
Just goes to show you shouldn't jump to conclusions.
Animal-lovers have run the gamut of emotions after a cute photograph of a Kangaroo was re-interpreted by experts as likely depicting a murderous necrophiliac Kangaroo. The photograph in question, at the top of the story or here for readers on mobile devices, ran in Australian media along with commentary from photographer Evan …
@Fruit and Nutcase
I've eaten kangaroo many times and enjoyed it quite a few of those times (it is not exactly trivial to do it properly, must be rare but not blue, medium to well done is AWFUL, etc).
I'm not unaware of where my food comes from (or even overly uncomfortable with that (as long as everything is humane, etc)) and my discomfort with this image is not based in that at all.
Dudeman boned his lady to DEATH.
I know I'm projecting to at least some degree. Should still be remotely confronting if one has any humanity in them.
I look at this sort of thing and think about people who say "it's not natural" when describing something like homosexuality.
Behaviour in the natural world are not always things that are acceptable in human society, gang rape, paedophilia, necrophilia, bestiality, the list goes on.
Then there's the marketing of products as "natural" as if it's a good thing, I think to myself deadly nightshade, that's entirely natural, why don't you go and garnish your salad with that?
What is it that sets human civilisation apart from the natural world? It's those unnatural behaviours and unnatural things. There aren't really many though, you look hard enough and you'll probably find similar behaviour in nature anyway. The best ones I keep coming back to are glasses and books, you don't find things like that outside human civilisation.
+1 your entire comment except for the Bestiality point:
"Bestiality is cross-species sexual activity between human and non-human animals."
so it probably doesn't exist outside of human "civilisation".
In other news the red lights are going off in the BOFH bunker after I searched Wikipedia for Bestiality to check I had the definition correct....
+1 your entire comment except for the Bestiality point:"Bestiality is cross-species sexual activity between human and non-human animals."
so it probably doesn't exist outside of human "civilisation".
YouTube is full of dog on cat videos and one rather unfortunate chimp on tortoise video. I do wonder why people record this stuff though...
@paulf
It did occur to me that inter-species sex is probably not called bestiality when it doesn't involve a human, I was just being Daily Mail type lazy (not being a proper journalist and also being lazy) and I figured it would be understood and forgiven.
I should remember where I'm posting.
Bestiality in sense of cross species sex:
Yes it does exist in nature. usually males initiate it. Stallion and donkey is far more common than mare and donkey. I do know that Horses and Donkeys are not as unrelated as dogs and cats, or seals and penguins (been recorded, though the seal may eat the victim later).
Dogs are not particular either.
Is some male on male in animals a case of sex drive and lack of a female for a stronger male? It's not like as if we can ask them why they are doing it. It's dubious to read human motivations into animal actions as this story shows.
Really actually whether an animal does something, or not is irrelevant to deciding norms for human behaviour. We don't usually eat raw meat, or faeces, or piss to mark our territory. We tend to be suspicious of humans that do that. Similarly we don't expect to animals to keep the child in the nest for half its life simply because it doesn't find a mate.
Actually, the fact that homosexuality occurs in nature
In most species it is a form of extreme submissive behavior of a subordinate to an animal higher on the social ladder. This includes monkeys, cetaceans, etc.
I would not use that as a "favorable" example, just the opposite.
Behaviour in the natural world are not always things that are acceptable in human society
My favourite is a species of flea where when an amorous male flea comes across a female flea already being penetrated by another male flea. He then inserts his prick through the carapace of the male flea and his semen kills the other male's semen and goes on to fertilise the female. Perhaps Big G has a particularly warped sense of humour :-)
Whilst I probably agree with your opinion on the more militant fringes of feminism, my partner works with victims of crime, and a large portion of reported crimes (and many unreported ones) are related to domestic violence.
You should probably be made aware that violence perpetrated by men towards women, is more, not less, common than usually portrayed, even in the more right-wing frothing-at-the-mouth sections of the press. In England and Wales, one women is killed by a current or ex partner every three days, and this statistic is just the extreme end of the spectrum; many more are raped and beaten on a daily basis. Most of this goes on behind closed doors, so you don't see it and don't know it's happening.
It's a sad truth that all humans have this capacity within them to some degree, it's an evolved behaviour, and it exists more in men than in women. The thing that makes us civilised human beings is the ability to not go around raping and murdering, when it is within our capacity to do so.
