In August two British couples were given sanctions by local councils because their loud, long sex sessions disturbed neighbors. Steve and Caroline Cartwright were issued a noise abatement order by the Sunderland City Council (Caroline: "I do admit I scream and make lots of noise"), and Kerry Norris was fined by the Brighton and Hove City Council for violating a previous sex-noise order with her boyfriend Adam Hinton (a neighbor said their headboard bangs against the wall until 6 a.m.). (Also in August, a neighbor of a swingers' party house in Des Moines, Wash., told a Seattle Times reporter than cries of ecstasy from the house sometimes sound "like a raccoon dying.")

Also, Some Animals Have Good Sex Lives: Officers responding to a neighbor's report of domestic violence in a subdivision near Payson, Ariz., in September decided that the "fight" the neighbor heard was the high-pitched mating scream of a male elk.

And an August police search near Linz, Germany, was called off after the "bloodcurdling" screams reported as a woman in distress were actually the mating cries of a badger.

And officials at the Bristol Zoo in England promised neighbors they would temporarily house gibbons inside during the night because of their loud mating duets.