Sex with a Dolphin

Fishy-looking critters can be sexy.  I have, as example, been pretty attracted to a couple of mermaids, including Daryl Hannah when she filmed Splash.  I also had a friend who slept with his pet goldfish.  Before you freak out about the goldfish, you need to understand that my friend was only about five and he was merely showing boyish affection.

Sadly, the fish did not survive a night in bed.

I recently read a story in The Huffington Post about a rather sexed-up relationship between a human trainer and a dolphin that somewhat pushed the limits of sexual boundaries.  The dolphin in question, a bottlenose named Peter, was involved in experiments during the 1960s aimed at teaching dolphins human speech.  Peter did not learn English, as hoped, but he did learn to love Margaret Howe Lovatt, the woman who worked daily with him.  As time went on, the dolphin became increasingly tactile and sensitive with Margaret Lovatt.  Peter often caressed her legs.  More to the point, according to Lovatt, “He was sexually coming of age and a bit naughty.”

When Lovatt first started working with Peter, she often took him to visit with female dolphins where he could engage in sexually-charged sessions with the females.  As the work with Peter intensified, Margaret Lovatt felt that the trips to visit with female dolphins were taking up too much valuable time, so she began to “relieve his desires manually herself.”

Lovatt insists that she felt no sexual attraction to Peter, but everyone associated with the project recognized that the dolphin was madly in love with her.

The depth of Peter’s affection became clear when the trainer and the dolphin were separated.  Peter was sent off to a new facility where he fell into a deep depression.  Dolphins, unlike most mammals, are not automatic air-breathers.  They must make conscious efforts to inhale and exhale.  Peter’s depression so overwhelmed him, he sunk to the bottom of his pool and committed suicide by refusing to take another breath.

--Mitchell Hegman