Koko the gorilla and sexual harrassment
As readers of this column probably know, I’m a fan of Koko , the well-known gorilla who was the first of her species (although not the first simian) to learn a human language. I have long followed the story of her education and accomplishments.
Thus, the accusation that the Gorilla Foundation, the organization responsible for caring for this remarkable ape, was being sued for sexual harassment caused me a deep consternation. Two women employees filed suit, charging that Dr. Penny Patterson, who is in charge of the experiment and acts as both Koko’s primary teacher and adoptive “mother,†interpreted Signs Koko made as requests to see the female workers’ nipples. Dr. Patterson was quoted as telling the gorilla, “You see my nipples all the time, Koko, so I’ll turn around and she’ll show you some new nipples.†The women said they were fired because they refused to flash the simian which Dr. Patterson supposedly said was something they had to do in order to establish a bond of trust with Koko.
Soon after the first two women filed their lawsuit, a third woman filed suit. She gave essentially the same story they did but said that she had taken off her top as requested and shown her breasts to Koko.
This whole story gave me quite a turn. I knew that Koko liked to rhyme “nipple†with “people.†An attorney for one of the women said, “This nipple thing has a history†and pointed out that the word “nipple†comes up frequently in Koko’s conversations.
It also seems to me that people at the Gorilla Foundation tend to want to make Koko as happy as possible and that could lead them to indulge her whims in bizarre fashions or what they interpret as her whims.
Some people who commented on the initial stories thought that it was probably Dr. Patterson, not the ape, who had the “fetish†and that the psychologist made interpretations based on what she fantasized.
I asked a couple of people I know if they would have indulged a gorilla who wanted to see their private parts exposed. Since the people I asked were men, they discussed the possibility of showing an ape their genitals. One of them said, “The gorilla can’t have any understanding of human modesty. You can see her nipples. I don’t know if I would show my genitals to her or not. If I thought it would build a bond of trust with the animal, I might.†The other man was similarly equivocal, saying, “I wouldn’t do anything actually sexual but if it was showing myself to her and I thought it would help in my work with the gorilla, I might do it.â€
All three lawsuits were settled out of court. As a Gorilla Foundation supporter, I breathed a sigh of relief but I was still troubled by the entire situation. I wrote to the Foundation asking if Koko does indeed have a nipple fetish and if female employees had been expected to display their mammary glands to her. Lorraine Slater, Development Director of the Gorilla Foundation replied unequivocally, “Simply stated, Koko does not have a nipple fetish and no employee of the Foundation has ever been asked or expected to expose their breasts to Koko. Any suggestion to the contrary is false.â€
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Stumble It!
May 20th, 2007 at 3:05 am
Women making false accusations against a gorilla? Is this what Lorraine Slater is suggesting? Get the NOW guerrillas on her case! How dare a women be accused of making a false allegation. No such thing is possible, shirley? What a situation. A female asks another couple of females to expose themselves to a third female.
And no man to blame? !!
Gaaaaarn. There are raw prawns prancing around in the Gorilla Foundation.
What a lot of hysterical poppycock (if you will excuse the term. No offence meant. Please don’t sue me. Or maybe I shall have to countersue for this being an unsafe blog viewing!).
Then there is the other outrageous claim: “the well-known gorilla who was the first of her species (although not the first simian) to learn a human language.”
Is that what it is called. Grasping the rudiments at about the level of the average womyn’s studies undergraduate. Ok, point taken.
And not a skerrick of a hint of a sign of the famed fantasy of women’s superb communication skills, empathy, or conflict resolution. I see the women weren’t asked to show their tits while chewing gum at the same time as multi-tasking is nowhere in sight either.
May 20th, 2007 at 4:31 am
amfortas said,
Women making false accusations against a gorilla? Is this what Lorraine Slater is suggesting? Get the NOW guerrillas on her case! How dare a women be accused of making a false allegation. No such thing is possible, shirley? What a situation. A female asks another couple of females to expose themselves to a third female.
And no man to blame? !!
(Denise) Yes, amfortas, all the players in this drama are female. That is not unprecedented as I’ve heard of female-on-female sexual harassment cases before and have even been sexually harassed by two females at different times myself.
