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Monkeys Pay for Monkey Porn 391

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)."
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Monkeys Pay for Monkey Porn

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  • Do they - ? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @03:34AM (#11512231)


    Do they spank the monkey as part of the experiment?

  • So... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jtbauki ( 838979 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @03:35AM (#11512235)
    ....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."
  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 29, 2005 @03:35AM (#11512236)
    Grunt, grunt, grunt ...Screeeeeeeeeeech!
  • So... (Score:5, Funny)

    by mattiwatti ( 844167 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @03:36AM (#11512243)
    Where can I download this monkey porn?
  • err... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Heem ( 448667 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @03:37AM (#11512247) Homepage Journal
    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?

  • by raehl ( 609729 ) <(moc.oohay) (ta) (113lhear)> on Saturday January 29, 2005 @03:41AM (#11512257) Homepage
    Crack.

    Oh, wait, this wasn't a poll?
  • No boozers? (Score:3, Funny)

    by themast ( 852986 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @03:42AM (#11512259)
    What, no 'fermented banana juice' to go with that fresh monkey pr0n?
  • by wileycoyoteacme ( 319236 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @03:43AM (#11512263)
    i stopped paying for porn the day i discovered a web browser!
  • Does this qualifies us as naturally p0rn addicts... for the rest of us, ./'ers?
  • experiment (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BorgCopyeditor ( 590345 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @03:49AM (#11512286)
    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.

    • 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...

    • by Feztaa ( 633745 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @05:29AM (#11512448) Homepage
      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.
    • Well maybe in relation to porn sales ;)
    • you obviously haven't seen magazines made for women.

      vogue etc..
    • Re:experiment (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Dogtanian ( 588974 )
      >>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.

      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
      • Re:experiment (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Skinny Rav ( 181822 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @07:58AM (#11512763)
        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
  • by tiktok ( 147569 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @03:55AM (#11512300) Homepage
    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.
  • Why not? (Score:2, Funny)

    Why don't the monkeys have filesharing? Then they could spank themselves to death. Maybe they were humans before the MPAA got them or something.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    This is Ig Noble Prize [improb.com] material! Last years Psychology Ig Nobel Prize [harvard.edu] winner won for "Gorilla's In Our Midst", showing that "when people pay close attention to something, it's all too easy to overlook anything else -- even a woman in a gorilla suit." Clearly, monkey butts is important follow-up research that also deserves a prize.
    • by johnlcallaway ( 165670 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @05:05AM (#11512410)
      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.
      • Besides, anything that strengthens the argument that watching p0rn is natural gets my vote for futher funding.

        Were these monkeys deprived of normal monkey contact, including the opportunity to see other (real) monkeys, possibly indulging in sexual activity?

        If so (and I suspect they weren't living in the jungle, so the answer is probably yes), then all this may prove is that watching pr0n (*) is natural IF YOU SHUT YOURSELF AWAY FROM CONTACT WITH OTHER HUMANS.

        And the monkeys didn't have a choice I'll
      • Ig Nobel prizes are often given for important studies which are nevertheless funny. A category this certainly falls into. The gorilla study was just as important as this one.
    • Well, actually it's not such junk science. If they can clearly link this behaviour to the human equivalent, then that in itself gives a massive insight into how we operate.

      Then of course there's the fact that there are invasive tests which just couldn't be carried out on humans that could conceivably be carried out on monkeys (PETA notwithstanding)
    • Last years Psychology Ig Nobel Prize winner won for "Gorilla's In Our Midst"

      Wow! You mean it won even though it had a misplaced apostrophe in the title?
  • by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @04:03AM (#11512315) Homepage
    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.
  • I for one welcome our new female monkey porn dealing researcher overlords!
  • Oh, great (Score:5, Funny)

    by andreMA ( 643885 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @04:30AM (#11512361)
    Just when the AOLers finally got booted from USENET [slashdot.org], 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.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 29, 2005 @04:45AM (#11512382)
    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?
    • 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 [recollectionbooks.com] is a dominant one.

    • "So, the question is: How are the monkeys able to see who is dominant and who is not?" It's easy, they watch the other monkey

      Body language: the way other monkeys react to them, the way they move, whether they stare at the camera. Staring, in primates, is an act of aggression ... so only dominant males are free to stare at any monkey they please.

      Appearance: Dominant males tend to have thicker, glossier coats, longer fur, and look "sleeker" for lack of a better word.

