Science News:

Among the Anelosimus studiosus spiders, which live and spin webs along rivers and under bridges from Maine to Patagonia, females don’t develop an opening to their reproductive tract until their final molt. Males mature faster and hang around not-quite-mature females, often going through most of the mating routine.

During almost-sex, the male doesn’t load his sex organs with sperm but performs a courtship display by drumming the female’s web with his legs and sex organs. If she assumes a cooperative posture, he approximates a mating position too. He then taps her body where the reproductive tract will eventually open.

Sexual behavior even at this stage brings some risks, such as a chance that the male spider will be killed by the potentially cannibalistic female. So sex that can’t possibly produce offspring remains puzzling, Pruitt said.

I very much admire this ability to load and unload sperm. It seems to be a better system than this wasteful business of ejaculating every time one performs or simulates sex. A man would be more of a man if he could control his shit like these web-drumming spiders.