhaps but apposite and undeniably gritty.
Notable amongst this libidinous rabble was the voluptuous and bawdy Lee - with the biggest eyelashes in the business - who was partnered in song by Moira, that taut and raunchy West End doxy managing to combine allure with just a dash of discipline. Their sisters in sin were no less provocative. There was Kurvatious Karen who put the Ks in Karnal Karess, Beth with a breathy, leggy promise of Nordic naughtiness, resplendent Rena, the keener queen-a' the bunch, Charlotte for whom this must surely have been her first night on the streets, Caroline, the classy hooker with the profile who did-it for kicks and Linda with whom beating a tattoo took on a whole new meaning.
Unfortunately, the statuesque Barbara, as Cleotartra, never displayed her asp and the pulsethuddingly pneumatic Julie was cruelly Cindarellarized in the hotel kitchen. Otherwise the experience was stunning; they were amazing, vibrant, magnificent; extraordinary embodiments of the lubricious and the lewd; talented conjurors with impossible images of primitive desire & forgotten lusts.
How the tambourine-toting soldiers of salvation would have revelled in the evening. And, by comparison, how pale the poor male.

It has to be said, however, that beneath the brassy badinage, there was something more compelling, perhaps more threatening; something triumphal and powerful; timeless and primal. One was put in mind of the common literary allusions to the bipolar nature of woman - both nun and gypsy, virgin and whore - and anxious male onlookers had to reassure themselves that this was not Valpurgisnacht come early nor some other long-forgotten festival of fecundity touching the dim shadows of racial memory. Indeed, it was an inconsequential 14th. of June.
By way of timid response a week later, a 'Poofters' Night' was staged as the male parallel to the Tart's Night but this claimed equivalance didn't sit easily in the mind. In consequence, heated disputes were heard in the bar:
"Ye canna tell me, Hamish, that the quintessence of the male alter-ego is a nancy-boy!"
-or words to that effect.
In preference, it was felt that suppressed masculinity might better express itself in flamboyant shows of machismo - all leather and piano wire images of Swartzenegger and Clintwood rather than a flutter of flowery, trinket-laden Manilows.
Still, who can say.
Alarmingly, there is talk that the next `girls' night will take a different theme - but what? A nun's night? A dowager's night!?
No, no! - it's unthinkable. Bring back the gypsies. Long live the super-releaser!

`What care I for your goose-feather bed
With the sheets turned down
so bravely-oh
When I can sleep
on the cold hard ground
All along with the Raggle Taggle
Gypsies-oh.