#GoBonobos in 2017: Year of the Cock! Photo: Abe Bonobo. Banner: Zane Bono

by Dr. Susan Block

With my faith in humankind shattered into so much confetti on both sides of the aisle, all sides of the perma-wars and deep inside “the stacks” of my fake-news-battered hippocampus, I look toward humanity’s kissing cousins, the “make-love-not–war,” female-empowered bonobos for inspiration to lift off and take on 2017.

I’m getting a late start on the New Year’s resolution blogging wagon this year. By now, many of my more get-up-and-go colleagues have already churned out at least 8 great resolutions (go listicles!), and broken half of them. But between barely emerging from a week-long hangover after throwing the “Best NYE Party Evah”—featuring more A-listers than Trump’s Inaugural—and getting sick like I’d eaten the Golden Soup at Trump’s Grill, I am in no YUGE hurry to even face the marching music of 2K17, let alone resolve to live up to any ideals about it.

After all, the ideal is the enemy of the real. The new Gilded Age featuring the big adult-baby Trump leading a “populist” parade of Republican Fat Cats, whose only goal is to get fatter, is the BIGLIEST reality snow-job ever sold. Sure, the Democrats are no saints, but I’ll take secret consensual blow-jobs over über-plutocratic snow-jobs any day.

But real, ideal or abso-fucking-lutely surreal, I’ve decided to make the same resolution—with a few timely tweaks—that I’ve made for the last couple of years: Go Bonobos in the New Year.

I didn’t break it in 2016 nor 2015, and I don’t intend to break it in this “Brave New Year,” though the projected multi-choice (and anti-choice) horror show of 2017 may break me into even smaller, possibly radioactive shreds of that confetti sprinkled with golden showers and sprayed with Eau de Success.

Happy Year of the Cock

At least, I’m ahead of the Chinese new year which seems to have 2017 pegged (so to speak). It’s the Year of the Rooster—aka the Cock—and, as those of you who know me know, I love cock!

Squawking, tweeting Trump Rooster rules over Chinese Mall for 2017

However, this particular barnyard foul is a nasty, narcissistic, sexist, screeching, preening, cockle-doodle-doo-ing and yes, tweeting bird whose agent orange feathers are rather easily ruffled. Moreover, he is so terrified he’ll be hen-pecked by a sexy female, he “grabs ‘em by the pussy” by way of conversation.

In honor of the New Year, a Chinese shopping mall with a wicked sense of humor has erected a giant snow white sculpture with beady little black eyes, short gesticulating wings, bushy gold eyebrows and a large golden crest that looks just like a certain President-Elect crossed with a Peking duck.

If only American pollsters had consulted a Chinese astrologer instead of believing the “fake news” of pre-Election Day voters’ preferences, we might have been better prepared for the Year of the Dickheads—I mean, Cock. Ready or not, these chickens are coming home to roost.

 “‘I’d rather have a Black man inside my white wife than inside my White House.’”

Choking on a holiday turkey wing, I learned that some of my own friends here in Greater Bonoboville (not on-campus!) actually acted out their perverse quasi-erotic fantasy to punch the Trump ticket and punch it hard, so now they’re celebrating the impending Trumpocalypse; or they would be if us libtard snowflakes weren’t actively melting into rain on their parade. They didn’t dare tell me this before, so why would they tell a pollster? It was their guilty little secret rebellion against “authority” in support of a morally and psychiatrically questionable, but unquestionably watchable entertainer they didn’t think would actually win… not realizing how many other Trumpers were lying to the pollsters like they were. Now that the big Cockle-doodle-doo is to be coronated King of the Cocks, they’re giddily confessing that yes, they voted for him, and now they want my forgiveness and congratulations, or at least some more champagne. All this in the true-blue state of California.

Cuckservatives, Cuckolds & Comrades

Then there are my sex therapy clients. Most live in deep red states like Alabama and Montana, so they’re “Trump-Trump-Trumping” all the way down the road to wherever; no forgiveness necessary. It’s often the case that those who are most repressed—and proud of it!—tend to be most in need of sex therapy. Mindful of their shame, appreciative of their passions and grateful for the opportunity to better understand their world, I try my best to counsel them according to their needs, sometimes attempting to gently nudge them toward a more “liberal” and “bonoboësque” view of themselves and others. Some are surprisingly open, at least in the strict privacy of a sex therapy session.