  • by kid-noodle ( 669957 ) <jono@nan o s h e e p . n et> on Saturday January 29, 2005 @04:50AM (#11512393) Homepage
    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.
  • ... and what do they have to be paid to do?
  • by adityapk ( 841961 ) <{adityapk} {at} {gmail.com}> on Saturday January 29, 2005 @04:55AM (#11512398)
    >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
  • Bestiality (Score:5, Interesting)

    by britneys 9th husband ( 741556 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @04:57AM (#11512401) Homepage Journal
    Ok, silly question...

    If a male monkey gets off on looking at pictures of naked (human) women, is that considered bestiality?
    • Rishathra! (Score:3, Informative)

      by StefanJ ( 88986 )
      Larry Niven coined the word "rishathra" for sex between different species of hominids.

      Since our ancestors killed off our hominid cousins, perhaps it could be used to describe sex between primates.

      Of course, they'd have to be intelligent primates. So until we get some kind of Uplift program going, a monkey getting off on human porn would almost certainly find warts and hair sprouting from his palms. (And vice-versa, so don't get any ideas!)

      Stefan
    • Re:Bestiality (Score:3, Interesting)

      by DwarfGoanna ( 447841 )
      Actually, Roger Fout's book Next Of Kin, about the Washoe Project talks about the chimps raised in human families being sexually attracted to humans. One in particular, an adult female, was known for flipping through Playgirl magazines while flicking her clitoris with a pencil.


      I kid you not.

  • Just wondering why there is an ad for an IQ test on the page of TFA - side by side with the monkeys...

    Seems just like a nice allegory to the evolution of man: Monkeys -> pr0n -> IQ Test

  • Do female monkeys pay orange juice to see male mokeys?

    -ss
  • This shows us that hamsters are SO much more intelligent than monkeys... Mine [baruchito.com] were doing their own porn movies [ag0ny.com] long before this...
  • by Xemu ( 50595 )
    In other news, women monkeys were said to be disgusted at the results of this survey.

    A spokes woman for MWEF (Monkey womens' emanicipation front) said "As always, research on males are considered more important than research on women." When asked to comment, the human researchers mumbled something about women monkeys having a more complex hormonal system.

    A team of Russian researchers gabe the monkey couples a remote control as part of the experiment, the women monkeys immediately monopolized it and choose
  • - to see dominant male monkeys?
    - to get bananas?
    - to get dildos?
    - to see monkey pr0n?
  • by Ceriel Nosforit ( 682174 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @06:59AM (#11512642)
    http://www.hotornot.com/r/?eid=BRG8K8H&key=EUB [hotornot.com]
    I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry...
    *GG*
  • 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.

    • 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.
    • This is an attitude of what those comfortable with Autism call a "curebie".

      No, it's the attitude of a scientist doing his research, so that maybe one day we can say a little bit more than "autism is a neurological disorder". I assure you that these researchers have no intention of "curing" your son.

      I have worked 5 years with adults who had various degrees of autism so I am familiar with the disorder.

      this research in my opinion is misguided.

      You are entitled to your opinion of course. I o
    • 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 ass
    • by Hacksaw ( 3678 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @09:49AM (#11513213) Homepage Journal
      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.

    • 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 auti
    • by Anonymous Coward
      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 th
      • by forkazoo ( 138186 ) <wrosecrans AT gmail DOT com> on Saturday January 29, 2005 @11:28AM (#11513657) Homepage
        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.

      • 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, ...

        This is very true, and Im ashamed to admit that I had no idea that this occured until recently.

        There was a documentary on the BBC which followed some deaf people, one couple we
  • Can we please finally start to admit that other primates (apes, and extinct primates, such as Neanderthal, homo erectus, etc) are/were a lot more like us than we care to admit?

    Isn't it likely that Australian aborigines are part homo erectus (see here [tripod.com]
    and
    here [tripod.com]
    and
    here [tripod.com].

    And that Europeans are probably part Neanderthal. And then you have homo florensis....

    I wonder why we cannot admit that apes are a lot like us? Maybe because we eat them sometimes? Maybe it is similar to the rationalization people used i
  • Obviously, these monkeys did have the internet, otherwise they wouldnt be paying for it!
  • I would rather know what the female monkey would spend her money on, and what she liked to watch and do. Being a male what the heck do I care what other males like :-)

    I also say forget Joe Sixpack and go after Jane.

    Also, I just hope and pray that my tax dollars didn't go to fund this crap, but I am sure it did somehow :-(

  • Ends up I gave cash to look at pictures of female monkey butts.

    I'm not ashamed to admit it.

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