“The terminally cute sea otter is a marine weasel into rough sex. The male otter's arms (legs, whatever) are effective for grooming their fine pelts or cracking shells on the rocks they place on their bellies, but they are too short for getting a good grip on a mate. So the male gets firm purchase by biting down on the female's nose before going for a little splendor in the kelp. Afterward you can often spot the females hauled up on rocks along the shore, their fur matted and their noses bloody. It's not hard to imagine that a female with a heavily scarred nose might get a reputation as an easy otter.”

—  David Helvarg

Los Angeles Times, January 26, 2005.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The terminally cute sea otter is a marine weasel into rough sex. The male otter's arms (legs, whatever) are effective f…" by David Helvarg?
David Helvarg photo
David Helvarg 4
American journalist 1951

Related quotes

Camille Paglia photo

“That nature acts differently upon the sexes is proved by the test case of modern male and female homosexuality, illustrating how the sexes function separately outside social conventions. The results, according to statistics of sexual frequency: male satyriasis and female nesting. The male homosexual has more sex than his heterosexual counterpart; the female homosexual less often than hers, a radical polarization of the sexes along a single continuum of shared sexual nonconformity. Male aggression and lust are the energizing factors in culture. They are men’s tools of survival in the pagan vastness of female nature.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 26

Susan B. Anthony photo

“It would be ridiculous to talk of male and female atmospheres, male and female springs or rains, male and female sunshine…. how much more ridiculous is it in relation to mind, to soul, to thought, where there is as undeniably no such thing as sex, to talk of male and female education and of male and female schools. [written with Elizabeth Cady Stanton]”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist
Manny Pacquiao photo

“As a Christian, same-sex marriage is not allowed. Woman was made for man, man was made for woman. For me, it’s common sense. Will you see any animals where male is to male and female is to female? The animals are better. They know how to distinguish, male or female. If we approve male on male, female on female, then man is worse than animal. Right? Even among animals… those of the same sex are not allowed to lie together. But I’m not condemning them. Just the marriage, the committing of sin against God.”

Manny Pacquiao (1978) Filipino boxer, basketball player, singer and politician, dancer.

Pacquiao's stand on Same-Sex marriage
As quoted in Manny Pacquiao’s stand on same-sex marriage: ‘Mas masahol pa sa hayop ang tao’ http://www.interaksyon.com/interaktv/manny-pacquiaos-stand-on-same-sex-marriage-mas-masahol-pa-sa-hayop-ang-tao InterAksyon, February 15, 2016

Margaret Mead photo

“Throughout history, females have picked providers for mates. Males pick anything.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Attributed in 3,500 Good Quotes for Speakers (1985) edited by Gerald F. Lieberman, p. 114
1980s

“Love is not dependency or sex, but is friendship, and, therefore, love can't exist between two males, between a male and a female or between two females, one or both of whom is a mindless, insecure, pandering male; like conversation it can exist only between two secure, free-wheeling, independent, groovy female females, as friendship is based on”

Valerie Solanas (1936–1988) American radical feminist and writer. Attempted to assassinate Andy Warhol.

respect, not contempt.
Source: SCUM MANIFESTO (1967), p. 10 ("respect, not contempt." (not bracketed in original) not certain in original due to truncation of bottom of photocopy page but consistent with it).

“Whoredom and bastardy are defects with regard to a female slave, but not with regard to a male ; because the object in the purchase of female slave, is cohabitation and the generation of children...”

Burhan al-Din al-Marghinani (1117–1197) muhaddith, faqih and author (1135-1164)

Al-Hidayah (593 AH, 1197 CE), Charles Hamilton's translation, 1791
Source: Hidayah (Muslim law book), Hamilton, II, 409. https://archive.org/details/TheHedayaCommentaryOnIslamicLawsByShyakhBurhanuddinAbuBakrAlMarghinani/page/n249/mode/1up (Also quoted in Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Ch. 11)

“As a result of high levels of male parental investment, humans evolved into a somewhat “androgynous” species - a species in which human females exhibit traits generally found only in males (e. g., competition for mates) and human males exhibit traits generally found only in females (e. g., the provision of parental care; choosiness about mates).”

Steve Stewart-Williams (1971)

(p. 138)
The Ape that Thought It Was a Peacock: Does Evolutionary Psychology Exaggerate Human Sex Differences? (2013)

Matt Ridley photo

“Therefore, broadly speaking, males invest less and seek quantity of mates, while females invest more and seek quality of mates.”

Matt Ridley (1958) economist

Source: The Red Queen (1993), Ch. 3

Aristotle photo

“Just as it sometimes happens that deformed offspring are produced by deformed parents, and sometimes not, so the offspring produced by a female are sometimes female, sometimes not, but male, because the female is as it were a deformed male.”

Aristotle book Generation of Animals

Generation of Animals as translated by Arthur Leslie Peck (1943), p. 175
Generation of Animals

“Nothing looks funnier than an otter having a good time, unless it’s a sea otter, which looks even more cherubic.”

Kenneth Rexroth (1905–1982) American poet, writer, anarchist, academic and conscientious objector

"Home Schooling and Indian Lore"
An Autobiographical Novel (1991)
Context: I remember the first time I ever saw otter play and slide down a slippery bank into the water. Old Billy knew where they were and took me to them. We sat down silently behind some bushes on the bank of an Indiana stream and pretty soon out came a family of otter and climbed up on the bank and slid down the mud slide over and over again like little children. Nothing looks funnier than an otter having a good time, unless it’s a sea otter, which looks even more cherubic.

Related topics