Others not so much, though their desires often betray them. It’s funny how some Trump Bros call conservatives who aren’t right-wing enough “cuckservatives.” Meanwhile, many of these same fellows tell me they’re wearing pink panties under their open-carry holsters, while secretly fantasizing about being cuckolded by well-endowed African-American men. Not that they really want this to happen (well, not always), but sometimes it’s the only fantasy that gets them aroused enough to have sex with their wives.

As porn-viewing stats can also attest, the myth of the Mandingo is alive and well in Trumpville (and not just on Ivanka’s wish list). One put it this way: “I’d rather have a Black man inside my white wife than inside my White House.” Naturally, these nice, polite but very sexually repressed cuckoo-birds (no, they’re not nuts, but “cuckold” does come from the same root as the bird) need to talk to a blue-state therapist like me about their jumbled poli-erotic feelings that they certainly can’t divulge to their regular therapist, psychiatrist, priest or mega-church minister, let alone their “white wives.”

Meanwhile, my lefty comrades and social media “friends” parry and flounder in a dizzy tizzy, panicking, weeping, coughing, analyzing, pointing fingers at each other, casting blame, making “resistance” listicles (I confess, I made one), cracking hollow jokes (I do that too), finding Russians in the toilet and shouting into the wind. Where hath our revolution gone? Or is it now their revolution?

As for the center? The center has “gone fishing.” Some call it a political disconnect, a retreat from “the new rudeness” or a “psychotic break.” My own disconnect isn’t that severe… or is it? How libtarded am I? Honestly, I can’t tell the revolutionaries from the reactionaries, the terrorists from the freedom fighters, the fascists from the populists, the neoliberals from the neoconservatives, Breitbart from Buttbart, Russian hackers from Russian hookers, the piss from the PEEOTUS, the facts from the lies, nor, in some cases, my friends from weird world-destroyers who jump out of their jack-in-the-boxes and leer at me like piassed off and laid-off Ringling Bros circus clowns.

Weimar LA?

The Trumpers want me to celebrate—at gunpoint.  It’s true that I will take almost any excuse to celebrate, but please take your gun out of my face.

The anti-Trumpers want me to stop celebrating, certainly to stop having fun or making fun of Trumpty Dumpty’s teeny weinie, since they say that not taking him seriously is what got us into this heap of trouble… kind of like the swinging sex workers of Weimar Berlin.

Hitler Youth burning the books of the Hirschfeld Institute in Weimar Berlin

I adore studying the history of that great city of erotic commerce and sex education during the Roaring Twenties in Germany, and I even emulate some of its culture, such as the amazing Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld Institute where people from all over the world openly discussed, explored and yes, celebrated different sexualities and fetishes. It was also one of the first educational centers ransacked by the Hitler Youth in 1933. When you see newsreels of Nazi book burnings, they are probably firing up the hundreds of sex, psychology, art and science books that were in Dr. Hirschfeld’s library. Many of his staff were sent to camps or killed outright. Hirschfeld himself, the “Einstein of Sex,” fled to the South of France, dying just a couple years later of a heart attack, i.e., a broken heart.

Go Bonobos for Female Empowerment

So, what’s an ethical hedonist to do? With most of my fellow humans having lost their marbles or their spark, I look to the wisdom of the bonobos.  

Kalli and I have a chat about the erotic conflict resolution. Photo: Abe

If you believe in the scientific truth of genetics and evolution (something we can’t take for granted with Trump’s pick for Secretary of Education, Amway heiress Betsy DeVos (poised to deliver the U.S. educational system over to the church, temple and mosque), bonobos (along with common chimpanzees) are humanity’s closest great ape relatives.

But unlike those rather murderous common chimps, us really murderous humans and all the other somewhat murderous Great Apes, bonobos have found a way to get along without murder or its community-produced counterpart, war. That doesn’t mean bonobos don’t have conflicts. They do, and sometimes they fight and hurt each other, like we do. They just don’t kill each other, like we do. They appear to utilize good consensual sex, physical affection, compassionate inclusion and the sharing of resources to actively and consistently defuse violent tensions before they go lethal.

As of this writing, no bonobo has ever been seen killing another bonobo. Theoretically, I suppose, humans could teach bonobos to kill, just as we’ve taught them to use tools and communicate with us through sign language and computer graphics. Hopefully before humans teach bonobos to kill, bonobos will teach us to “go bonobos” in various ways, including making peace through pleasure.

