2013-01-17
Explanation
This comic satirizes the way intellectuals sometimes use scientific knowledge as a roundabout mating strategy. A red-haired woman with glasses approaches a man and announces she'''d like to discuss how biological science makes her find human mating behavior dull. She then acknowledges the paradox: by having this very conversation, she is encoding her intelligence and status, thus demonstrating her quality as a mate. She coins the term "metamating" for this -- using a display of intellectual superiority about mating as itself a form of mating behavior.
When the man asks if she is actually going to follow through on the discussion, she says there is no need. Her previous statements about mating and metamating already contained signals of her desirability as both a mate and a "metamate," making any further demonstration redundant. The joke is that each meta-level of analysis she adds is itself another layer of the very behavior she claims to be above -- a recursive trap of self-aware courtship.
She then asks if he wants to "hyper-metamate," escalating to yet another prefix level. The man cuts through all the intellectual pretense by asking "would that still involve boobs?" When she confirms it would, he simply says "okay then" -- revealing that despite all the layers of meta-analysis, the basic biological motivation remains unchanged. The votey has the man asking whether any of those prefixes denoted sodomy, adding one more bluntly physical question that further punctures the intellectual posturing.