Gay ocean
Gay whales and transsexual fish: celebrating queerness in the ocean
You may have heard of Roy and Silo, a pair of male penguins at New York’s Central Park Zoo who paired up for many years and even raised a chick together. But those gender non-conforming penguins are just the tip of the iceberg!
Same-sex partnerships have been documented among seabirds. In one studied community of albatrosses in Hawaiʻi, nearly a third of bonded pairs were female-female. Like male-female pairings, these birds took turns incubating a single egg while the other went off in hunt of food.
At the Seattle Aquarium, female tufted puffins Gil and Gertie acquire been bonded for over five years. During mating season, Gil and Gertie engage in billing, a flirtatious advance when puffins tap on each other’s bills, and stacking, a breeding action where they stack several small fish in their bills. They also amass materials to establish a nest together and spend a lot of hour with one another.
While tufted puffins often return to the same mate, puffin “couples” like Gil and Gertie could change in the future due to new social dynamics. Just like humans, animal relationships can change.
All that talk of seaweed and photography by Anna Atkins in last week’s post reminded me that, like fern collecting, seaweed collecting was a very big thing in the mid-19thc and taken up by many middle class women as an acceptable hobby – even Queen Victoria indulged.
Who do you think wrote this small ditty?
Call us not weeds, we are flowers of the sea,
For attractive and bright and gay-tinted are we.
And quite independent of sunshine or showers.
Then call us not weeds, we are ocean’s gay flowers.
We are nursed not appreciate plants of a summer parterre
Where gales are but sighs of an evening air ;
Our exquisite, fragile, and delicate forms
Are nursed by the ocean, and rocked by the storms
Read on to find out…
and I suspect that if you’re a lover of great English literature you will be surprised
They may not be the most memorable lines from Jane Austen – yes THAT Jane Austen – but they are included in a chapter of her last novel, Sanditon unfinished when she died in 1817. She tells us that a group were strolling along the beach where “The Miss Beauforts were ecstatic about the seaweed. It was, appa The album that followed was Channel Orange, a body of function that served as the soundtrack to his ‘coming out’ a powerful undertaking that saw him say openly of his affectionate for a man. ‘You run my mind boy’ he sang on Forrest Gump, the album’s most overt exploration of Frank’s sexuality. ‘You're so buff and so strong, I'm nervous, Forrest’, he continued. Then there’s the self-deprecation on , a ballad that sees Frank battle the demons of unrequited same-sex love in the back of a cab. ‘Taxi driver, I swear I've got three lives / Balanced on my chief like steak knives / I can't tell you the truth about my disguise / I can't trust no one.’ He sings, ‘I can never make him love me.’ Like his open letter in July 2012, Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange was perfectly undefinable. Flirting with mind, funk and electronic styles without ever turning its back on R&B. It was also a masterclass in songwriting, with each composition showcasing a flair for honesty and vulnerability. The kind of which you’ll only come across every so often i The Indian Ocean is the third-largest body of water globally, and its heated water attracts rainbow-coloured fish and other sea creatures. Whether you're a fine ol' beach bum, or you yearn to explore every nook and cranny these islands acquire to offer, there's something for everyone. From glass-bottomed boat excursions, diving and snorkelling, exploring historical and cultural sites, relaxing on the beach with a cocktail, or catching up on beauty sleep – it's the ultimate holiday destination. Of all the Indian Ocean Islands, Seychelles and Mozambique (the latter is actually a coastline but with a string of islands around it) are the only Indian Ocean Happy Pride Weekend to everyone! Here in San Francisco, I’m hunkered down in the office prepping for field work in Mexico, but through my unlock window I can listen the cheers of the crowd from the SF Pride Parade just a couple of blocks away. This post has spent a long time languishing in my drafts folder. In fact according to the autosave records, I started this on October 2, 2010. At the time, a then recent confluence of events compelled me to dig-up a post from my antique blog that explored the apparent dearth of queer woman , gay, bisexual, and transgendered people in the ocean sciences. Those compelling events were that on September 9, 2010, Billy Lucas, a 15-year-old freshman at Greensburg High School in Indiana, hung himself after enduring bullying torment from his peers — just a few weeks into the school year. His mother found her son, hanging, in their barn. At least one former pupil says he made administrators aware of his have LGBT bullying, and they did nothing. Then, Seth Walsh, a 13-year-old California teen, was found September 19, 2010, unconscious and not breathing, and it appeared he had tried to hang himself from a tree branch. He spent 10 days on being support Dotty: How Frank Ocean’s coming out changed the landscape
Family or group holiday? Verify. Need some day alone? Check. Sentimental getaway? Check, examine, check! And, yes, there are gay-friendly Indian Ocean Islands! Take your grab from the floating resorts in the Maldives, never-ending beaches in Mauritius, concealed gem Mozambique, unusual Madagascar, or the very gay-friendly Seychelles!
Or why not choose all of them for one ultimate island adventure? Trust us; once you've had a taste of the Indian Ocean animation, you'll keep coming back for more. Let's start planning so you can start packing!