Just on a Sunday Morning Sex Tour

I was just plugging away at work one day, when a Mail alert popped up on my screen with the subject, "Valentine's Day Sex Tour"!

Slightly embarrassed, in my shared cubicle, I immediately shut the alert. Then I checked my mail, hoping my manager wasn't peeping over my shoulder at this oddly lewd subject in my mail inbox.

No, it wasn't spam; it was a confirmation forwarded from my boyfriend, for our reservation at the annually sold-out Valentine event at the San Francisco Zoo!

I wasn't sure what to expect, but luckily it wasn't live animal porn. We showed up at the zoo at 10am Sunday morning, to find a crowd of bundled up couples (mostly older, as you have to be 21+ to go on this tour).

Everyone wore a heart sticker and got on the sex tram (not to be confused with the more innocent choo-choo train ride alternative). Todd and I sat in front, right behind the tour guide, an eccentric older lady. She had a raspy low voice and big crazy sunglasses. An attractive gay male couple showed up late and sat next to the exuberant tour guide, who greets them with "Why hel-LO, boyyys!"

As we started to roll off, passing parents with their little angels in strollers, our tour guide rambled about how she prefers to call vaginas "pooters" and the varieties of genitalia in the animal kingdom. She assured us that they send other zoo folks in another car ahead of us to warn innocent families of the lewd-mobile approaching them.

And then I realize how quintessentially San Franciscan this little adventure is.

I don't want to give too much away, so that you can enjoy this trip yourself some day, but here are some highlights:

She tells us of a story on how a baby giraffe has to fall several feet when it's born. So when they had a pregnant giraffe, the zookeepers lined the giraffe space with cushioning to catch the baby when it falls out. But when the baby came out, it was blue and not breathing! Apparently it needs to hit the ground hard to get a good push to breathe! So the zookeepers had to rush in and start whacking the baby on the floor to get it breathing.

The origin of this tour began years ago, when this penguin zookeeper noticed that the penguins tend to hang out as couples right around Valentine's Day. Since then, on Valentine's Day, they play Johnny Mathis and litter Valentine hearts all over the penguin space, which the penguins then carry around to adorn their love nests.

They have a group of emperor monkeys, who have long crazy white mustaches that resemble wise old kung fu teachers in movies.


The tour guide adoringly shows us a millipede and admires how it has 2 penises that actually also function as legs.

We see a chimpanzee angrily swing his arms side-to-side, anime-style, and then fling poo, which nearly hits our tour guide.

At the end of the tour, there is a pop quiz, for which you get a prize for answering any questions correctly. One of the questions was, "What animal, once it loses a testicle, cannot have intercourse for 15 days?" At which a woman yells out, "My boyfriend!" The referenced boyfriend promptly hid his face under his jacket. Ahh, romance. The tour guide gave the couple a prize out of pity.

After all is done, you don't get a real meal, but there is a "mashed potato bar" and champagne, mimosas, and various chocolates and sweets. On your way out, they hand you sour pucker candy lips and a beanie animal as a souvenir of your sordid little animal sex tour.