Some of you have expressed your liking of going bareback. I guess that’s OK, as long as you’ve got your trust, STD and fertility circumstances on lockdown. Hell, if people used protection 100% all the time, there’d be no babies, and census data shows that over 1/2 of all pregnancies are unplanned/unwanted. Without those little “happy accidents”, a LOT of really rad people (like meee!) would not have come into being. Besides, eggs and sperms and fertilization and zygotes are FUN! It’s like a science experiment taking place in your very own body! For a quick run-down of how this all works, please consult the following viddy:
OK, so there are some perfectly good reasons to not use condoms. After the jump, I give you 10 more reasons why you shouldn’t use protection…
…. If you’re a Giant Panda!! Oooooooh, SIIIIIIIIKE! Gotcha! Anyway, the Giant Panda has this whole “endangered” problem which is not helped at all by the panda’s inherent reproductive system:
“Previously a problem to reproduction, pandas lose their interest in mating once in captivity. This has led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing pandas videos of mating pandas[25] and giving male pandas Viagra.[26] The primary reproduction method had been artificial insemination.[27] Only recently have researchers begun to have success with captive breeding programs and have determined that pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years.[11][6]
Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of 4 and 8, and may be reproductive until age 20.[28] The mating season takes place between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for 2 or 3 days and only occurs once a year.[29] During this time, two to five males can compete for one female; the male with the highest rank gets the female. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The whole gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days.[29] Baby pandas weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother’s weight. Usually, the female panda gives birth to one or two panda cubs. Since baby pandas are born very small and helpless, they need the mother’s undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs. She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research.
When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. It nurses from its mother’s breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the panda cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub’s skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on the panda’s fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother’s saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub’s fur is fully developed. A cub’s fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother’s milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years.”
It should be noted, also, that after the brief mating season, the male pandas peace out and leave the lady pandas alone to raise the cubs. Well no WONDER pandas are endangered, their men are assholes! Like, imagine you’re a panda for a sec: just chillin in the forest spending your life in quiet contemplation, chawin’ on some bamboo. Then this hot panda man shows up in the spring and wants to get it on. You’re into it, and two weeks later he’s all hands-in-the-fur-pockets, not making eye contact, shuffling his feet saying, “Look, it’s been real, but I gotta… You know… I think you’re a really cool girl, but… I’ve got this really great thing going on in Mt. Siguniang… You know, me & my boys.. We’re thinkin’ about starting a band.. Yeah…. I just don’t have time for a relationship right now…We can still be frenz…” and you’re stuck being a single mom. Being a single human mom ain’t easy, but shit is so tough for a single panda mom that when she births two cubs she has to let one die just to get by!! Damn!! Infanticide is so not sexy. So yeah, it’s really no surprise why the panda population can’t replicate itself. But they should still try. For the following reasons:
The joy of the world is a baby panda cub, y’all, srsly. I want to go my ass to China and become like, the Panda Whisperer. I’ll show them how to do it, get a little Ursine Kama Sutra going on, open a Panda Parenthood for prenatal heath care, set up some couple’s therapy and daddying classes for panda dads, it’ll be rad. I’ll be like the Dr. Phil of pandas, only not a complete moronic quack. Hoookay! I’m losing my mind. Gonna go have summore coffee before I embarrass myself any further. I just love pandies, but not in a wacky, “Grizzly Man” sort of way. Morelike in an “instead of wasting money on wedding favors, I’m going to sponsor a giant panda through the World Wildlife Federation in honor of my wedding guests” sort of way.
Whatever, please to dream in black and white in the comments.
August 1, 2008 at 3:25 pm
OMG, I’m sorry, I can’t comment properly as I’m dying from the cuteness of the baby pandas!
Oh, and when I went through my “save the world” stage in middle school, I had that WWF panda sticker on all my notebooks. Memories!
August 1, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Love that you’re sponsoring a giant panda instead of giving out favors! The last wedding I went to gave to the ASPCA instead of favors.
Also yay for fuzzy baby animals!
August 1, 2008 at 4:16 pm
i saw a picture of a panda in my magazine today, it was about saving them and whatnot and i was going to take a pic and send it to B to send to you, but then i felt silly so i didn’t.
August 1, 2008 at 4:50 pm
I just adore pandas! My perfect mid-life crisis involves a one-way ticket to China’s Wolong Panda Center, lots and lots of baby bottles, a rocking chair, and an endless supply of hungry/sleepy baby pandas. They don’t even have to pay me…seriously ya’ll I could die a happy woman at that point.
I’ll leave the sexin up of the pandas to BDJ, cause I just can’t deal with that one. I’ll be in the nursery rockin the baebeez!
August 1, 2008 at 4:56 pm
I saw Mei Lan, the panda cub at Zoo Atlanta, and she is, quite literally, the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.
Of course, I’ve never seen a baby sea otter.
August 2, 2008 at 5:20 am
I love the one with their widdle noses are covered with milk. Sorry, lost it a bit there, sudden rush from the sugar of those photos. Amazing how they got one to breakdance.
August 2, 2008 at 5:24 am
Should have known you’d be a fan of Grease 2, with your love of pretty,girly men. Maxwell Caulfield was prettier than Michelle Pfeiffer in those days and I watched this (admittedly bad) film to feed my teenage spank bank. And that accent! swoon.
August 4, 2008 at 3:59 pm
I am completely unapologetic about my love for Grease 2. Also, as a product of the Mississippi public school system (abstinence-only education, for realz y’all), this scene gave me substantially more information about reproduction than I was going to get from anywhere else. Well, except actually my mom was science teacher and made me have a really awkward scientific conversation about the whole thing.
July 28, 2009 at 4:31 am
Ooo… so CUTE! I love pandas.
Here I bought a cuddly panda bag (L) that I can hardly put it down!
I believe it is a GREAT find for every panda fanatic!
hkpanda.freetzi
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