During a NASA-funded experiment in the 1960s, animal researcher Margaret Howe Lovatt attempted to teach dolphins how to communicate with humans. According to a documentary airing on BBC4 later this month, she taught one dolphin a language: the language of love. Meaning “dolphin handjobs”.
The clip above is from The Girl Who Talked to Dolphins, airing on BBC4 Tuesday, June 17th. In it, she explains how she got into the dolphin handjobs business back in 1963. And business is booming. *vomits forever*
It started when a pubescent male dolphin named Peter got to be too much of a handful. (I’m very sorry.) Gawker transcribes her explanation:
“In the beginning when he would get rambunctious and had this need, I would put him on the elevator and say, ‘You go play with the girls for a day’… It was just easier to incorporate [dolphin handjobs] and let it happen. It was very precious. It was very gentle…Again it was sexual on his part, it was not sexual on mine. Sensuous perhaps. It would just become part of what was going on, like an itch. Just get rid of that. Scratch it and we’ll be done. Move on. And that’s really all it was. I was there to get to know Peter. That was part of Peter.”
“Sensuous perhaps.”
That’s going to be ringing in my head all day like Flanders saying, “nothing at all, nothing at all.”
And yet, somehow, this doesn’t entirely surprise me. Dolphins, after all, have already demonstrated they’ll have sex with anyone or anything. Doesn’t matter, had sex.
“So long, and thanks for all the wanks.”