“If a bonobo male… is so bold as to nonconsensually ‘pussy-grab’ even the lowliest female, her lady friends will jump on him.”

Yes, it sounds like a pipedream, especially in this Year of the Yellow-Stained Dickhead. Yet more and more humans appear to be learning, preaching and practicing what I call “The Bonobo Way,” even if most don’t know bonobos from bananas. Whatever you call it, this peace through pleasure movement is critical to resisting the looming Trumpocalypse with our nuke-loving, bigotry-baiting, hot-tempered twitter-king’s short finger on the red button.

Female empowerment is essential to the Bonobo Way of peace through pleasure…. as opposed to Trump’s rather Orwellian motto of “peace through strength” (which he pilfered from his more congenial progenitor, Ronald Reagan). Bonobo males share power with the females, generally “letting” the ladies get first dibs on food and leading group activities on a day-to-day basis. Thus, in addition to murder being non-existent, rape is rare in Bonoboville. If a bonobo male, even the alpha, is so bold as to nonconsensually “pussy-grab” even the lowliest female, her lady friends will jump on him. This is all the more extraordinary because a typical bonobo male could easily overpower any one of these females if she were alone, but together the gals can take control of the would-be pussy-grabber. They won’t kill the naughty male, but like a platoon of pro-Dommes, they will teach him a lesson he’ll remember the next time he feels that urge to attack a juicy, bright pink vulva without enthusiastic consent.

Therefore, in this Year of the Pissy-Feathered Cockerel, I resolve to spread the word of the “FemDom” bonobos. Various anti-feminist movements, from old-time religion to Trump-pumped nativism and so-called “gender realism,” say that it’s natural for men to rule over women. The idea here is that feminism goes against nature. That’s true among some primates, like common chimps. Primatologist Jane Goodall famously compared the Trumpster to a common chimp alpha male stomping, throwing rocks and displaying his dominance to gain the fearful respect of the group.

The Year of the Pissy-Feathered Cockerel

However, bonobos—who are at least as close to humans as common chimps (some say closer)—show us that female power, backed up with erotic female solidarity, is perfectly natural, as well as good for the greater community. This is not just true for the females, but also for the males who tend to look and act more youthful longer than their stressed out common chimp counterparts. It may even be natural to humans.

Until Trump’s “win,” American society seemed headed in the direction of gender and sexual equality (at least to some of us fake-news-informed libtards) with a woman poised to be “on top” of our socio-political structure. Instead, we get a “backlash” that feels more like a drunk bully’s belt on the back of his battered wife.

For instance, one up-front Trump/Republican goal is to put a justice on the Supreme Court against a woman’s right to choose the course of her own reproductive life. Just six months ago, the Supreme Court ruled 5-3 that Texas, Wisconsin and Mississippi cannot restrict the delivery of abortion services to women in need. What if, next time, they go the other way: to back alley abortions and more unwanted children whose moms won’t even be able to get food stamps in Trump’s America? Thus, I resolve to #GoBonobos in 2017 to protest, obstruct and peacefully resist the anti-female forces that would plunge American women and those who love us back into the Dark Ages.  

In this endeavor, we ladies, and there are many Trump supporters among us, would do well to resist our “inner common chimp” that makes us toxically jealous of each other, leaving each individual woman to her fate. This is the social milieu of common chimps, where females are often abused and raped by males, as their fellow females ignore them, seemingly glad they are not the ones being attacked. If you’re a bonobo female, your gal pals have your back. Not that one always need side with the woman in a conflict; even bonobos aren’t that dogmatic. However, female solidarity is just one of many lessons we can learn from the wisdom of the bonobos.

Joyous hoka-hoka between female bonobos helps to resolve a conflict at the San Diego Zoo. Photo: Author

By the way, one vital reason that these bonobo females are so supportive of each other is that they have sex together, at least as often as they have sex with the guys. Primatologists call bonobo female/female sex “genito-genital rubbing,” though I prefer the term “hoka-hoka,” coined by the Mongandu people native to the bonobos’ natural habitat in the African rainforest of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). I’m not saying that we humans need to have more gal/gal sex (though maybe I am!), but I will say that it’s good for the future of peace that bisexuality (at least, admitting to it) is on the rise.

