Sometimes, when someone tells me they are taking their kids to a Swim With Dolphins program and I don’t feel like preaching about how miserable the experience is for the dolphins but do feel like being mischievous and raising a question in the parent’s mind, I say: “Well, just remember, dolphins are highly sexual creatures.”
The parent usually blanches, and I can see the imagination start to kick in. In the future, perhaps I should also send along the link to this video of a dolphin in the Cayman Islands making my point.
It reminds me of a cartoon I saw this summer which depicts two dolphins, and one is saying to the other: “But what I really want to do before I die is swim with a human.”
One species deriving gratification from swimming and touching another species. Humans are all in favor of it when it is the humans who are gratifying themselves. Perhaps the dolphin world should turn the tables a little more often.
