hey that's super not what happened and this woman was a fucking brilliant scientist that the media absolutely tore apart for no reason
her name is Margaret Howe Lovatt, and when she was in her 20s, she was working in a linguistic study on dolphins funded by actual fucking NASA. the goal was to try and find out if dolphins could be trained to understand human speech and reproduce it. she knew that human infants acquire speech via constant environmental exposure, and so she elected to spend the study period cohabiting with the particular dolphin she happened to acquire, named Peter.
Peter was a six year old male, right in the middle of dolphin puberty, and he quickly imprinted romantically on Margaret as a potential mate. this is common with very intelligent animals who work closely with humans. you see it in birds and apes too; there are a LOT of people with pet birds who display at them.
Margaret had work to do: her time with this animal was intended for observation and preparing/giving language lessons. unfortunately, all this dolphin wanted was to mate with her, and he kept rubbing up on her of his own volition while she was trying to work with him. she didn't have access to female dolphins, and Peter was getting frustrated. so, to reduce his distraction and frustration, she would "deal with it" herself. she was a scientist ensuring her experiment could proceed smoothly, that was it.
the attitude in the tags above come from an article which appeared in the porn magazine "Hustler". it completely slandered this woman and her work, and soon the project lost its funding and the dolphins were relocated. Peter was taken from his "mate" (as he saw her) and relocated to a smaller tank in an unfamiliar place. he eventually committed suicide by intentionally drowning himself.
so yeah, no more of this on my watch. she deserved better.