Both male and female bonobos show us that being “gay” or bisexual is as natural and good for the health and well-being of the individual and the community as being straight. Again, I don’t mean that everybody has to come out of the closet; unless someone is being harmed, our right to sexual privacy should be respected, especially in our sex-shaming human communities. I do mean that harsh repression of same-sex desires, as seems to have been the case for the Pulse Nightclub shooter, appears to be a breeding ground for violence.

Another Year of the Cock resolution: Don’t take sexual freedom for granted, and don’t let any of it be taken away from us without a fight. #GoBonobos for female solidarity against the anti-female Trump/Republican agenda.

Trumpers or Humpers, Most of Us Are Going Bonobos Anyway

Trump, ISIS, the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC), the Prison-Industrial Complex (PIC) and the fear-fanning mainstream media (MSM) have turned our natural fear of strangers into the world’s biggest business: the Terror Business. But are all strangers so terrible?

Bonobos reveal why the “stranger,” though somewhat scary, can also be exciting. Studies show that bonobos will share food and sex with strangers at least as generously as they will with friends, often more so. Could humans develop a similar inclination toward sharing and the “joy of giving” that our greed and fear-stoking civilizations tend to repress, along with our natural sexual diversity?

The Big Tent bigotry-based “alt-right” and the plutocrat parade, now taking full possession of our executive and legislative branches, would much prefer that We the People be suspicious, jealous and scared of each other (like common chimps), than liberal, generous, curious and horny like bonobos. Yet, statistics show that humans, including human Americans, are going bonobos anyway. If we can believe the math (math isn’t all fake news now too, is it?), 44.2% of American millennials are minorities, making it a more diverse generation than ever before. Even those crazy noxious neo-Nazis can’t seem to keep themselves white. The famous photo that includes Tila Tequila (herself half-Vietnamese) throwing the Sieg Heil, or “Roman Salute,” just after the “Heil Trump” rally at the Ronald Reagan Center also includes a half-Jewish guy. So much for “racial purity.”

As I noted in 1998, slowly but surely, we are achieving integration through sex. It’s one reproductive result of the Bonobo Way among humans. So-called “opposites” attract quite often, and when they “make a baby”—voila—integration is achieved. It’s how our outgoing President’s life was conceived.

The Bonobo Way at Professor SerenaGaia’s first Ecosexuality Symposium in the Caribbean, University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez. 2016. Photo: Max

Yes indeed, love might bring us together, if we give peace, through pleasure, a chance. It’s not just about reproduction, either. Thanks to increasing open-mindedness, LGBTQ people can get married throughout the land. Marijuana is legal in some form in more than half of the states in the U.S. Most college campuses across the country have been desegregated. I was personally impressed by the vibrant  “ecosexual” diversity I saw when visiting college campuses in 2016, while giving the keynote for the symposium convened by Ecosexuality leader Dr. SerenaGaia Anderlini D’Onofrio at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, as well as other talks at UC Berkeley, the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT) and DomCon LA. Trump’s popularity is, in part, a reaction to all this ecosexy, bonoboësque, communitarian activity on college campuses, sustainable communes and in convention centers from LA to San Juan.

In these places and many more, America is becoming more inclusive, blue-values-loving and socially accepting of diverse beliefs and ideas, as well as races, genders and sexualities. In a way, many of us have been getting farther away from our violent, intolerant, patriarchal common chimp side and more in touch with our “inner bonobo.” For various reasons, many of these folks didn’t vote Democratic in all three Houses. But as of this writing, most Americans (61 percent) don’t want a border wall, no matter who pays for it. Most Americans support some gun control. Most Americans (some 70%) believe climate change is real, not a “Chinese hoax”… though 2017 being the Year of the Cock does seem like a cruel Chinese joke.

Electoral Dysfunction

Moreover, most Americans didn’t vote for Trump! Only 26.8% of eligible American voters voted for him. As is now common knowledge (except to the Donald himself), he lost the popular vote to Hillary by almost three million votes; maybe more, especially if you consider the Republicans’ nefarious “crosscheck” system. That’s three million votes that didn’t count in our crazy-cocked system of electoral dysfunction.

Because I happen to live in the great blue state of California, my own proudly cast vote was one of those that didn’t count.  Three cheers and a piss-beer for American democracy.

In another clear case of American electoral dysfunction 16 years ago, Al Gore won the popular vote, but the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia unilaterally handed over the presidency to one George W. Bush, the super-bumbler, Iraq invader, perma-war-starter and born-again recession-maker, often rated the country’s “worst president.” Trump *won* by far fewer popular votes than Bush, and some say he will make dumbo Dubya look like a “paragon of statesmanship.”

