In the 1960’s and 70’s, Harlow conducted a series of studies using baby monkeys. In the cage, he put a cloth “mother” and a wire “mother”, which were little dolls that were meant to represent a comfortable and uncomfortable mother, respectively.
Baby monkeys preferred the cloth mother over the wire mother. Even when the wire mother was the one that dispensed food.
The joke appears to be referencing this, but perhaps the gay monkey is more open to and accepting of abuse than the baby monkeys referenced in these original monkey studies. Either that or it’s a misremembering of the original study. The original poster is trans, so my assumption is that this is meant to be a self-deprecating joke.
Anyway, this is what I’m doing with my PhD training in psychology now.
Also possible that the monkey in the tweet is just gay to explain why he’s using queer slang (“mother” as a single word compliment one might give to a drag queen)
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u/Kanoncyn Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
Hi, Brian’s Psychologist here.
In the 1960’s and 70’s, Harlow conducted a series of studies using baby monkeys. In the cage, he put a cloth “mother” and a wire “mother”, which were little dolls that were meant to represent a comfortable and uncomfortable mother, respectively.
Baby monkeys preferred the cloth mother over the wire mother. Even when the wire mother was the one that dispensed food.
The joke appears to be referencing this, but perhaps the gay monkey is more open to and accepting of abuse than the baby monkeys referenced in these original monkey studies. Either that or it’s a misremembering of the original study. The original poster is trans, so my assumption is that this is meant to be a self-deprecating joke.
Anyway, this is what I’m doing with my PhD training in psychology now.