The sex appeal of lobsters

The night before I moved a pet lobster into my flat, I ate agnolotti all’ aragosta for dinner. It was possible that my soon-to-be companion, Snips McGee – who I inherited from a friend – would outlive me (the oldest lobster on record was estimated to be 140 years old) and I wanted one last plate of lobster ravioli, hold the moral hang-ups.

The French author Gérard de Nerval also owned a pet lobster, which he took for walks on a blue silk leash. ‘They are peaceful, serious creatures,’ he said. ‘They know the secrets of the sea, they don’t bark, and they don’t gnaw upon one’s monadic privacy like dogs do.’ How I wish that were true. My Snips didn’t bark, but it was hard to find monadic or any other kind of privacy with an infant-sized cockroach by my bed.

Salvador Dali associated lobsters with the bedroom. His lobster-shaped ‘Aphrodisiac Telephone’ was designed to look erotic. In ‘The Dream of Venus’, naked female models are covered with lobsters. He collaborated with Elsa Schiaparelli on the ‘lobster dress’, which was included in Wallis Simpson’s wedding trousseau and worn shortly before her marriage to Edward VIII. Why did he consider lobsters erotic? I shared a bedroom with a lobster and just don’t get it. But such sensuality captivated the Dutch still life painters long before Dali. You’ll find many a ripe red lobster banqueting with skulls and pocket watches in a de Heem or de Ring in the Wallace Collection.

Despite what the TV show Friends might tell you, lobsters don’t mate for life. Female lobsters wield their pheromones feverishly and with little subtlety. She wafts her urine into the alpha male lobster’s domain, seducing him and mating with him for about two weeks before letting the next lady in the line-up repeat the process.