Ah, Me So Horny

Published December 9, 2023

Madikwe, South Africa

Pound for pound, in many parts of Africa, an adult rhino is worth three times more than gold.

The punishment for poaching rhinos and other big game in South Africa comes with a hefty fine, and an even heftier prison sentence. Our guide told us this was not what detoured people from killing them though, and I expected him to tell us that, like so many other things in South Africa, the system was corrupt, and the punishments weren’t actually enforced. What he said surprised me.

“If caught, the punishments are enforced. But everyone knows that pound for pound, a rhino is worth three times more than gold. So a twenty year prison sentence and a $10,000 fine would be well worth the risk to many people. What detours people is that everyone around here also knows that poachers caught trespassing will be shot on sight. No questions asked.”

In Uganda, an armed guard -- one of many -- sits on the perimeter of the rhino sanctuary to deter poachers.

“You are legally allowed to shoot them?” I asked.

“Everyone knows that we will shoot them,” our guide equivocated.

The trafficking of rhino, specifically the horn, is serious business, with a highly lucrative black-market trade estimated at $20 billion a year. The horn is believed to have aphrodisiac properties by practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine and many South-East Asian countries, even though there is no scientific evidence to support this.

“I thought that the horn’s curative properties were a myth and had been scientifically disproven. Do the poachers know that the rhino horn doesn’t really make you horny?” I asked, wondering simultaneously, as I spoke the question, whether there might be an etymological connection between rhinos and the word horny. Funny that I’d never thought of this before.

“Does it matter?” our guide responded. “What difference does it make whether or not it’s true if people still believe that it is, and are willing to pay top dollar for it?”

He’s right, I guess it makes no difference. If I were a poacher, I suppose it wouldn’t matter to me what people were going to do with the rhino horn, so long as they paid me for it. I would understand two things: one, that the money would be huge and life changing if I could pull it off, if I could somehow kill a rhino and get the horn to market. And two, that much more likely it would be life changing in a very different way, because I would be dead, shot and killed on sight.

Our guide confessed that not only had he shot and wounded a poacher not too long ago himself, but that most every other guide out here on the savanna had done so as well, at some point in their life. He rattled off a few names of guides he knew that had not only wounded but actually killed the poachers they shot.

We were out here in the bush every single day, seeing animals kill and be killed and then get to feast or get feasted upon. A single kill would be visited by so many different rounds of animals, that the circle of life was constantly on my mind. It was constantly in my ear, too, as I may have played portions of the Lion King soundtrack each morning while getting ready, especially ever since Toto’s “Africa” had mysteriously been deleted from my phone. (I'm pretty sure this was my then-boyfriend JEFF'S doing...)

It was fascinating getting to see the hierarchy of the feeding order, with the large predatory animals eating first, while all the others crowded around and patiently waited their turn. A single wildebeest carcass could take many days to fully decimate, with the lions having their fill on day one, cheetahs soon after, and so forth and so on, until many days later the bones were being picked clean by the hyenas and the vultures.

Watching such efficiency, conservation, and cohabitation at work, it was hard to comprehend that humans sit at the very top of that hierarchal pyramid. Higher up on the totem pole than any other species, yes, there are silly humans who want to kill a rhinoceros not so that it can be eaten for sustenance and feed an entire ecosystem full of beautiful creatures, but so that they can grind up the horn into powder and send it to the South Pacific, where some delusional but wealthy man thinks it might give him a brief erection for the evening.

I see why The Lion King chose to leave humans out of the circle. This would make for some pretty f*cked up lyrics, even for Elton and Tim.

The gritty complexities of symbiotic relationships and the human experience were not, however, too much for 2 Live Crew to contemplate, and they did so in their 1989 rap music hit, “Me So Horny;” the lyrics of which I shall now reprint here for us all to ponder.

I do so without any express permission or consent from 2 Live Crew (or from my mother, who I know never much cared for this catchy but provocative insight into the human condition), or any of the other FIVE PEOPLE (!?!) that it inexplicably took to write this song:

Me So Horny

Performed by: 2 Live Crew

Written by: Luther Campbell, Mr. Mixx, Brother Marquis, Ricardo Williams, and Fresh Kid Ice

“What'll we get for ten dollars?"

"Every 'ting you want"

"Everything?"

"Every 'ting"

"Oh, don't do that, baby, ah"

"Hold on this, oh, sock it to me, ah"

"Oh"

Ah, me so horny

Me love you long time

Ah, me so horny

Me love you long time

Ah, me so horny

Me love you long time

Ah, me so horny

Me love you long time

Sittin' at home with my dick on hard

So I got the black book for a freak to call

Picked up the telephone, then dialed the seven digits

Said, "Yo, this Marquis, baby, are you down with it?"

I arrived at her house, knocked on the door

Not having no idea of what the night had in store

I'm like a dog in heat, a freak without warning

I have an appetite for sex, 'cause me so horny

Ah, me so horny

Me love you long time

Ah, me so horny

Me love you long time

Girls always ask me why I fuck so much

I say "What's wrong, baby doll, with a quick nut?"

'Cause you're the one, and you shouldn't be mad

I won't tell your mama if you don't tell your dad

I know he'll be disgusted when he sees your pussy busted

Won't your mama be so mad if she knew I got that ass?

I'm a freak in heat, a dog without warning

My appetite is sex, 'cause me so horny

Ah, me so horny

Me love you long time

Ah, me so horny

Me love you long time

You can say I'm desperate, even call me perverted

But you say I'm a dog when I leave you fucked and deserted

I'll play with your heart just like it's a game

I'll be blowing your mind while you're blowing my brains

I'm just like that man they call Georgie Puddin' Pie

I fuck all the girls and I make 'em cry

I'm like a dog in heat, a freak without warning

I have an appetite for sex, 'cause me so horny

Ah, me so horny

Me love you long time

Ah, me so horny

Me love you long time

"Hold on this, oh, sock it to me, ah"

Ah, me so horny

Me love you long time

It's true, you were a virgin until you met me

I was the first to make you hot and wetty-wetty

You tell your parents that we're goin' out

Never to the movies, just straight to my house

You said it yourself, you like it like I do

Put your lips on my dick, and suck my asshole too

I'm a freak in heat, a dog without warning

My appetite is sex, 'cause me so horny

Ah, me so horny

Me love you long time

Ah, me so horny

Me love you long time

"Fuckie suckie"

"Me fuckie suckie"

"Fuckie suckie"

"Me fuckie suckie"

"Fuckie suckie"

"Me fuckie suckie"

"Fuckie suckie"

"Me fuckie suckie"

"Fuckie suckie"

Me so horny

So, so horny

Me so horny

Me love you long time

"Me fuckie suckie"

"Fuckie suckie"

Me so horny

******************************

Read about my conversation with a local medicine man in Uganda HERE. Some of his practices and remedies might seem mystical to us, but even he was adamant that claims of the rhinoceros horn holding medicinal properties were baseless and asinine.