May 11, 2012

WaPo highlights a child's delight in discovering 2 males having sex.

It's horseshoe crab mating time in Delaware.
The arthropod orgy was well underway when Breanne Preisen trudged over the low dune onto the narrow beach, where tens of thousands of horseshoe crabs were getting down to the age-old business of reproduction.

“There’s a female,” Preisen said, pointing at one of the peculiar sea-things crawling along an undeveloped stretch of the Delaware Bay shoreline. “She has a male attached to her.”

Preisen inspected the cluster of horseshoe crabs more closely, then corrected herself: “Two males!” She smiled.
Of course, she smiled. The young girl has been properly educated and enlightened, and The Washington Post approves.

Many years ago, I was a young girl in Delaware, and I found 2 horseshoe crabs and was delighted that they were "attached" — the word I used — to each other. I had no idea what sex they were or, in fact, that they were having sex. If I had realized what they were doing, I wouldn't have grabbed the tail of the one in back and dragged the fucking couple along with me.

25 comments:

Scott M said...

f I had realized what they were doing, I wouldn't have grabbed the tail of the one in back and dragged the fucking couple along with me.

Goodness...

Anonymous said...

Clever that...

m stone said...

Just how delightful is two males having sex from that other species?

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

At age 33, Ms. Preisen must be a child at heart.

Freeman Hunt said...

Gay animals, endangered species, climate change, Ron Jeremy -- all in the same feature article about horseshoe crabs.

Oh, Wapo.

DADvocate said...

As WaPo knows, we should always look to lower life forms as role models for human behavior.

edutcher said...

Pity the poor crabs...

And, yeah, the WaPo is quickly becoming a laughingstock.

Wince said...

Althouse: I had no idea what sex they were or, in fact, that they were having sex. If I had realized what they were doing, I wouldn't have grabbed the tail of the one in back and dragged the fucking couple along with me.

Talk about a Romneyesque denial. “I certainly don’t believe I thought the crustacean was homosexual. That was the furthest thing from our minds back in the 1960’.”

As the crabs' eyes filled with tears, screamed for help, Althouse repeatedly dragged them by the tails... because they were gay.

Now, I want the WaPo to do a story on Elizabeth Warren giving me an Indian Sunburn in Kindergarten.

Pastafarian said...

A thought experiment:

Suppose we took 50 baby girls, and 50 baby boys, and raised them in a closed society, in which they were told that the normal, socially accepted way to behave is for men to marry men, and women to marry women; and all of these children are raised in such same-sex-parent families.

What percentage of these children would grow up to be gay?

Certainly not all of them; maybe not even half of them. But no one can dispute that this percentage would be higher, much higher, than the current percentage for our society. It's not all biological, and there's an interaction between genetics and environment.

So by insisting that the state recognize gay marriage, and that children are taught that this is a perfectly legitimate choice, as legitimate as procreative marriage, we're moving incrementally toward this thought experiment.

Now, I like gay people. Some of the most brilliant and creative people in the world are gay. That's great.

But, as a society, we really don't need more people that don't breed. Decreasing populations and aging demographics destroy economies. When you subsidize something, you get more of it, and recognizing gay marriage does subsidize it.

We are committing cultural suicide.

And note who's pushing us along, incrementally: The same people who want to scrap missile defense, piss off our allies, and blow up our deficit.

Co-inki-dink?

Anonymous said...

that last line forced coffee out of my nose.

nice one, prof.

gerry said...

I wonder if they were aware that the crabs are hormone-crazy batshit when this happens, and will screw just about anything?

Anonymous said...

I wonder if they were aware that the crabs are hormone-crazy batshit when this happens, and will screw just about anything?

Yes, an unfortunate fact for the WaPo's intended message.

traditionalguy said...

If that was a teenage Mitt Romney he would have done something extremely weird, almost insane, to humiliate the crabs.

Can't we all just get along and have crabs or don't have crabs as a freedom of choice?

LordSomber said...

I spent summers on the Delaware Bay (NJ side) as a kid and those things always weirded me out. Bright blue blood and all.

Darrell said...

As the crabs' eyes filled with tears, screamed for help, Althouse repeatedly dragged them by their tails... because they were gay. Later, we found that those same crabs had made it to the Happy Hour menu at the Crab Shack. They didn't even resist. I still don't sleep thinking the two incidents are related. My mind reels with horror

Bryan C said...

Why is she smiling about two horseshoe crabs not successfully reproducing?

I like horseshoe crabs. They have copper-based blood. Just like Vulcans.

"I wonder if they were aware that the crabs are hormone-crazy batshit when this happens, and will screw just about anything?"

Again, just like Vulcans.

Scott M said...

Again, just like Vulcans.

Nerd.

Bryan C said...

"But, as a society, we really don't need more people that don't breed."

Gay people aren't sterile. Given modern technology and alternative arrangements like artificial insemination it's not that complicated for a gay couple of either gender to have kids.

FWIW, polygamous marriages seem to be really good at producing lots of offspring. If population decline is a real concern we should probably subsidize them.

ndspinelli said...

When I would go clamming @ the Cape in my youth those horseshoe and spider crabs would scare the shit out of me. You feel something w/ your foot, reach down[if the other guy had the rake] and one of these prehistoric creatures would clamp onto your hand. I really like clams.

ndspinelli said...

I do love crab porn, but sea turtle porn is even better.

ndspinelli said...

The "and dragged the fucking couple along w/ me" is fodder for some good ball busting however I'm on double secret probation. I need some other wise asses to hit that bp fastball that has been offered.

Anonymous said...

Bryan C said...

"Given modern technology and alternative arrangements like artificial insemination it's not that complicated for a gay couple of either gender to have kids."

If you erase, by judicial fiat, the natural right of the child to have both a mother and a father, yes. But fathers should have rights over the upbringing of their offspring, and they should have corresponding responsibilities to them. In this one area, our insane society has deliberately stripped fathers of their rights and exempted them from their responsibilities, for the convenience of the consumer. (And that is what IVF does, turns procreation into manufacturing of a consumer good.) How can that possibly be good either for the children affected, or for society in general, in the long run?

What I am saying is that the teaching value of the law is such that, once the state has officially declared the father irrelevant post-conception for these purposes, it cannot help applying that un-definition of fatherhood onto myriad other aspects of the law. That is how law works (and similarly how culture works too). The law cannot coherently declare that fatherhood is irrelevant here, but vital there; it must come down on one side or the other. That we cannot foresee all ends does not mean they do not exist.

ndspinelli said...

Bueller..Bueller..Bueller..anyone, Bueller.

Amartel said...

This story about a child's delight in discovering two males having sex is like yesterday's story about Andrew Sullivan's delight in observing two black people speaking in complete sentences. Gay crabs! Talking blacks! How cute. How delightful.

Kirk Parker said...

"FWIW, polygamous marriages seem to be really good at producing lots of offspring. If population decline is a real concern we should probably subsidize them. "

That's silly. Polygamy doesn't increase the number of females available to reproduce, it just reduces the number of males who get to participate.