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Monkeys Pay for Monkey Porn

An anonymous reader writes "Give a monkey some spending money, and he'll blow it on pictures of women monkeys. He'll also pay to see dominant monkeys. But you'll have to pay him to look at inferior monkeys. That's the upshot of a study out of Duke that was designed to explore the 'social machinery of the brain with an eye toward helping autism patients.' Next up -- seriously -- the researchers want to run the same test on Joe Sixpack (sans the monkey business)."

44 of 391 comments (clear)

  1. Do they - ? by Black+Parrot · · Score: 5, Funny


    Do they spank the monkey as part of the experiment?

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    1. Re:Do they - ? by Bazman · · Score: 4, Funny

      I think they call it 'Spanking the human'....

    2. Re:Do they - ? by Ohreally_factor · · Score: 3, Funny

      I think you just invented monkkake.

      --
      It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
    3. Re:Do they - ? by plover · · Score: 4, Funny
      If a million monkeys at a million internet terminals downloaded porn...

      And how is this different from the internet today?

      --
      John
  2. So... by jtbauki · · Score: 5, Funny

    ....the next time you get caught looking at porn, you can point to this article and say, "Hey it's not me, it's evolution, baby."

    1. Re: So... by Black+Parrot · · Score: 3, Funny


      > Where can I download this monkey porn?

      alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.milf

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  3. Oooh ooh Aaah Aaah! Oooh ooh aaah aaah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Grunt, grunt, grunt ...Screeeeeeeeeeech!

  4. So... by mattiwatti · · Score: 5, Funny

    Where can I download this monkey porn?

  5. err... by Heem · · Score: 5, Funny
    FTA:
    The rhesus macaque monkeys also splurged on photos of top-dog counterparts


    Anyone else get a completely different meaning out of that then they intended?

    --
    Don't Tread on Me
  6. Missing Option: by raehl · · Score: 4, Funny

    Crack.

    Oh, wait, this wasn't a poll?

  7. No boozers? by themast · · Score: 3, Funny

    What, no 'fermented banana juice' to go with that fresh monkey pr0n?

  8. Hahaha dumb monkeys by wileycoyoteacme · · Score: 5, Funny

    i stopped paying for porn the day i discovered a web browser!

    --
    Insert witty comment here
  9. experiment by BorgCopyeditor · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Give a monkey some spending money, and he'll blow it on pictures of women monkeys.

    Would there be anything wrong with this sentence: give a human some spending money and he'll blow it on pictures of female humans?

    I guess I'm objecting to the notion that being male is the norm.

    --
    Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
    1. Re:experiment by Feztaa · · Score: 4, Funny

      I guess I'm objecting to the notion that being male is the norm.

      Don't be silly. Women only exist on the computer screen.

    2. Re:experiment by Skinny+Rav · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Why are there way more women on magazine covers than men? Because in general, men like looking at pretty women... and woman like looking at pretty women too, albeit for reasons other than sexual attraction in most cases.


      Well, women look at pretty women as at dominant females. It is the same as posters of Jordans and Beckhams and who else in male teenagers' rooms.

      But true, this is weird. While guys like to watch sportsmen and actors (dominant males) and women like to watch actors and models (for sexual reasons), magazines with female photos on the cover sell better - and AFAIK it has been proven. Men are allowed on covers only if accompanied by a woman or with a baby or, seldom, if they are really, really mega celebrities.

      Raf
  10. You Have The Right To A Peel by tiktok · · Score: 3, Funny

    Peel a banana for a monkey, and he'll be fed for a day.

    Teach a monkey to surf the Internet, and he'll find his own peelers.

  11. some spending money by cgenman · · Score: 4, Funny

    Give a monkey some spending money, and he'll blow it on pictures of women monkeys.

    I wish they would stop referring to the students at Duke like that.

  12. sorry, no dice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    My boss doesn't like it when I call him "baby".

    1. Re:sorry, no dice by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Funny
      My boss doesn't like it when I call him "baby".


      Give him some monkey porn and send him on his way. :-P

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  13. Re:Humans already do this by lachlan76 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well you can get naked chicks on the internet for free. Why pay for another cable channel? ;)

  14. From the desk of Curious George... by SlimFastForYou · · Score: 3, Funny

    I for one welcome our new female monkey porn dealing researcher overlords!

  15. Re:Humans already do this by joke_dst · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This is just homophobia driven to the extreme...