“Bromance between male tribal leaders… “penis-fencing” and “ball-rubbing” or just giving each other a kiss.”

Resolving to abolish the electoral college might be the hardest of my #GoBonobos resolutions to keep since I (and many others) will probably lose our collective “hard-on” for it once the election has become an afterthought. After all, what did anyone do after Gore gave up, besides obsessively finger hanging chads?

Nevertheless, I resolve to #GoBonobos to push this utterly undemocratic and unbonobo relic of slavery into the annals of American history where it belongs. The annals, and the delightfully anal folks who keep track of this stuff, will love it!

And speaking of annals and anals, you can bet that many non-billionaire Trumpsters’ butts will be very sore after his “unpresidented” Presidency bends them over and inserts his policies (minus lube).

Keep Slut-Shaming Out of Resistance

Many liberals mock and decry the “bromance” between Trump and Putin. But is it really such an unequivocally bad thing? After all, we don’t want to go to war with Russia, do we? They still have some nukes, after all.

Putin-Trump Brormance mural created by artist Mindaugas Bonanuin in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Bromance between male tribal leaders is actually quite bonobo. One way that feuding bonobo males make peace-through-pleasure, often with the encouragement of the females, is through “penis-fencing” and “ball-rubbing” or just giving each other a kiss.

If somebody ever releases photos of Trump and Putin together—with or without those hot Russian “girls of loose morals… undoubtedly the best in the world” showering them in the Presidential bed—I might even give it the Bonobo Way seal of approval.

Of course, to gain true bonobo cred, the Putin-Trump bromance can’t involve Trump taking dictator dictation from Putin, nor ganging up with Russia (the other white meat) on China or Cuba. Also, when bromances—like any romances—go bad, upset lovers can go nuclear. That could be a big problem. And then there’s the piss-and-blackmail factor. Therefore, though I will be on the alert for toxic side effects, I will not #GoBonobos against Putin/Trump love. And I can’t wait to see the porn parody.

I will also not #GoBonobos against Trump’s solemn vow to provide healthcare “insurance for everybody,” and make the drug companies negotiate prices with the government.  In fact, I’ll #GoBonobos for Trump’s lofty promise especially as Congressional Republicans are going bananas trying to figure out a replacement for Obamacare that satisfies their Big Pharma and insurance company paymasters.

Don’t slut-shame Melania!

As long as we’re talking about the (very small) handful of Drumpf stuff not worth damning, please let’s not slut-shame Melania Trump for being an erotic model or sex worker before she scored the big Donald JOHN Trump. I personally find Melania’s body-revealing photos more fun and less worrisome than Trump’s beloved daughter’s recent photos that show a lot more conflict of interest than cleavage.

I might #GoBonobos against Melania for choosing “bullying” as her First Lady Cause, unless she takes on the quintessential bully-in-chief who sleeps beside her in that golden bed. But I won’t slut-shame Mrs. Trump, and if they come forth with a sex video, hallelujah! Maybe it’ll rile up the Religious Right, though they’ve soldiered through Russian piss and pussy-grabbing, so that’s doubtful.

#GoBonobos for #NoDAPL, #NoProp60 & #NoWarOnPorn

There is so much to #GoBonobos against in 2017, especially regarding this more and more impeachable Big Bird constantly trying to shake his feathers of lawsuits, financial improprieties and most of the nation’s disdain. However, it’s also important to support the positive. A literal standout in this regard is the Standing Rock, North Dakota protest spearheaded by the brave and bonoboësque Native American Water Protectors and their supporters fighting for all of our rights to clean water and clean air. Standing head and shoulders above most of us in this sorry past year for politics, their strong peace-through-pleasure stand against corporate greed and pollution is a beacon of light in a rather dark 2016. And now it’s lighting up 2017. #GoBonobos for #NoDAPL!

Unfortunately, even though Trump sold his shares in the Dakota Pipeline to Energy Transfer Partners, he is still determined to push it, as well as another high-profile pipeline project, Transcanada’s Keystone XL, through to completion. Furthermore, despite a showy meeting with Al Gore, he seems intent upon significantly cutting back the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), evident in his choice of Exxon buddy Scott Pruitt, who strongly opposes the EPA (having sued it numerous times) for EPA director. He also wants to sue or fine climate change “alarmists.” In this anti-environment environment, never has it been more important to #GoBonobos for climate change science and the EPA.

