Monkeying Around

For John, BLUF:  Headlines are often misleading.

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Blogger Ann Althouse comments on an article in The Washington Post, "Lust, monkeys and the science of human desire".  This is a look at the research work of Kim Wallen, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Neuroendocrinology at Emory University.  Professor Wallen is interested in the fact that amongst the Rhesus monkeys, and in this case, with the female, Deidrah, it is the female who is the sexual aggressor.  It appears the males are used and discarded.

Professor Althouse, on the other hand, was interested in the headline.  Or maybe the headline writers.  They are a sordid lot.  She notes the front-page teaser for the article is "What the sex lives of female monkeys may tell us about women."  Then we get to the "lust" part.  Did you know that lust is the acronym for "Leaking Underground Storage Tanks"? Front-page teaser for a WaPo article that — on clicking — is headlined "Lust, monkeys and the science of human desire."

Now, I'm not interested in monkey sex at all.  The science I want to know about is the journalism of the web.  Why was the front page, the page that invites you to click, all gendered up with "female monkeys" and "women," but the title at the site of the article is sex neutral, with "monkeys" and "human desire"?  There are 2 other differences that suggest that the front page was intentionally skewed toward women:  1.  Omission of the word "science," and 2.  Substituting "sex lives" for "lust.

I do agree with Prof Althouse, headline writers and the writers of teasers are the scum of the earth.

But, back to the article, it does talk about female gang warfare in the compound.  That elicited this comment, at the paper:

“Occasionally the compound was littered with corpses.”

Sounds like typical primate behavior.

“…all the females around her are higher ranked,” Wallen said. If they decided, for any reason, that they didn’t want her having sex with him, they and their families might tear and bite her to death.”

I lived in a compound like that once, it was call “high school.”

And so it was.

Regards  —  Cliff