Have you ever seen a monkey with a boner?
Have you ever seen a monkey with a boner masturbate in a zoo?
Have you ever seen a monkey with a boner masturbate in a zoo, and then do something I can’t even describe yet?
Well, have I got a video for you…
Hello there, dear reader. Yes, I’m an anthropologist, and I’m here to talk to you about the great big wonders of nature, right here in New York City.
Legend has it that Frederick L. Olmsted envisioned Brooklyn’s Prospect Park to be a more rugged, au naturel counterpart to Manhattan’s Central Park, home of artificial rocks and the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. Apparently, the zoos in this city are no different.
I know a thing or two about zoos. I am a former subscriber to the acclaimed children’s magazines ZooBooks and Ranger Rick Jr. and current subscriber to the mature, grown-up magazine Ranger Rick. And if I learned one thing from my recent visit to the Prospect Park Zoo, it’s that Brooklyn definitely knows how to do it au naturel.
To be honest, this zoo is crazy. And it’s bleak — I’m kind of debating going back on Zoloft just thinking about it. After paying a suggested entry fee solely out of pity, you’ll walk past the afternoon sea lion feeding show (picture three blubbery, tired old men with flippers, howling as teenagers who make less-than-minimum wage throw sardines at their heads). Then, journey inside to the Hall of Animals. It’s literally a hallway.
Much of the zoo is indoors, with white sterile walls adorned with faded arrows herding you to the next biome. It’s kind of like an outdated library, but instead of going from the Y-A section to that area with biographies about historical figures who have since been discovered to have been monsters, you woefully walk from looking at birds and frogs trapped behind glass to another room where you spend five minutes looking into the teary eyes of that lemur from Madagascar, who you know definitely does NOT like to move it, move it.
But then you find your way into a large rotunda of a room, titled Animal Lifestyles. It’s different from the other parts of the zoo. This place has some promise. There are fish swimming around and bird noises in the distance, and the poster in front depicts a cute-as-hell red panda, so it has to be good. Unfortunately and abruptly, the tween working as a docent taps you on the shoulder to say that the red pandas are “not on view today,” which must be code for “dead.” May their memories be a blessing. Let’s go on to the next room: Monkeys.
BIG vibe shift. It’s all hands on deck at Monkey Mountain. At least a dozen baboons and snow monkeys straight up chilling on rocks and bathing in cascading waterfalls. It’s not amazing, but it is the first time of the day that you don’t hear someone asking their friend if they should call PETA. There are even families here, with little kids laughing and taking selfies with the monkeys in the window who are cradling newborns.
But not everything is as it seems.
Up above all the others, perched on top of the rocks and waterfalls, is the Baboon King. He’s sitting, alone, basking in the sun and looking down upon his domain. Everything the artificial light touches is his. And he seems pleased. Actually, too pleased. So pleased, in fact, that his monkey penis is sticking straight up to the sky.
Look, I’m someone who still giggles at the Passover seder every year when the youngest cousin says the word “erect” while reading the Four Questions. So obviously, I’m going crazy at this monkey boner.
Nobody around us sees him, they’re too distracted by the cute babies. It’s unbelievable. This horny baboon looks me straight in the eye and suddenly it’s like the whole world disappears. It’s me and him, and I know what I have to do.
I whip out my phone and start filming. He pees a little, yawns, and then sits there. He’s just like everybody else!
“Wow,” I thought, “that was funny. I guess that’s the only funny thing that’s gonna happen today.”
I should have put my phone away and moved on. But something that I can only describe as my dark passenger told me to keep filming. BE PATIENT.
So the families around me carried on having fun, not even remotely aware of the perky primate 20 feet away who was about to become the best comedian of all time.
I’m a minute into filming. Somehow maintaining eye contact. What’s he gonna do next? For no apparent reason, I felt it was my duty to keep the camera rolling. I mean, I have a degree in Anthropology, dammit, I should be putting it to good use!
And then it happened. I witnessed what can only be described as the 8th wonder of the natural world.
A couple strokes, a determined face.
Oh my god, am I watching a monkey masturbate?
Suddenly, DONE.
He looks at it, and without a second thought, he goes all in.
Oh my god, am I watching a monkey masturbate and eat its own cum??
How do you feel after watching that? I can imagine what you might be thinking.
“WOW, Ritam and Nabeel’s friend just sent a video to roughly 373 unassuming newsletter subscribers and traumatized them with the horrors of our closest genetic relative in the animal kingdom. What a way to start the weekend. How crass, how vile, how absolutely abominable. Please, won’t somebody think of the children?!”
