# The birds and the bees...
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-birds-and-the-bees/2626
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 18, 1999, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-birds-and-the-bees/2626 "1999-08-18T04:38:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Rasputin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rasputin)
#### Post date: [August 18, 1999, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-birds-and-the-bees/2626/1 "1999-08-18T04:38:00Z")
Why are these 2 animals used to describe it? I don’t think of them as especially representative of it, or even nature as a whole (bees?). Any thoughts?
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“Give a man a match and he’ll be warm for an hour… Set him on fire and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.”
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### Author:  [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)
#### Post date: [August 18, 1999, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-birds-and-the-bees/2626/2 "1999-08-18T04:41:00Z")
It’s probably cause it is an alleration of two animals that fly.
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### Author:  [@Babar714](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babar714)
#### Post date: [August 18, 1999, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-birds-and-the-bees/2626/3 "1999-08-18T04:44:00Z")
I prefer the ‘beast with two backs’.
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### Author:  [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)
#### Post date: [August 18, 1999, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-birds-and-the-bees/2626/4 "1999-08-18T04:46:00Z")
When a young child begins to ask questions about where babies come from, adults are likely to search for simple, innocent ways to explain the idea of reproduction. With young children, detailed descriptions of the penis and the vagina are excessive, so adults may resort to describing how the bees pollinate flowers to make new plants. Or they may point to how mommy and daddy birds make nests together and take care of baby birds together.
Those simple, childish examples eventually came to symbolize the first sex-talk that little children receive.
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### Author:  [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)
#### Post date: [August 18, 1999, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-birds-and-the-bees/2626/5 "1999-08-18T04:47:00Z")
A better question: Is there even a story about the “birds and the bees” or is it just a metaphor in title? Like is the whole act explained using graphic metaphors about these fornicating animals, or is it just a catch all that describes any “sex talk” between parents and kids? If there is a story what the hell is it?
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### Author:  [@NanoByte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NanoByte)
#### Post date: [August 18, 1999, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-birds-and-the-bees/2626/6 "1999-08-18T04:50:00Z")
Are you old enough to hear it?
Ray
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### Author:  [@Pooch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pooch)
#### Post date: [August 18, 1999, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-birds-and-the-bees/2626/7 "1999-08-18T06:05:00Z")
You can’t handle the truth!
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### Author:  [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)
#### Post date: [August 18, 1999, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-birds-and-the-bees/2626/8 "1999-08-18T13:14:00Z")
It’s not very effective with kids. I told my son how the bird, with his feet all laden with pollen, flits from flower to flower so that the flowers can lay eggs which produce baby bees. He gave me a look of incredulity.
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### Author:  [@PTVroman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PTVroman)
#### Post date: [August 18, 1999, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-birds-and-the-bees/2626/9 "1999-08-18T13:40:00Z")
Anyone else here ever read “Uncle Shelby’s ABZ book”? One of the pages shows a stork. “Now, the stork might be a birdy, and the stork might be a fishy. The stork has a beek and wings, just like a birdy. But the stork brings babys from heaven to good mommies and daddys. Doesn’t that sound a little fishy to you?”
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_“The large print givith, and the small print taketh away.”_
Tom Waites, “Step Right Up”
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### Author:  [@Alphagene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alphagene)
#### Post date: [August 18, 1999, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-birds-and-the-bees/2626/10 "1999-08-18T19:32:00Z")
Reminds me of the perpetually drunk stork that would deliver the wrong babies to people in old WB cartoons. Haven’t seen those in a while.
“When did public intoxication stop being funny?” --Crow, MST3K