How whales make love (November 2012)

We men walk upright.

To begin, we look up at the blue sky above us, standing as straight as possible. Then we put one foot in front of the other, then the other, then the other, and so on, indefinitely. This is our way of reaching our goal - that is, if we have set one. Sometimes we walk around in a haphazard way, carefree and happy.

In the end, it doesn't matter. The movement is the same. One foot in front of the other, standing. Never forget that.

For the big whales, it is different. They face the waves by plunging their fins into them. They undulate in the infinite ocean, tickled by the swirls of water, all over their skin.

Unlike us, they do not have to put one foot in front of the other all the time. Thanks to their caudal fins, they go where they want, and their gigantic bodies describe magnificent curves. When a whale propels itself forward, it is not by putting two tiny feet in front of the rest of its body, but by splitting the water with its enormous head. Whales lie down when they move, don't forget that either. When humans make love, they prefer to lie down too. This way they can look at their beloved, probe her deep, unacknowledged thoughts, unravel her secrets. When humans touch each other, their hands are no longer used to move them forward, but only for contact with each other. And if all goes well, when they make love, sometimes their union is beyond them. This is important, you should not forget it either.

On the other hand, two whales during a love encounter do not lie down. The human eye can see them from several kilometers away. Two gigantic creatures that rise to the surface of the water, come up against each other, a jet of wet air projected out of their lungs in a thunderous splash. It is a tribute to desire. So the whales make love standing up. They cannot look at each other during the act, because their eyes are placed on each side of their huge dripping head facing backwards. They are unable to raise them towards the sky studded with small shiny spots, nor to probe the other one to reveal its secrets, nor to tenderly hold it in their fins. But their passion is so great that it makes hundreds of tons of flesh vibrate.

We, human-beings who only weigh a few tens of kilos, have a hard time imagining the colossal, the immense, the immeasurable desire of the whale. How to imagine the intensity of this union. And when these marine giants finally separate, they sink heavily into the frozen sea, fulfilled, submissive, sliding in their element. The whales are reborn by sinking into the abyss.