Comments on: What's long and hard and ultimately futile?

What's long and hard and ultimately futile?

mr_crash_davis — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 18:54:10 -0800

"Grigioni, now back in Switzerland, said she could normally get tortoises to ejaculate within minutes, but spent months manually stimulating George and never extracted semen from him."

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 19:09:43 -0800

Ok, so out of a 17 paragraph article about the impending extinction of an entire species of animal, you pick the only one that sounds like porn.

By: Henry C. Mabuse

Henry C. Mabuse — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 19:10:56 -0800

Yes, but tortoise semen is not as efficacious as owl semen.

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 19:11:55 -0800

Stay classy, Mr_Crash_Davis.

By: CitrusFreak12

CitrusFreak12 — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 19:12:10 -0800

Aw. Poor George. Poor species. :( I like turtles. Anyone who posts a link to that damn YTMND gets their arms chopped off.

By: exlotuseater

exlotuseater — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 19:13:11 -0800

reverend to you

By: jason's_planet

jason's_planet — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 19:20:40 -0800

it could be worse. she could be sailing the high seas in search of whale dookie.

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 19:26:52 -0800

Sorry, miss lynnster, I read about someone jacking off a tortoise for months at a time with no result and I just immediately think of Metafilter.

By: wfrgms

wfrgms — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 19:27:54 -0800

    wait. comeback. i love you!
          __   /
   _____ (@@)
 -/ \ / \//O
  ,,| ,,|

By: pruner

pruner — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 19:30:26 -0800

previously (masturbating elephants for science)

By: Mayor Curley

Mayor Curley — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 19:31:23 -0800

"I work for the animal to have explosion, for liquid, to make them have more animals. My specialty is camel to have liquid explosion."

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 19:39:00 -0800

Just don't say "hi five." Keep your camel-covered hands to yourself.

By: stavrogin

stavrogin — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 19:40:48 -0800

Here's a more detailed account. Sadly, there are no pictures of her. As Nicholls tells the story — and he is a brilliant storyteller and narrative stylist in the finest tradition — a beautiful Swiss graduate student named Sveva Grigioni undertook the tried and true method of semen extraction as practiced by animal breeders. In tortoises the penis is tucked away inside the tail for safe keeping while it traverses across sharp lava rubble. When aroused, the penis emerges and becomes erect, allowing an ejaculation to occur. Scientists have had some success in capturing an ejaculate for artificial insemination by, well, a form of human-tortoise foreplay. As Nicholls describes the process employed by one scientist on another tortoise: She began to touch his rear end and stroke his legs, causing the beast to raise himself off the ground. She then began to caress his tail. Eventually the penis flopped out and with more gentle rubbing produced an ejaculate. Grigioni first practiced this process on other male tortoises, and she was able to produce an ejaculation inside 10 minutes. But George has been lonesome for a very long time and when she entered his pen, "He was very shy at the beginning. He was such a big animal and he was so afraid." Grigioni spent days habituating herself to him so that she could finally touch and stroke him. Nothing. Grigioni then smeared her hands with genital secretions from females of a closely related tortoise species, and that at least got a look at George's penis, which appeared to be in good working order. But the subsequent attempts to get an ejaculation, or to get him to mount a female, failed. As Grigioni explained: "Day by day, he started to be more interested in the females. He started to try copulation but it was like he really didn't know how."

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 19:55:20 -0800

"so, how was work today, honey?" "eh ... all i did was jack off"

By: hal9k

hal9k — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 20:08:17 -0800

Probably just being shy. Maybe she should wait for him to cum out of his shell?

By: Parannoyed

Parannoyed — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 20:10:51 -0800

Seriously, I'm not sure any amount of you're-saving-a-species-and-its-totally-necessary goody goody feelings could get me past the fact that I spent most of my day giving a tortoise a handjob.

By: thatswherebatslive

thatswherebatslive — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 20:18:41 -0800

I don' know which would be worse, the feeling you get when you realize that you have to give a handjob to a tortoise, or the crushing defeat in being unable to bring him to release. Like, wouldn't that really make you doubt your tortoise handjob technique?

By: litfit

litfit — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 20:25:47 -0800

Grigioni first practiced this process on other male tortoises, and she was able to produce an ejaculation inside 10 minutes. Am I reading this correctly - where the beautiful grad student Sveva consoles herself by telling the interviewer that all of the other turtles had a really good time? George: "It's not your fault honey, it's okay, I'm just distracted at work."

By: Steven C. Den Beste

Steven C. Den Beste — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 20:31:49 -0800

Maybe George is gay...

