Swingin' Apes

No one reads this. Or at least, I imagine so. It will take a great deal of comments to dissuade me from this position. Part of me clings to this idea, of zero readership, to allow myself to remain frank and uncensored by a readership, although I rarely speak on personal issues as it is (this isn't a LiveJournal, or so I hope!). I am conflicted, however, as part of me desperately wants to be witty and not ever desire to spout garbage like oh, I wrote about that on my blog. Or I am so blogging this. I always imagine a short, hairy hipster saying such things, and I fancy myself no such thing, although I was briefly amazed at how hairy my arms are during my volcanology final today (which was lovely, thanks for asking!). I am also not very tall. Perhaps there is cause for concern. Alert me if I mention my blog in rl. I did that ironically, really. I should have said rly for greater affect. Or I could have gone with the srsly combo, but I dislike the word seriously fairly intently because of past exposure to Grey's Anatomy. Oh well. Did you know alert is an anagram of alter? It's true!

See? That's the sort of trumpery I just couldn't produce if I had an audience. They would be disgusted. I am a little disgusted as well. Perhaps that has something to do with this I found. It is a very long account of someone's experience in Borneo doing research on orangutans. I haven't read it all, but it is hosted on a university's website, so I assume it is credible. This isn't the first account of orangutan-on-woman sexual assault I've heard of, this one is referenced on the wikipedia article on animal sexuality, which also includes this gem:

"Masturbation is common in the animal kingdom ... We have a Darwinist mentality that all animals only have sex to procreate. But there are plenty of animals who will masturbate when they have nothing better to do. Masturbation has been observed among primates, deer, killer whales and penguins, and we're talking about both males and females. They rub themselves against stones and roots. Orangutans are especially inventive. They make dildos of wood and bark."

I'm no primatologist, but it seems like the bonobos still have a leg-up. I'll finish this up with the specific quote from this account of Borneo so you don't have to read the whole thing to get to the action:

When Mr. Scott and Mrs. Ann neared the camp, they saw an orangutan--Apollo Bob--who seemed to want to play. He wrestled with Mrs. Ann a bit and she thought it was innocent fun, until he grabbed her by both ankles and jerked her to the ground and started to mount her. Mr. Scott tried to pull him off, but orangutans are real strong. He said later it made him understand how horrible it must be to witness your wife or girl friend being raped and be able to do nothing about it. The struggle moved across about thirty feet of the trail, with Mr. Scott being able to do nothing but grab the back of Apollo Bob's neck and push his head toward the ground so he couldn't proceed. About then, Mrs. Anne (with an e at the end of her name) heard the ruckus from camp and came running, and, knowledgeable primatologist that she is, exploited the fact that humans are tool-using animals and orangutans for the most part are not, and grabbed a stick and chased Apollo Bob away.

At least I wasn't a rabbit, I guess.

You probably don't want to type monkey sex into the Google. Ever. Although I did find this image kind of funny.