Grooming can be a powerful bonding tactic outside of language. Reckitt reflects on the nature of human and animal relations and our desire to pursue the formation of these affectionate bonds. By producing a list of artists who observe or take part in human / creaturely relations, Reckitt considers our fascination with otherness, perhaps explained by how mimicry of animals' behaviour allows us to "rid ourselves of consciousness and responsibility" and return to nature. Shame and the withholding of the mutual gaze are also discussed as reactions to the queerness and discomfort in acknowledging interspecies relations.