Neutered Cat wants... me!

My husband and I have a 6 year old male cat named Bruce. He was a stray when we took him in 3 years ago. He is in great health now (maybe a little overweight but I prefer that to seeing his ribs like when we found him!) He was declawed and neutered when I found him - so someone obviously took care of him at some point. He is the best, most mild mannered, well behaved cat, except when he starts kneading or playing.

Sometimes he wants to knead on us, which we understand - because he is showing love. But sometimes he takes it too far. Sometimes after he kneads for a while he then starts to hump whatever he is near, be it my legs or the blanket or anything! I have no idea how he gets excited over something like this and I don't know what to do! Usually we pick him up and put him down - which then he doesn't want to do anything but he is probably sexually frustrated by it.

A lot of times he will be playing and then he will suddenly bite down really hard to our hands and hang on and then start to mount our arms! It's the strangest thing because we have a female cat.

We got our other kitty Bella (age 2) a few months ago from a shelter. They have made great friends. She is also spayed. Why does he choose us when he has her? What gets him excited about kneading and playing and us as humans?

My cat Seti used to do the same thing but instead of kneading would lick. When he started to lick really hard I knew he was about to latch onto my arm (yucky, I know). This usually happened at bed time so I would just dump him off the side of the bed and ignore him and he finally cut it out. I suspect that the act of kneading in your cat's case and licking in Seti's triggers the response more than any scent, etc. It makes sense since your male probably doesn't knead on your female cat, only you. Likewise, we've 3 other cats and Seti never tried to mate with them (they'd murdered him) nor did he do it to my husband.

My cat Toby, whom I also got as an adult neutered male from the shelter, does this...I basically just learned to "read the signs"...his also starts with kneading, head butting, basically being very friendly. After about 2 minutes of petting, he'll get too excited and will nip me and /or start humping something. So, I've had to basically, pet him a little, but if he starts to get really "into it", I put him down. It works for me, I've just had to learn that I can't pet him for long periods of time. He'll also start kneading a blanket / humping it when he comes to greet me in the mornings...but I've decided to ignore this.

IMO, they still have "urges" even after being neutered (if they're neutered after sexual maturity) and all you can do is either redirect them or figure out what cues the behavior to start and avoid it.

Art