2013-03-10
Explanation
In this comic, a grandfather tells his grandson "Okay son, it's time to talk about the birds and the bees!" -- the traditional euphemism for explaining sex to children. However, instead of using birds and bees as a metaphor for human reproduction, the grandfather proceeds to talk about actual birds and bees in a way that sounds suspiciously sexual. He explains that bees have "big old stingers" that are "all they care about," that they are "constantly trying to sting the birds," and that "the birds act like they don't want it, but ohhhhh do they want it! They want it over and over." He adds that the bee "can only go once, and he's spent." When the grandson says "Grampa, it's okay, I already know about sex," the grandfather indignantly replies "Who was talking about sex?!"
The joke inverts the traditional "birds and bees" talk by having the grandfather genuinely and exclusively discuss entomology and ornithology, while using language that sounds unmistakably like sexual innuendo. The descriptions of stingers, repeated stinging, and being "spent" after one go all map perfectly onto sexual metaphors, but the grandfather insists he's being literal. The real biological detail that male honeybees (drones) die after mating -- they literally can only "go once" -- adds a layer of accuracy to the double entendre. The punchline reveals that the grandfather is either completely oblivious to the innuendo in his own words, or is a master troll who genuinely just wanted to talk about animal behavior.