They Turned The Whales Gay

(Sorry I realized after the fact that this story is a year old. But I wrote a gay whales blog, so I'm posting a gay whales blog)

CBC - When biologist Stephanie Stack first saw the photographs of two humpback whales mating in the warm waters of Hawaii, she says her mind was "completely blown."

"When I realized that it was two males, it was not what I was expecting," she told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. "I thought, oh my gosh, this is incredible."

Stack, chief biologist at the Pacific Whale Foundation in Maui, says this is the first time humpback whale sex has been documented. She co-authored a paper about the rare sighting in the journal Marine Mammal Science.

The findings are just the latest in a growing body of evidence that same-sex sexual interactions are widespread in the animal kingdom. 

There it is. Alex Jones tried to tell us. But people wanted to call him crazy when he warned us they were putting chemicals in the water to turn the frogs gay. But if this doesn't prove Alex Jones right, then I don't know what will. All we can do is look at the facts. The worldwide population of humpbacks exceeds 100,00 whales. 100% of documented humpback whale sex is gay. You do the math. 

I apologize, I'm actually not here to make jokes. Love between two whales is a beautiful thing, no matter if they're male, female, gay, straight, trans, used-to-be-trans-but-then-transitioned-back-to-become-not-trans, it's all the same in the eyes of Poseidon. If that doesn't warm your heart, then there's something wrong with you. 

Why can't humans be more like whales? We could really learn a thing or two from them. There are no politics in nature. Whales don't begrudge each other for personal choices that affect nobody but their own whale selves. Whales treat each other with respect. They're just god's creatures living in harmony below the sea. That is what we are seeing here in these pictures. Passionate intercourse between two healthy and consenting humpbacks through the 100mm lens of a scuba diver secretly snapping whale sex photos from a distance. Nothing more. Love is love.

But one researcher cautioned against making broad assumptions about humpbacks based on a single documented instance — especially because one of the whales appeared to be in poor health.

Oh damn…

"Is it exploratory? Is it learning related to mating? And is it possibly also dominance?

"We know that the one whale would not have been in the state to choose for the interaction in a way that they normally would have been able to because they were so compromised in their condition."

The study acknowledges the injury "may be relevant to the behaviour reported here."

Well then… look… it would be irresponsible to jump to conclusions. It's not like we can get inside the minds of whales. They're smart creatures, but it's not like we can communicate with them. And sure, based on the comments made by humpback whale expert Jackie Hildering of the Marine Education and Research Society in British Columbia, you could maybe possibly come to the conclusion that these are whale rape photos. That one humpback whale saw another humpback whale on the brink of death, unable to eat, unable defend himself, and thought, "A hole is a hole"… then looked over at the scuba diver pointing a camera at him and said, "What are you going to do, throw me in whale prison?"

I can see how one could get there… but… but… but… you have to keep in mind… that's just how nature is sometimes. Whales don't abide by the same rules as people. Whales don't necessarily have the mental capacity to distinguish right from wrong. It would be unfair for us to hold them to the same standards we hold ourselves. The whale lady said so herself. 

Any assumptions about these humpbacks, she says, say more about the people making them than the whales themselves — including the assumption early on that the pictured whales were of the opposite sex.

"There is no good. There is no bad," she said. "It's just wild behaviour."

Well said, Jackie. There is no good. There is no bad. There are just whales. Yes, it would be unfortunate if the only known pictures of humpback whale sex that exist in the world were rape pictures. But that's just nature taking its course. It's not that deep, people.