Friday, April 01, 2005

Rhesus Pieces

Rhesus Pieces
The science behind why men are big apes
by Gene Weingarten (Washington Post)
Gina: Why on Earth would male monkeys pay to see up-close pictures of naked female monkey butts when, any time they wanted, they could just walk up to a female monkey and inspect her naked butt? Female monkeys do not generally wear Prada jeans.

Gene: Maybe, just maybe, the male monkey would rather look at the pictures than go through the whole rigmarole necessary to be permitted to inspect the female monkey butt. Maybe he doesn’t want to have to first bring the female monkey a nut, which she will reject, so he then has to bring her another, better nut. Maybe he doesn’t want to have to chatter in an engaging fashion, while she sits on that butt and judges his chatter against the chatter of other male monkeys. Maybe he doesn’t want to have to first carefully groom himself of all his lice, except the really nice, fat ones, which he will leave for her. Maybe he is just tired of the whole complicated rumba and will happily pay the price of giving up an apple juice in order to avoid the dance and take his jollies elsewhere. What I am saying is that maybe this exhausting ritual helps foster pornography (which, as an enlightened male, I of course continue to find disgraceful).

It gets better towards the end.

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