Gender Wokism At The National Zoo–A Whole New Take On The Bear Hug

“Are bears gay?”, a straight friend asked Bobby Arlen.

“Of course they are, you ninny.  Don’t let the Harleys fool you.  Those are some stone pink dudes”

“Not those bears”, Bobby’s friend Luke replied.  “The real ones”.

Bobby Arlen knew all about the Northern California bears who, for all intents and purposes could be mistaken for Hell’s Angels– black leather jackets, double stitched, studded, and worn; thick, bushy unkept beards, hairy bulk, shit-kicker E-boots with steel toes, unmuffled Harleys flying American flags, and Kaiser Wilhelm helmets.

“I partied with them in Calistoga” Bobby said, ”a real sight to behold, one hundred bears roaring up to the hitching post on big ass Harley FLT Tour Glides, hugging and kissing ol’ Big Bear Bixby like he was a sight for sore eyes, then rolling up the rug and dancing.”

Luke had no interest in the Calistoga bears.  He had heard the stories many times – spinning wheels in cow flop up Mt. Veeder, drunk and dipping nekkid in the Napa River, chasing ostriches and llamas on the flanks of Mt. Tom – and his interest was in stories coming out of MSNBC and CNN about reports that Timmy and Tommy, two Grizzly bears recently acquired by the National Zoo, were gay – or at least they were presumed to be.  

Before the team of San Diego zoologists could observe first hand the bears’ behavior, word had spread among the woke community of Washington that what they had been looking for all along had been found.  If animals routinely practiced homosexual behavior, then it must be far more deeply-rooted in the animal/human genome than ever thought.  

Although homosexuality in America has never been more than a statistical anomaly – the gay population of America has never been more than three percent, even in these days when, thanks to aggressive school sexual orientation curricula, many young people are ‘trying it out’ and volunteering to be counted in the census – animal behavior, as non-cognitive, basic, and primordial as it is, gives an imprimatur that could never be erased.

“Hold your horses”, said Dr. Amir Khan, the senior member of the San Diego team.  “Just because Timmy and Tommy are exhibiting anthropomorphic sexual behavior, it does not mean it is typical, hardwired, or innate.  It may only be the caged expression of aggressive male bear behavior in the wild.  “When bears stand up on their hind legs, and hug each other”, he said, “it is to show off their strength and supremacy”

Other members of the team who had been hired from progressive universities like Duke and Oberlin, objected.  There is more to it than pushing and shoving.

They pointed to the way the hugs Timmy and Tommy gave each other were gentle and accompanied by nuzzling.  Not only that they shared the live salmon thrown in by zoo handlers at feeding time  No ripping and shredding of flesh like you see in movies of the Alaskan tundra, but careful handling and transfer.  Timmy and Tommy sat together, played together, and were rarely apart from each other.

“Perhaps”, said Dr. Khan, “but we must observe the smoking gun”.

His colleagues stopped for a moment, than got Khan’s drift.  They had to get the bears in flagrante delicto – the act of sex.  To do this required electronic surveillance, for the bears, like their human counterparts, were known to be quite discreet in regards to sexual behavior. In the case of bears, the sexual act left them quite vulnerable to attack, and therefore performing in the back reaches of their den was common. In any case, the San Diego team set up a series of miniature cameras in the cave and for good measure all around the bears’ daytime playground. 

The problem was that although the mating behavior of grizzlies in the wild is a magnificent spectacle, roaring and pawing, tumbling and rolling, standing tall and then hugging from behind; there was no room for such antics in the small confines of their zoo enclosure although modern zoos had been built to give animals as free rein and as much space as possible.

“There! See?”, said a team member, and pointed to a grainy image of what could only be discerned as a great mass of fur with some movement.  “There”, he repeated, “cohabiting male grizzly bears in sexual concert”.

“Hold your horses”, said Amir Khan.  “Whoa, Silver! A furry image maketh not a sexual union.  Back to the drawing boards and see how it flies”.

The Zoo of course, was not unaware of the marketing potential of such an event – the Washington metropolitan area was as woke as any, and the schools of every surrounding county were aggressively teaching about alternate sexual behavior, the legitimacy of transgenderism, gayness, and the obligation of all young people to properly and appropriately choose their sexuality – i.e. where they fit on the gender spectrum.

Zoo administrators and marketers arranged for “Free Bear Day At The Zoo’, a chance for all public school children to ‘meet Timmy and Tommy’; lunches for Dupont Circle gay scientists interested in animal sexuality; and perhaps most noteworthy, invited lecturers like the Dr. Reverend Paul Farley, pastor of the Westland Church of Christ, the progressive Christian beacon in Washington to talk on ‘Queerness, Jesus Christ And The New Testament – Reinterpreting The New Testament’.  

Dr. Farley had often lectured on ‘oneness’,a potpourri of Hinduism, Sufism, and New Age Religion; but recently tempted by the work of liberal scientists who focused more intently than ever on ‘the human animal’ included a lecture on ‘The Animal in the Human and Vice-Versa - Trans Sex in the Wild’. 

In this lecture series he favored progressive concepts of identity, and as wooly and often as incomprehensible as they were, got huge support from his congregants.

It was a free for all at the National Zoo, a once in a lifetime opportunity for progressive activists, far more important than any Supreme Court appointment, far more important than ‘The Science’ of the COVID pandemic.  This was a scientific epiphany. 

There is a line in the movie ‘Gladiator’ where the Oliver Reed character, buyer of animals for the Coliseum and its gladiatorial combat, complains to an animal merchant that the giraffes he was sold do not mate.  “You sold me queer giraffes”, the Reed character says, grabbing the merchant’s neck.  Crude and unacceptable as the slur might be today, it did give pause for its ironic relevance at the National Zoo.  There were indeed ‘queer’ animals at the Zoo and more power to them.

The flapdoodle eventually died down after scientists from the British Royal Academy of Zoology and mountaineers from the Canadian Wildlife Service joined forces to debunk any speculation of the San Diego Team.  “American sexual fol-de-rol, as usual”, they snickered and wrote a scathing letter to the Washington Post calling out the Zoo’s capitulation to wokism and progressive nonsense.

The San Diego team went back to the Coast contrite but unconvinced.  Even as they flew home, their cell phones lit up with offers to explore possibilities in Vancouver, Memphis, and Tupelo. 

When Luke told his friend Bobby about the fiasco in Washington, Bobby, nonplussed and above it all said, “I told you so.  All real gay bears are in Calistoga”.