#NoProp60 on DrSuzy.Tv with Carmen, Julia Ann, Dr. Susan Block, Siouxsie Q James, Loni Legend. Photo: Jux Lii

I also resolve to #GoBonobos for sexual freedom. During the Year of the mischievous Monkey that brought us Trump and a Republican Congress, we achieved a small but powerful sex-positive miracle here in California.  

We the People of the erotic entertainment and sex education fields defeated Prop 60, the draconian, sex-repressive brainchild of Michael Weinstein, AIDS Healthcare Foundation CEO and wannabe California Sex Czar. Pretending to “protect” adult performers by requiring that they wear condoms, Prop 60 actually would have forced them to either leave the state, go underground or don the equivalent of hazmat suits while having sex, even if they were a married, monogamous couple. Moreover, even if said monogamous couple—or any other adult performers—had abided by all of Prop 60’s ridiculous rules, the initiative would still have put them at risk for getting sued by cranky neighbors, disgruntled former spouses or anyone else with their panties in a twist. Essentially, Prop 60 would have incentivized any California resident (that includes your neighbor who hates your dog, your ex-lover, or your ex-lover’s lover who just hates you) to file a lawsuit against any adult worker (that could be you if you record yourself engaged in sex and post it online), if a condom was not visible in an adult film, and reap 25% of the settlement plus legal fees. If it had passed, Weinstein’s Frankenstein would have stirred up a monsoon of pointless finger-pointing that would have drenched California in a sea of frivolous lawsuits, soaking taxpayers and drowning the court system, all while lining the pockets of lawyers and, most especially, one megalomaniacal Mr. Michael Weinstein who would have, incidentally, gotten himself a taxpayer-funded job to monitor porn; like most anti-porn crusaders, he is probably a closeted porn fan. Bottom line: suing porn stars and overburdening the courts does not lead to less HIV.

The polls predicted that Prop 60 would win. With loads of cash, including almost $6 million of non-profit funds, mostly raised from donations to AHF made by donors intending to help people with HIV, Weinstein ran loads of expensive commercials obfuscating its real intent, misleading voters into thinking they were helping make the porn industry safer.

Woohoo! We beat wannabe Cali Sex Czar Michael Weinstein. Photo: Sarah Bella

This is why many of us in the sexuality field, led by the Free Speech Coalition (with just $350,000 in cash, and another $200,000 in in-kind donations), made exceptional grassroots efforts to educate voters in every way we could, revealing the true toxic contents of Prop 60’s wolf in sheep’s clothing, aka harassment sheathed in a very leaky condom. We worked our sex-loving butts off, we had a lot of fun and, miracle of miracles, we won! Unfortunately, too many of us were shocked and depressed by Trump’s surprise victory to do much celebrating. But we look forward to continuing to advance our sexual rights in California and the rest of America.

Speaking of which, during the election, the Republican platform declared a War on Porn that rivals the War on Terror, calling legal pornography, which includes real sex education, a “public health crisis” and a “public menace.” The platform also opposes “policies that encourage cohabitation,” supports crackpot “gay conversion therapy” and seeks to turn back the clock on marriage equality.

Even if the Tweeter with the Urine-Colored Cockscomb is impeached for any number of good reasons, his much slicker, ultraconservative Christian Veep Mike Pence will carry on this Crusade with a vengeance. I wonder what type of porn he prefers…

“Bonobos show us that peace,
good consensual sex,
female empowerment and inclusivity are
not ‘libtard’ pipedreams, but
integral to our primal nature.”

So, we have a lot to #GoBonobos against in 2017 to prevent our fate from matching that of the good sexologists and erotic entertainers of Weimar Berlin.

Nevertheless, I’m trying not to fulfill Godwin’s law and call Mr. Drumpf a “Nazi” until his goons start shooting people or setting up camps. However, the Orange One has already called America “Nazi Germany” for the CIA “leaking… fake news,” so we’re well beyond Godwin’s law.

#GoBonobos to Save the Bonobos

Year of the Cock or Year of the Glock, I resolve to make 2017 the third Year of the Bonobo, continuing to do what I can to help save these highly endangered, very close cousins of ours from extinction due to the devastating effects of human war, deforestation, mining and, especially, poaching. Since you’ve read this far, I hope you’re encouraged to join me in helping to save them too—through donations, spreading the word or whatever way you can.

