All right, I know, it’s a fake cephalopod and the picture is mostly taken up with some chordate…but I couldn’t resist.
Uh-oh. People have often sent me strange photos like this; apparently, cephalopod porn can get you arrested in the UK.
The charge involving the sea creature states the image was of someone “performing an act of intercourse with a dead animal, namely an octopus/squid, which was grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character”.
Yeah, it is kind of disgusting to see poor cephalopods tormented with the weird, creepy anatomy of vertebrates. It’s also offensive to see that the Swansea police can’t tell the difference between squid and octopus.
But why should we have laws that regulate on the basis of feelings of disgust? As long as no one is harmed, this is the kind of act that ought to be regarded as inappropriate anywhere but in the privacy of one’s home. They have some ridiculous charge that the pictures showed situations which could lead to “serious injury to a person’s breasts” or genitals, except that it also says the cephalopods were dead. It sounds like a silly law to enforce some people’s squeamishness, not to protect the public.
I’d also recommend looking up the work of Hokusai, Teraoka, or Saeki (but not if you live in England! That could land you in jail). Erotic art with cephalopods has a long history.
The story also says, though, that the guy had “indecent photos of children”, which is something that can cause harm, if true. It’s fair to go after that, but it’s another situation where one man’s indecency is another man’s family photos of kids playing in the bathtub. I’d have to know more details about the photos before condemning anyone.
Weep with me.
You know, the rotten little crunchy, jointed thing wouldn’t have stood a chance if he’d been fighting within his own weight-class. I found this video on a blog called Arthropoda — a clearly biased advocacy site for violence on molluscs by the world’s dominant, bullying metazoans.
Here’s what happens when the odds aren’t stacked against the cephalopod.
Although…notice the bit near the end where the narrator refers to “a mere invertebrate”? I think that guy at Arthropoda and I would team up to thump him for that.
For some reason, Grimpoteuthis always makes me think of Wimpy.
(via Frozenly, which also has a number of other photos of weird creatures found in the Mariana Trench)
I’m going to dope myself up and flop into bed so I can get over this slimy cold — and speaking of slimy cold, here are some deep sea creatures to tide you over for a bit.
I guess that giant platter of cheese called Megashark vs. Giant Octopus was not enough — now the SyFy Channel has commissioned a new project, Sharktopus. I don’t want to know any more.
The worst part is…yes, I will watch it.
It’s a bit sad looking, but it really is an 8.2 meter long giant squid preserved in a tank at the Darwin Centre in London, with various other bottled specimens in the background…including some that were collected and labeled by Charlie Darwin himself.
