Comments on: Yale’s Monkey Brothel

By: Doug

Doug — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 23:18:06 +0000

“Monkey Pimps” – awesome rock band name!

The more I’m around animals, all kinds, the less ‘special’ I think humans are. Everything we claim as ‘uniquely human’ came from somewhere, some genetic precursor. We’re all just animals.

By: Language Log: Language, trade and sex

Language Log: Language, trade and sex — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 16:13:32 +0000

[…] Kerim Friedman at Savage Minds picked up on the symbolic aspect of such exchanges: […]

By: Sandhill Trek: Bidness

Sandhill Trek: Bidness — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 09:40:07 +0000

[…] first time monkeys exchanged money for sex. Blog antecedents include this post from SavageMinds. SavageMinds pulls the following quote (now behind the NYT firewall)… […]

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 14 Jun 2005 11:59:40 +0000

I doubt it’s the Christian Right. The context in the article suggests that they’re more sensitive to criticism from animal rights activists. I mean, who would want the label “Monkey Pimps” applied to them and their institution for the rest of their career?

By: Lonely Donut Man

Lonely Donut Man — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 14:23:02 +0000

..that darn long reach of the christian right wing again, or all the darn undergrads started piling in to gawk at the fornicating monkeys – a little of each maybe, eh?

By: Stentor

Stentor — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 18:27:41 +0000

It’s interesting that the reaction was to shut down the monkey prostitution. It seems the more humanlike an animal’s capacities are, the more willing we are to attribute moral agency to it — since as far as I know there hasn’t previously been much morally-motivated interference in nonhumans’ sexual behavior.

By: Nancy

Nancy — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 12:50:32 +0000

“humans place too much stake on language in evaluating the cognitive abilities of our fellow creatures”

Humans also place too much stake on language in evaluating the cognitive abilities of fellow humans. There is an assumption that if someone has language difficulties of any sort (due to speaking a second or tenth language, learning disabilities, autism, etc) they are somehow less intelligent.

By: Lonely Donut Man

Lonely Donut Man — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 12:30:17 +0000

…Planet of the Apes….Charleton Heston would agree…”We fictionalize often what we fear” – M’bai Jannari