One inspirational bonobo life-saver who needs our support is my old friend, Sally Coxe (no relation to that Year of the You-Know-What). For several years, her award-winning organization, the Bonobo Conservation Initiative (BCI), has been developing the Bonobo Peace Forest in the bonobos’ only native habitat, deep within the jungle of the DRC, in the world’s second largest rainforest. Supporting the villagers who live in the bonobos’ area, BCI provides food, medical care, school supplies and jobs protecting their precious and vulnerable wild bonobo populations from the unscrupulous or tragically ignorant poachers who would murder them.

Sally, BCI and the Congolese villagers are doing an amazing job, but bonobos (and other endangered species) continue to be hunted and killed as “bushmeat” that is then served and eaten in restaurants. Since endangered species barbeque is technically illegal, it is “off the menu,” but still very much available.

In the age of Trump, whose sons, Don, Jr. and Eric, have been shown grinning viciously with their “exotic” carcasses of leopards and elephants (either murdered by them or by hired guides on safaris), bonobo bushmeat may soon be back “on the menu,” if those of us who care are not vigilant.

Don, Jr. and Eric Trump kill endangered species for fun.

When a poacher’s murder victim is the mother of a baby bonobo clinging to her breast or a toddler riding on her back, the hunter often captures the young ones and tries to sell them as pets. This is also illegal and, fortunately, not as easy to do as selling bushmeat. Thus, many of these little orphans are taken to a bonobo “refugee” sanctuary outside Kinshasa called Lola ya Bonobo (Bonobo Paradise) operated by another friend, the savior of the bonobos, Claudine André.

For many years, my husband Max and I supported Lola with small $20-per-month donations allowing us to “adopt” various orphans to help them recover from physical wounds and psychological trauma, grow and sometimes get released back to the wild. In 2015-16, thanks to Bonobo Way reader, feminist, environmentalist and philanthropist Malcolm Jones and his generous investment, along with the endorsement of the women of the Bonobo Way Female Empowerment Outreach Project (also funded by Mal), we are proud to say we were able to donate $1500 to Lola ya Bonobo, $500 to BCI, another 20 $100 bills to Women of Greater Bonoboville, to further their personal projects and goals, and put another $2000 toward travel expenses to spread the word at various academic symposiums and professional conferences as well as on the Internet.

Mal’s philanthropy also supports the good works of over a dozen politically and environmentally active women, including bonobo primatologist, Dr. Amy Parish; Bonobo Handshake author, Vanessa Woods; and Betty Abbah’s Girls-Go-for-Greatness (Triple G) program in Makoko, Nigeria’s biggest slum. Together, the girls and women of Triple G, along with some very bonoboësque men, made a critically acclaimed documentary about the debilitating effects of “Child Marriage in Nigeria.”

There is so much to #GoBonobos for and against in this Year of the Cock—and Bull; such an overwhelming pile of crap, piss and bile emanating from our crowing new leader and his flapping flock of billionaires and bigots. But we all have our special causes, and mine is saving the bonobos who are so close to us and can teach us so much. Bonobos show us that peace, good consensual sex, female empowerment and inclusivity are not just “libtard” pipedreams, but integral to our primal nature, perhaps even to our primitive, pre-agricultural, hunter-gatherer, “fierce egalitarian” past, a part of our primate heritage with which the bonobos never lost touch. Can we open up that part of ourselves and release our inner bonobo… before it’s too late?  I don’t know, but I do know that in order to do that, we have to keep the real bonobos alive. That’s my resolution anyway, and the resolution, as well as the revolution—and the resistance—start with me.  And you.

Muzzling Trump on DrSuzy.Tv. Photo: Jux Lii

#GoBonobos in 2017! Time to take on the Year of the Cock!

#GoBonobos in 2017: Happy Year of the Cock!” picked up by COUNTERPUNCH

Thanks for editorial support: Alex Obed, Del Rey Bonobo, Max Lobkowicz

© January 17, 2017. Susan Block, Ph.D., a.k.a. “Dr. Suzy,” is a world renowned LA sex therapist, author of The Bonobo Way: The Evolution of Peace through Pleasure and horny housewife, occasionally seen on HBO and other channels. Watch The Dr. Susan Block Show live every Saturday night from Bonoboville. For information, call 310-568-0066.