Mom Wonders Why Zoo Can't Stop Animals From Having Sex In Front Of Her Kid

Mom takes to parenting forum for advice on how to handle zoos allowing their wild animals to act like wild animals

Some mornings you wake up and the news is so soul-sucking, then your friend sends you a link to a question in a parenting forum that gives you life. It’s simply titled, “To complain to the zoo about wanking monkeys?”

Mumsnet is one of the UK’s largest websites for parents; think Babycenter message boards, yet even more entertaining. It’s kind of like Urban Baby, for our friends across the pond. What? You’ve never read Urban Baby? Do you even internet? It’s parenting-humor gold.

But back to mom and the wanking monkeys. Should she complain to the zoo?

“I took DS2 to the zoo yesterday. It’s taken me years to get it into his head that he only plays with his willy in private,” she explains. She’s really annoyed that all of that work is being undone by some damn horny monkeys. “AIBU to ask the zoo to put warning up for visitors?” she wonders.

First things first, AIBU stands for “am I being unreasonable.” We had to look that up. Oh, and if you’re not familiar with the weird parenting forum acronyms for everything, DS2 means “dear son 2” — because it’s so much easier to have an intricate list of acronyms to remember than just type out the words, “my second child.”

Anyway, it’s taken this mom years to teach her son that you can’t just go walking around playing with your willy in public all day long. Imagine her horror when she took him to the zoo and the monkeys were just shoving his favorite clandestine behavior in his face? Shouldn’t there be a warning? Something? Anything? Is she being unreasonable?

“About half the male primates were rubbing their dicks on tree branches and one was standing right up against the glass having a good old tug,” she laments. How do you explain that behavior to a child? Hmm. I don’t know, actually. When we went to see the bats exhibit at the science museum and the bats were having an orgy, I just pointed in impressed disbelief, then told the kids the bats needed privacy.

Mom continues,”then, as soon as we entered the reptile house, we were greeted by the sight of two tortoises, shagging.” To be fair, the noises tortoises make when they’re “shagging” are pretty disturbing. Google it.

After some quick research, we found out this is actually a thing: parents being freaked out by animals acting like animals in a zoo. I’m usually so transfixed by the little exhibitionists that I rarely use it as a teaching moment.

As for some kind of cautionary signage, we’d rather explain what’s going on when two animals mount each other than explain a sign that says, “WARNING: THESE ANIMALS REGULARLY MASTURBATE AND/OR ENGAGE IN SEXUAL ACTIVITY.”

It’s entirely possible this mom is just trying to make her fellow users laugh, in which case, we love her.