Well, I say to you the same words my grandma says when she accidentally farts in public: “It’s only natural, you judgmental prick.”
Did that really happen? I laugh, I shiver, and I’m definitely nauseous. I look around at my fellow zoo visitors — they never noticed a damn thing. What am I supposed to do now? Am I different? Is the world forever different?
Somehow, that monkey boner changed my life. Does the monkey know that I’m different now? Pssh, of course he knows, he does this all the goddamn time. It’s only natural, you judgmental prick.
So, dear reader, I hope you’ll one day venture into nature and see we’re not that different after all. And maybe you, too, will have a day at the zoo where you learn the most important lesson of all: everybody’s got their kink.
Epilogue
It’s been some time now. Many have viewed the video. Some have sent their own witness testimony. These are their stories:
“It was a revelation, the way that monkey looks directly at you—almost through you—while servicing himself. I’m sweating thinking about it.”
– Henry A.
“When I watched this video I was instantly sent back to a horrifying period of high school when a group of boys collectedly decided that they would not kiss their girlfriends for 10 minutes after they got head. I am not sure what they thought happened to the cum after 10 minutes but for them this was the amount of time they felt would insure that they would not wind up eating their own cum. I kinda wish they got to see this video……..it’s low key nature, babes.”
– Natasha B.
“This video was life altering for me. It really reminded me how close we are to our animal brethren. Turns out monkeys, baboons, great apes, etc. are kinky little freaks just like us. The desire to experiment with one’s own body must lurk deep within primate DNA.”
– Jake A.
“I think what shook me was the way the video just keeps going: at first I thought oh NICE, you were lucky enough to be there when an animal was peeing (and what a killer facial expression/body position for it, off of a cliff and everything)! But then you see him yank his penis like a rubber band and you’re like …huh? ouchie? bubble bubble squirt. AND THEN without wasting a second, the immediate taste to savor pipeline, paired with the deflating of his balloon? It’s comedy gold, it just keeps escalating in ways you would not expect but also think OF COURSE! I guess what I’m saying is this monkey is funnier than Louis C.K. has been, will be, or even could dream of being.”
– Elie D.
“First I thought it was just a funny video of a monkey with a boner. What could be better? Then the piss - even funnier. Now I’m laughing. Then the quick, efficient stroke. I’m losing it. At no point was I expecting what came next. Then the tentative taste, followed by the devouring of the cum. What other mysteries and horrors does God hold in store?”
– John F.
“Waste not want not.”
– Tim H.
“I’m in med school and thought I’d seen it all. My initial reaction to the video was of course focused on the progressive absurdity of what seems to be this monkey’s standard afternoon activities: pee -> aggressively claw at yourself -> nut -> have a snack. But as I put it on repeat and continue to watch, hypnotized, I realize that the most shocking event comes in the first few frames: he pees with a boner. Personal experience and 4 years of my life flushed away studying anatomy tell me that this is not possible. That the pressure in the corpus spongiosum should exceed the pressure in the urethra and make it actually physically impossible to squeeze out any whizz. And yet there it is in front of my eyes. And this guy just yawns after like it’s no big deal?? I don’t know what to believe. I am shaken to my core.”
– Noah M.
Should we protest zoos?? That is not something a happy, healthy animal would do. Clearly, captivity has made it deranged in a horny and dangerous way.
– Rebecca L.
“It was rather shocking. Kind of like watching a train wreck. You THINK you know what’s coming yet you can’t look away and when the deed is done, you’re left screaming and wondering why you pushed play in the first place.”
– Mick G.
“You just keep watching and thinking “Oh god, he wouldn’t…” and then he does. He really, unfortunately, does.”
– Mia C.
“I was at the zoo when it happened. We were standing there amidst a ton of kids haggling for space on the glass. At first I was watching this baby monkey but then saw Cabo locked on this guy, rock hard, camera ready. I wasn’t sure what he wanted but after what must have been a minute Cabo gasped as he started to do it—not even masturbate, more like flick it—and then cum, and then eat it. All the while holding the camera steady, panting, quietly saying “oh my god.’”
– Steffan L.
“I immediately went to google, needing to understand the biological reason behind why a monkey would eat their own cum. Science has yet to discover...”
– Maya S.
Ritam’s Footnote
This monkey is clearly starving. You all just laughed at ANIMAL SUFFERING.
Also, isn’t anthropology the study of human behavior…