For us single parents, or any parent for that matter, it's always difficult to find TV or movies that we can share with the little ones. Between Nick at Night and the PBS stations, there is actually a fair amount of good stuff on TV for the kids (and good for us too). One of my favorites is The Learning Channel, which is chock full of educational stuff.

Admittedly, as fascinating as this subject may be, a disproportionate amount of time is spent studying the subject of procreation. At one time, in order to understand this miracle of life, you had to live on a farm to watch various animals procreate (probably when your parents weren't around). But now, thanks to educational TV, anyone can get a birds eye view, or a mosquitos eye view, or for that matter, a hippopotamus's eye view of nature at work.

Mind you, I am not a prude. Animals procreating in nature is natural, not sexual. But the other day, Jessica and I watched a special on the mating habits of elephants. Big, big, elephants. I don't know exactly why they chose elephants to demonstrate this point. But here they are showing this huge bull elephant, in a very 'excited' state, chasing a female elephant. Then we have the British narrator, who is so droll he can announce Armageddon and still sound removed, talking about the bull elephant's over 4' long penis, that has it's own muscles, so it doesn't drag on the ground to get scraped or trampled. Gee, my daughter's whole body is only 4'-2" long. Is she scared watching this?

But now, The Learning Channel is no longer happy just documenting the mating habits of mosquitos and elephants. Baboons and pygmy chimps are not good enough any more. Even the dreaded female black widow spider, (the poster insect of the Women's movement), who eats the male spider after he impregnates her, is now old hat. Now the subject matter to entertain us is us'. We watch we'. The viewer is now the viewed.

The subject of human sexuality and the how, what, why, when, and where of it, is now very popular. It seems like almost everyone is spending a lot of effort studying this subject (except for me). Anyway, with the help of fiber optics, the scientists are getting into places far too intimate for the typical camera, and televising them in great detail. I believe their goal is to try and demonstrate how social behavior is often dictated by instinctual and physiological behavior. A lot of this is to try and quell one of the longest running debates on human sexuality: whether humans are instinctively monogamous or not.

And guess what they have found. If there are women who think men are possessive by nature, you'll love this. KILLER SPERM. No, Captain Ahab, I don't mean the whale. I mean we (men) really have killer sperm. A sperm is NOT a sperm is NOT a sperm, but THREE kinds of sperm. Numero uno sperm is what we used to think of as regular ole' sperm, the kind that swims upstream looking for an egg to fertilize. Now we know there is a sperm number two, who is the blocker' sperm. This sperm can't swim at all. So what is his job? He just wraps his tail around his head, and in the best tribute to Vince Lombardi, simply becomes a blocker, protecting the queens tomb (womb?) from other visitors. And now we also know about sperm #3, a very special if not somewhat nasty little evolutionary creature, that we have discovered to be killer' sperm. His job?, to search out and destroy other 'foreign' sperm in the neighborhood. And just what is 'foreign' sperm and where did it come from? Any of you girls out there know? Now we come to the heart of the matter.

Sperm #2 and #3, Blocker' and 'Killer' sperm have one evolutionary job, which is to discourage the next guy. In other words, we guys in our infinite wisdom are biologically prepared for you gals to have a little trouble making up your minds (Yes, that trait goes way back). And, depending on the specific lady we are with, it has been found that we can sub-consciously control the amount of killer sperm we produce, depending on how faithful we think the lady is. So we not only try and impregnate you, we also leave little booby traps around for the next guy. That's how badly we want you to have our baby. So the evolutionary lesson in this:

1) Women have been changing their minds about the men they want since the beginning of time.

2) Men are not as dumb as we act or appear.

3) Men are territorial in nature, and have killer sperm' to prove it.

Any of this stuff ever happen to you. Gotta go. Something is swimming under the microscope.