By: caddis

caddis — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 20:32:41 -0800

sometimes every seed truly is scared

By: L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg

L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 20:36:20 -0800

Slow and steady wins the race.

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 20:40:32 -0800

Well, the excerpted quote extracted semen from me in minutes!

By: delmoi

delmoi — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 20:51:03 -0800

This is the 21st century. Can't they clone 'em?

By: shavenwarthog

shavenwarthog — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 21:08:44 -0800

"dude, he's just not into you."

By: BrotherCaine

BrotherCaine — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 21:15:33 -0800

Dear Sveva, DTMFA. -Dan Savage

By: geos

geos — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 21:16:15 -0800

Herein lies a tale for our times: human degradation... So, uh, why do you want her picture?

By: Ryvar

Ryvar — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 21:17:08 -0800

This is the 21st century. Can't they clone 'em? This is something that has bothered me for a long time. Where is the charity that admits that because of human selfishness, the overwhelming majority of animal species are doomed, and spends 95% of all donated money towards gene sequencing various animal types in order from least to most likely to go extinct in the near future? It would be the one conservation charity that even a selfish bastard like myself would give to. I *KNOW* we're not going to stop raping the natural world, and I *KNOW* we're going to end up killing 90% of the species currently in existence, so let's start getting their genetics on file for the distant future . . .

By: geos

geos — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 21:18:23 -0800

Sveva Grigioni

By: taosbat

taosbat — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 21:26:22 -0800

"Lonesome George:" never did care much about nothing 'cept what he cared for in his reptilian mind...lived long.

By: Pope Guilty

Pope Guilty — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 21:35:49 -0800

"It's important to have a job that makes a difference, boys. That's why I manually masturbate caged animals for artificial insemination."

By: taosbat

taosbat — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 21:41:35 -0800

Lonesome George

By: George_Spiggott

George_Spiggott — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 21:49:53 -0800

National Lampoon, way back when it was a funny magazine instead of a brand you stamp on horribly unfunny movies in the hope of getting someone to go see it before the reviews come out, actually did a thing about getting tortoises to ejaculate. Although in their story it they did it by getting rabbits to, um, I'll just stop there. P.S. Let's take the 'eponysterical' comment re my moniker as regards this post as given, okay?

By: taosbat

taosbat — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 21:59:09 -0800

"It's important to have a job that makes a difference, boys. That's why I manually masturbate caged animals for artificial insemination." posted by Pope Guilty ...bull seamen for your tender steak...

By: ao4047

ao4047 — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 22:01:15 -0800

I felt like putting a bullet between the eyes of every ~~Panda~~ Galapagos tortoise that wouldn't screw to save its species.·

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 22:02:09 -0800

What's a Spiggott?

By: tellurian

tellurian — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 22:03:19 -0800

The Wired article describes her as 'comely'.

By: George_Spiggott

George_Spiggott — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 22:09:17 -0800

UbiRoivas, Twenty bucks, same as in town.

By: porpoise

porpoise — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 22:17:49 -0800

Steven C. Den Beste - Maybe George is gay... Are you saying that she should have tried heatbutting George a few times?

By: Slothrup

Slothrup — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 22:24:57 -0800

The Wired article describes her as 'comely' How does Wired know what a tortoise would find attractive? Never mind; I don't think I want to know.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 22:31:43 -0800

Twenty bucks?!?!? That had better be full service!

By: porpoise

porpoise — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 22:36:55 -0800

UbiRoivas - Twenty bucks?!?!? Full service is usually 2 or 3 c-notes. A handjob is anywhere from a 20 to a benjamin. Unless you're talking crack hoes. A hand job from a science chick? I'm thinking either protein and nucleic acids or far far more money than you're able to pay.

By: rob511

rob511 — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 23:00:38 -0800

Aesop for the New Millennium: The Tortoise and the Hairy Palm

By: buggzzee23

buggzzee23 — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 23:06:34 -0800

We've owned California Desert Tortoises since I was a kid and I still laugh whenever I come across a pair of them making little tortoises.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 00:38:24 -0800

A hand job from a science chick? I'm thinking either protein and nucleic acids or far far more money than you're able to pay. I think I'll go with the former method, rather than the cash, but would prefer to pay over many instalments, if that's possible.

By: bruce

bruce — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 01:15:15 -0800

maybe the article got it wrong. could be george isn't disinterested, he just has incredible stamina.

By: chuckdarwin

chuckdarwin — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 03:34:57 -0800

I'm reminded of the species extinction clock...

By: absalom

absalom — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 06:39:02 -0800

Now, THAT is what I call a grabber. . . and a pretty good intro statement, too!