    Watching sports is not a sexual behaviour, but rather a herd behaviour. It strengthens the bond to the "herd", in this case the followers of the same team. It also appeals to the competitive side of humans, since sports (usually? always?) are a competition. It's hardly a display of gay sexuality.

  16. Oh, great by andreMA · · Score: 4, Funny
    Just when the AOLers finally got booted from USENET, we'll have (another) group of primates arriving to endlessly post "MEEEE TOOO!!!!!"

    Or perhaps the change will raise the overall level of discourse. Hard to say.

  17. So, HOW can monkeys tell who is dominant by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting
    In a very un-Slashdot-like manner, I have actually read the article (It was on Fark.com before Slashdot picked it up). I find the following part interesting:
    Curiously, the monkeys in the test hadn't had any direct physical contact with the monkeys in the photos, so they didn't have personal experience with who was hot and who was not.

    "So, somehow, they are getting this information by observation -- by seeing other individuals interact," said Michael Platt of the Duke University Medical Center.

    So, the question is: How are the monkeys able to see who is dominant and who is not?
    1. Re:So, HOW can monkeys tell who is dominant by B747SP · · Score: 3, Funny
      So, the question is: How are the monkeys able to see who is dominant and who is not?

      Aww, geee, I dunno. It's just a wild and crazy guess on my part, and I certainly don't know exactly how it works with monkeys, but as far as squirrels go, I reckon that this squirrel is a dominant one.

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    2. Re:So, HOW can monkeys tell who is dominant by Dogtanian · · Score: 3, Informative

      There are clues.. I have theories.. For example:

      A fat female is unattractive because it looks like she is pregnant.


      Funny how not all societies associate fat woman with unattractive, then. It's speculated that in our society, fat women are unattractive because food (particularly fattening foods) is plentiful (and hence fatness is common), and associated with being unfit; whereas better off people eat healthy food and keep fit.

      A bold man is attractive because his head looks like a big.. well, you know what.

      Assuming you or others find bald heads attractive.... but that's not universally accepted. And frankly, most bald men don't have a red, sunburnt head with a line down the middle, do they?

      People in uniforms are attractive, because they they look alike, which means they were so successful that they were able to multiply so much.

      More plausible theory (again, not mine); people in uniforms (well, men at least) are more likely to be in dangerous professions where they are willing to risk their lives to protect people. Which would extend to their mate (female) and child; good mate --> attractive.

      It's interesting that you don't hear of many strippograms dressing as traffic wardens, after all.

      The above points apply to humans, but it's the same with monkeys I guess.

      I'd doubt they apply to humans; they seem like some half-baked ideas you pulled off the top of your head. Although maybe you should dress in the uniform of a dictator of a banana republic and see if the monkeys at the local zoo find that attractive?

      --
      "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
  18. It would be too much to expect... by kid-noodle · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That we'd get anything other than a stream of 'spank the monkey' jokes, I suppose.
    I mean, I'll grant you that they're easy... But for all that the circumstances of the study make for plenty of nice crass jokes, it does raise some very interesting questions - hands up who else thought watching sports, and porn, were singularly human proclivities?

    Apart from the mild fascination attatched to what this tells us about our extra-fuzzy relatives, it gives an interesting perspective on what it is to be human, how divorced are we from our fellow animals? From those things we like to refer to as 'animal instincts'?

    But, since it's all too easy.. I'll let you construct a joke based on dominant monkeys, and American politics, as an exercise for the reader.

    --
    fortune -o
  19. And how do researchers spend money? by adityapk · · Score: 5, Funny

    >Give a monkey some spending money, and he'll blow it on pictures of women monkeys

    Give researchers some money, and they'll spend it on monkey porn

  20. Bestiality by britneys+9th+husband · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ok, silly question...

    If a male monkey gets off on looking at pictures of naked (human) women, is that considered bestiality?

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  21. Re:Ig Noble Prize Material by johnlcallaway · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I must disagree. I have read several books that attempt to show coorelation between primate behavior and many human behaviors. These studies are important in the nature/nurture arguments and important in learning how to treat social and mental disorders.

    Besides, anything that strengthens the argument that watching p0rn is natural gets my vote for futher funding.

    --
    I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
  22. That's what TFA says by characters42 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    That's what TFA's headline says: Monkeys Pay to See Female Monkey Bottoms.

    It would be interesting to know if they really only tried it with a male watcher / female picture combination. If so that would give an interesting insight into the researcher's minds...

