 |
 |
 |
 |
Q: When people say "Let's talk about the birds and the bees", I know what they're talking about. But why exactly do they say the birds and the bees?
Juliette
Dear Juliette:
No one really knows how this phrase became part of the English idiom, but experts think it has been around for at least a century. As you know, the expression is a euphemism, a way of referring to sexual reproduction without mentioning the word 'sex'. It is obviously a reference to sexual reproduction being part of the natural world, though why birds and bees were chosen is unclear. Perhaps the alliteration of the words--birds and bees--helped popularize the expression.
We can be certain the phrase is not of recent origin, because today, regrettably, there is no such hesitation in expressing human sexual relations in anything but the most explicit terms, often in a degrading fashion, and totally disconnected from their sacred origins.
God bless,
Father Norbert