Without even a break between Covid and the threat of World War III, we have an outbreak of Monkeypox, throwing the kybosh into everyone’s plans for a Post-Plague Orgy. Two days ago, I had never heard of the word. And I was too busy dealing with my own family’s fever dreams to pay any attention until a grotesque photo of someone’s erupted lesions appeared on Facebook. This is the monkey in question, a Rhesus monkey, used for neurology research, whose 1958 infection was first identified in a lab. We’re used to seeing them with a mechanical box affixed to the top of their brains. These brain scan boxes looked curiously like the Pillbox Hats that the “ladies” of Monty Python used to wear when they were having idiotic conversations about what inanimate objects could or couldn’t be cooked.
From what I can glean on Reddit, outbreaks seem to be associated with a music festival on Ibiza, a Fetish festival in Belgium, (where I imagine multiple people were trying on sweaty leather facemasks and bondage wear), and a sauna in Madrid, where the odd pustule might have exploded from the heat. It’s now managing to circle the globe, courtesy of a few dozen people who got their Post-Pandemic Orgy started prematurely.
If you’re wondering what the scars will look like after your monkey pox dies down, check out the polio/smallpox vaccine scars on the upper arms of people who were vaccinated before 1972. Then consider whether you want to put your orgy on hold for a few more months.