    Another question then would arise: were the researchers male or female...

  23. Re:Humans already do this by famebait · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There's a subtle sexualisation of contact

    The sexualisation happens in your head, dude. Physical contact is not inherently sexual, it's just christianity's fucked up relationship with sexuality that makes it so.

    In many cultures it is perfectly natural to take someone by the hand to show them the way somewhere, even if both parties are adult males. Most americans would consider it "gay". Now what sort of mental condition and view of sexuality does that require?

    Not that many other cultures don't have their own serious hangups, of course.

    --
    sudo ergo sum
  24. Hot ot not, eh? by Ceriel+Nosforit · · Score: 5, Funny

    http://www.hotornot.com/r/?eid=BRG8K8H&key=EUB
    I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry...
    *GG*

    --
    All rites reversed 2010
  25. Missing the point: A cure is not needed by Johnny+Fusion · · Score: 5, Interesting
    From the article: "One of the main problems in people with autism is that they don't find it very motivating to look at other individuals," Platt said.

    This is an attitude of what those comfortable with Autism call a "curebie". I am the parent of a wonderful boy who happens to have autsim, and I can tell you, he is no need of a "cure".

    Autism is categorized as a system-wide neurological disorder. A "disorder" because the system of an autistic individual deviates from what is considered "normal". These are most likely inherited traits. To "cure" autism would pretty much be a system of eugenics. Once born with these traits, there is no cure. Just as there would be no cure for left-handedness or red hair. This is not an acquired disease, this is who these people are.

    Not being comfortable with looking at someone in the face is not the end of the world. I hope to teach my son coping mechanisms to live in a world that does not make sense to him, there is no need for him to pretend to not be autistic and fit in with the Neurotypical folk.

    As cool as it is that monkeys like porn as much as the average slashdotter, this research in my opinion is misguided.

    --
    There are two kinds of fool. One says, This is old, and therefore good. And one says, This is new, and therefore better.
    1. Re:Missing the point: A cure is not needed by Dobeln · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The problem here is that your son is going to have to live and socialize with people who are not autists. While a "cure" might be impossible, it certainly is possible to come up with ways of making it easier for people with autism to interact with those around them.

    2. Re:Missing the point: A cure is not needed by Colonel+Cholling · · Score: 3, Funny

      All I needed was a small biopsy from each individual, about 10% of the brain mass. They called my proposal misguided too.

      "They laughed at me, those fools! Well who's laughing now? Muahahahahaha!"

      --

      I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
    3. Re:Missing the point: A cure is not needed by Ganryu · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'd have to strongly disagree with you here, while i'm no expert myself I do associate with a group of Psychology Masters, two who actually specialise in autistic children. They are strong believers that their is infact a "cure", cured in the sense that when these children grow up, they are virtually indistinguishable from other people and no longer exhibit the traits that would classify them autistic and be able to function in society as normal people.

      The problems with socialising with people commonly associated with such things as lack of eye contact and inability to verbalise their wants (like banging their head with a toy hammer until they get attention instead of asking) is one of the major problems psychologists deal with through positive reinforcement (giving them something they like/want when they act in a way deemed socially acceptable, or atleast better than they were doing.

      It's so amazing to see kids who just a 3 or 4 years ago seemed like they would never be able to function in society coming up and talking to you and asking for a drink themselves. I'm talking from an Australian stand point here and am not sure what services are provided by the Government in the US, but truly the work these people do is so impressive and should be giving so much more resources than they currently are.

    4. Re:Missing the point: A cure is not needed by Hacksaw · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Lovely. Listen, is your boy high functioning, or low? Is he the next Temple Grandin, or is he one of the ones that rocks incessantly and can't dress himself at the age of ten?

      Just because you find your boy easy to deal with doesn't mean everyone else's kid is the same. Some autistics can survive in the world, many can't. For them amelioration of the effects means not having a "normal" life, but having a shot at any kind of independence.

      --

      All the technology in the world won't hide your lack of vision, talent, or understanding.

    5. Re:Missing the point: A cure is not needed by telecsan · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Simply put, I am a person with a vision "disorder". My sight is not 20-20. I am sure that everyone knows someone who meets this criteria. This is most likely an inherited trait. Should I consider it part of who I am, and never learn to read/drive/etc. Or should I get these new-fangled things called glasses (or contacts, or worse, laser-surgery) so that I can function 'normally' in society. The parent poster should read his own sig. Just because it's new doesn't mean it's bad. I'm sure there are autistic individuals that exist that would like nothing more than to be 'normal'.