That's not to say that all men are potential rapists and murderers, any more than all muslims are potential terrorists, or all white people are potential slave owners. A little common sense should be applied!
Domestic abuse isn't just a man hitting a woman. Both parties in a relationship can be abusive.
It can't even be said with 100% certainty that men abusing women is more common than women abusing men, just for the fact that victims may never come forward about it. Plus, in law, there is nothing to say a woman can't rape a man. That shocked me.
As a teenager a girl beat me up on the bus going home. And trust me she did a good job, my eye was swollen, my lip was bust. It didn't help that I was a tall lad, quite stocky, and a girl who was 5ft 6 compared to my 6ft 3 shouldn't have done a job on me. But she did. And it made for a horrible weekend avoiding questions from my mom and dad about how I ended up with the black eye etc - because it was humiliating enough to have had it done on a public bus without more people knowing about what happened. I'm sure the same feelings I had then are shared with many men and women in this world right now when they step out of the house for the first time after "walking in to a door".
So, Domestic Violence is a thing. It shouldn't be men versus women. It should be about human beings having the right to live without fear of violence from another human being.
You're absolutely right; domestic violence isn't only men abusing women. It can take many forms; women abusing men, children abusing parents, women abusing other women, etc. etc., and in some cases, it can be very hard to determine who is the victim, and who is the perpetrator; couples can be abusive towards each other, although there is often one partner who is worse than the other. I hear the about some of these cases from my partner, and the one thing that can be said is that domestic violence situations are often complicated.
However, you are also absolutely wrong about not knowing the relative incidence - violence against women perpetrated by men is much more common than the other way around. There is a stigma against men reporting violence in abusive relationships, but even when this is taken into account, all indications are that men hit women more than women hit men.
Historically violence against men has been under-reported to a greater extent than violence against women. We are now getting closer to a situation where the stigma does not exist, but there is some way to go yet. Society (wrongly) expects men to be 'tough', and women 'soft'. Such crimes often go unreported for a number of reasons, no only the stigma, but also out of fear of retribution, people turning a blind eye, and other more complex reasons. In a humane society, we should be encouraging victims of abuse to come forward, and supporting them in doing so; there are several very worthy charities which provide support and shelter for abused women (and also men). I'd encourage everyone to do what they can to support them.
However, you are also absolutely wrong about not knowing the relative incidence - violence against women perpetrated by men is much more common than the other way around.
This is true, but doesn't address a deeper issue. Women usually incite another man to physically abuse their abusive husband. Then there are men who are physically abused by other men for any of a number of reasons. Men are physically abused far more frequently than women, but according to the publicity, it's only violence against women that is a concern.
Domestic abuse isn't just a man hitting a woman. Both parties in a relationship can be abusive.
With men it's usually physical and with women emotional. Local case was particularly sad. Woman informed her friends that husband was shagging twelve year old step-daughter. Husband of one of those friends shot the alleged paedophile and hid the body. Some years alter the killer experienced remorse and showed the police where the body had been dumped.
In the ensuing court case, the woman admitted she had been lying about her husband shagging her daughter.
one women is killed by a current or ex partner every three days
Usually it's onbe woman, or many women. But what I really can't get over is the concept of a woman capable of coming back to life after being killed, yet for whatever reason doesn't run away to avoid being killed again. Maybe it's addictive...
Dr Eldridge, the Australian Museum's principal research scientist said: "The evidence is here sticking out from behind the scrotum."
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-35308161
I can't believe the Reg didn't report it, for shame. Falling standards, I am hereby cancelling my subscription etc etc
"Stiffy, Stiffy, Stiffy the bush Kangaroo."
True story. The guy who played the kid in the series (a long time ago) said quite a lot of his scenes had to be shot carefully to avoid anyone noticing that Skippy was pretty rampant most of the time. Not something you really think about with most animals.
And so I bid farewell to another part of the innocence of my childhood. <sniff>
@ DavidJB
"There's a famous photograph of an elephant having its way with a rhino. Sounds hilarious until you see the size of an elephant's todger. Ouch!"
That's nothing a friend of mine got raped by an Elephant. His backdoor was in a right old state and I said I had no idea an Elephant had a cock that big. He said the elephant fingered him first...
In the last few years there have been millions of people worldwide going crazy over anything involving animals and always thinking that even the most dangerious species would be so kind and tender and cute...
The real question is: what kind of drugs is the human kind using to have become so stupid ?
Facebook is full of "love the sweet tender animal" crap nonsense just like YouTube and not only those...