The Scientist article on which I'm blogging (free registration required; mature themes) is about a new exhibit at New York City's Museum of Sex.

The reason why I'm blogging about the darn thing is not to applaud or deride a new theory, but to warn readers about the tone of the discussion--you should be able to quickly get my gist when reading the first page of Bob Grant's article, "Sex, Wild-Style." The point of the article is that ecologist Joan Roughgarden is proposing that Darwin's sexual selection is wrong, and the basis on which females make their pick is "social selection." Illustrating her point, Roughgarden says that male peacock tails are "admission tickets to male power-holding cliques." It sounds like the animals are at the wrong end of a politically correct theory.

But the main problem here is that, though Bob Grant and Museum of Sex curator Sarah Jacobs might not realize it, they sound like a couple of teenagers desperately trying to sound salacious. Grant uses words like "juicy" to describe the mating practices of "our fellow animals." The exhibit has everything from "panda porn" to "homosexual necrophilia in mallard ducks" -- and I'll stop there.

Whatever happened to careful scientific analysis and tasteful exhibits? Methinks some people are suffering from moral turpitude, and that our "porn" culture has infected every avenue of inquiry--including scientific research.

Comments

[Pat]

Not just the animals, I took my adolescent grandson on a river raft ride. I was very disturbed to see young people "dry humping" on a raft and along with that drinking and singing or chanting sexual expletives. If JJ can drop her top at the Super Bowl and get away with it, no holds are barred. We will have to protect our young kids from them by avoiding contact. That's sad.