  26. Re:Humans already do this by Dobeln · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Well, it used to be christianity - now it's mostly various under-occupied university types who seek to sexualise pretty much everything.

  27. Re:Humans already do this by Skinny+Rav · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Physical contact is not inherently sexual, it's just christianity's fucked up relationship with sexuality that makes it so.ty's fucked up relationship with sexuality that makes it so.


    I'd say that rather your view of Christianity is rather fucked up. Somehow in Eastern, Orthodox Europe it is OK for males to kiss for greeting in the lips, somehow in Poland, supposedly extreme-Catholic country, it is OK for males to walk and talk hugging each other. OK, maybe walking hand in hand would be considered gay, or rather "feminine", not even gay, but many other physical contacts between males are really OK, without any homesexual undertones.

    AFAIK it is the same (or even more) in Italy, Spain, Greece. I don't know...

    So, have you considered, that this fuck-up happened rather in Anglosaxon culture than in "christianity"? OK, it might be something protestant in the background, but I don't know enough about Protestants to draw any conclusions.

    And Christian (well, at least Catholic and Orthodox) view of sexuality, while it might seem restrictive from the outside, is coherent and based on viable basis. Of course, there are some devots who still think it is much worse to show a tit in TV than to show dead bodies of terrorist bombing victims, but I don't think it has much to do with Christianity either.

    So before you rant, please do some investigation in the subject.

    Raf
  28. Re:Humans already do this by MrByte420 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm a gay man who likes to watch sports and found the joke to be rather whimsical.

    Whats halrious is that Queen, headed by the flamboyantly gay Freddy Mercury, wrote lots of the songs that you hear at football games e.g. "We Will Rock You" and "We Are the Champions..."

    --
    If religous zealots don't believe in Evolution, then why are they so worried about bird flu?
  29. Autism is an acquired disease by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This pro-aspie attitude is no different from the pro-ana and pro-deafness mess.

    People with disorders and disabilities, in some attempt of self validation, try to say their disability is not a disability but just 'different'. If a person is retarded - which is what autism is by definition - trying to pretend that they're not retarded, but just 'different', is a messed up attitude. They're tying people's worth to their physical (dis)abilities rather than how good they are as a person, and as they're doing this, they try to pretend that their personal disability isn't a disability but is just 'different' to try to self validate. We see anorexics doing this, blind people doing this, deaf people, some schizophrenics, and now autistics.

    Autism is not 'different' like blue and green eyes are different. It is massive brain damage caused by chronic, global physical illness. These individuals may be disinterested in focusing on others because certain parts of their brains have been literally destroyed or are not working. They often have mental illnesses because they have some of the most radical chemical inbalances in their bodies that you'll find in anyone.

    2/3rds of children with autism are not 'born' with autism, but develop normally for the first two to four years. Autism is not inherited. But rather, genetic traits are inherited that make a person more or less vulnerable to the environmental insults that cause autism. Autism is a modern disease that was very rare before recent times. This is because few people were exposed to the things that cause autism until now.

    Autism can and has been induced in previously normal adults and lab animals, as well as children.

    Oh, and autism can potentially be cured. Parents are now having success in curing autism with bio chemical intervention. Children have gone from quasi vegetative states to being completely normal and communicative.

    I am opinionated about this subject because I used to be autistic. Note past tense.

    1. Re:Autism is an acquired disease by forkazoo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I am not diagnosed autistic, but I have always had some behavioral quirks consistent with mild autism, or something similar, and frankly, I have always found the few truly autistic people I have met to be much easier to get along with than mundanes.

      So, obviously, there is a very broad range of what autism is from real, diagnosed mild autism, to not-quite-but-sort-of like myself, all the way to the profound autism where people are unable to function.

      There is no right answer to whether it should be cured. If somebody is completely unable to function, and to speak for himself, then his guardian should probably consider getting him available treatments. For me, personally, If somebody came to me with a pill that could make me function better in society, and understand people better, and be more normal, I wouldn't take it. I would fight kicking and screaming before anybody forced a normal-pill down my throat. I am curious about what normalcy would be like, but the fact that my brain doesn't work like anybody else that I know tends to be a valuable thing in many cases.

      For the middle ground, I think it has to be up to them. Research should continue. Treatments should be available. But, normalcy should not be mandatory.