When I first told one of the men I quoted that there was a sexual harassment lawsuit against the Gorilla Foundation, he automatically responded, “You mean they’re accusing male employees at the Gorilla Foundation of harassing them, right? Surely they’re not accusing the gorillas of harassing them!” I explained the allegations and he responded with the quote above about how he might have exposed himself if he thought it might build a bond of trust with the animal.
May 20th, 2007 at 5:03 am
If I showed my John Thomas to a lady gorilla I doubt it would inspire trust!!
May 20th, 2007 at 6:33 am
A ground breaking moment. Thank God!!!! Finally, I now have legal precident to sue the neighbor’s leg humping poodle!!
May 20th, 2007 at 6:42 am
Im doing a piece right now on how certain police jurisdictions manipulate false rape accussations to keep the number of false reports as low as possible..because of pressure from womens groups, and the domestic abuse “funding industries”.
I interviewed a women who ran the local sex crimes unit here in b.town
and she claimed the percentage of false reports is 1/2 of 1 percent.
I asked how she came up with them numbers because i’m reading about police precints that deliberatelly re-define what a false accussation in order to give a skewed idea to the publick that false rape accussations simply don’t happen .
boy i hit a nerve with her..she got very defensive…wouldn’t give me any more info, and started to walk away..
As she was walking away, I said men and boys are getting their civil rights violated by these false, inflamatory, and incendiary, mis-leading, deliberate mis-information about the actual numbers of false rape accussations. And she said nothing, and walked away…
So either these deliberate lies about the actual numbers of false accussations are to protect future rape complainants…(which is the feminist position, but I believe is simply non-linear logic) or its incendiary mis-information thats is promoteing a culture of hate against men/boys..to the point where men no longer get equal protection under the law.
May 20th, 2007 at 8:06 am
Day come and me read this tome…..DO NOT show her a banana
May 20th, 2007 at 8:07 am
daylight…..I blew a horrible joke even
May 20th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
I was not there at the time of the alleged incident though I can say it was asked or suggested of women working and visiting Gorilla foundation to show Koko their nipples. Anyone from there stating it was not is either lying or ignorant to what went on at the research facility. Most of the office workers weren’t in the area of the gorillas or worked at a different location, and that includes the person that was quoted as saying “Simply stated, Koko does not have a nipple fetish and no employee of the Foundation has ever been asked or expected to expose their breasts to Koko. Any suggestion to the contrary is false.â€
That statement, if quoted correct, is absolutely false. If the author of this piece likes, you can email me privately.
May 20th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Silverback has moved beyond signing…impressive.
I was wondering, if I called myself KoKo, could I get nipple flashes, and without Mardi Gras beads? To be clear, I’ll ask my wife, rest of ya keep the shirts on.
May 21st, 2007 at 9:20 am
Who ever thought a career in primate studies would leading to stripping? What a bizarre story…
Any idea why they didn’t use some anatomically correct stand-in for a real person?
May 21st, 2007 at 10:45 am
Wow! The Ape instinctively knew that these women had had their Feminity Educated out of them in college, and upon meeting them wanted to first remind them of the fact that they must first face the actual reality of their Feminity?
Maybe they did not look Feminin enough for her and she wanted proof?
Even an Ape can see there is a problem.
May 21st, 2007 at 11:30 pm
[...] Courtesy of Men’s News Daily [...]
May 22nd, 2007 at 8:27 am
[...] Sadly, as a result of Koko’s unchecked nipple obsession, Penny and Koko (ok, the Gorilla Foundation) were sued for sexual harrassment. [...]
February 24th, 2009 at 2:49 am
has anyone bothered to think that gorillas in the wild have a hierarchy even where the females are concerned…the females groom those ape breasts and genitalia for one another. It would not be uncommon for a gorilla to want to inspect the other females in the group if she felt dominant…in a case like kokos she is being taught by a male she probably looks at like a mate that has other females around.. because she has been taught to communicate and understands whats she’s communicating with humans she is also curious about the differences between herself and the other females in the group.while she semi understands she is different I doubt she knows how to separate her more group like instinct to be a mature mating female in the only group she knows from her taught human traits. She may well be asking for displays of respect from the other females in the group. Apes have a tendency to weed out the weaklings in their breeding communities. Koko may well be attempting to do that to keep doc all to herself or figure out whats wrong with her own self because doc isn’t trying to mate with her. Stranger attachments have formed and those kinds of things are what happens when you mess with mother nature.