Monday, December 1, 2008

Remember Koko the Gorilla? She's been up to No Good.


Remember Koko? The gorilla that learned signed language, had a pet cat, and loved Mr. Rogers? Well I do. I was reading an article this morning about Manx cats and remembered Koko's cat All Ball. Turns out All Ball escaped from Koko's cage and was hit by a car. But Koko got more cats. My curiousity about what happened to Koko led me to her wiki page where I learned about All Ball's fate. At the bottom of the wiki page I found this:

Sexual harassment

Koko has been involved in a number of sexual harassment lawsuits.[10] At least three former female employees have claimed that they were pressured into showing their breasts to Koko. They alleged that Patterson encouraged the behavior, often interpreted Koko's signs as requests for nipple display, and let them know that their job would be in danger if they "did not indulge Koko's nipple fetish." Koko has been known to playfully grab both male and female nipples without warning or provocation. Patterson claims that Koko uses the word "nipple" to refer to humans.[11]

All claims of harassment have been permanently dropped as of November 21, 2005 after the foundation and the parties involved reached a settlement.[12]

Jody Weiner, Koko's lawyer, writes about Koko and sexual harassment in the book Kinship With Animals.[13]


Koko the Mr Rogers loving, cat petting, sign language speaking gorilla is apparently also Koko the titty twisting, sexual harassing ape. I confirmed this report with the ever credible CourtTV website. Koko thinks you're all a bunch of nipples.

2 comments:

Mr. Trione said...

What a smart animal. Very impressive. It would have been nice to have been able to hang out with such a character in high school.

Unknown said...

Wow that's sick. =/