Have you ever seen minks f**, er ah, engaged in coitus?

Well, I haven't.

But I was referred to as someone who should have some expertise on the sexual proclivities of minks.

It happened at a holiday party.  A young couple who had  been invited and expected hadn't shown up.  Someone asked if anyone knew where they were.  Someone else answered that they would probably be late or not show up at all because they spent most of their time fucking like minks. 

A young man whose critical facilities had been enhanced by Christmas glogg said, why do people say that?  Just how do minks fuck?

Someone related to me said, ask Dr. Newquist.  I was referred to as an authority because I read, write, and speak Old English, Middle English, and contemporary English, along with some other earthy languages and, therefore, know lots of dirty words.  And their origins.  I also was a seasonal naturalist for Game, Fish, and Parks and interpreted wildlife for visitors to a couple of parks.  People presumed that I would know about minkdom and its linguistic emanations.  It was also known that as a naturalist, I was a student of scat to some degree.  You can tell a lot about wildlife from where they drop their droppings and what they contain.  Students often said Dr. Newquist knows shit. 

Minks

My only encounter with minks in the wild occurred late one afternoon when I was returning home from work at the parks and was traveling across the Richmond Lake causeway.  A mother mink and her babies were crossing the road.  I stopped and got out of my truck to watch them and hold up the other traffic.  Other cars stopped and their occupants got out and gathered to watch the procession.

At first the mother, a beautiful sable colored specimen, was in the lead.  But like young ones of all species, they found many distractions that attracted their curiosity and interest.  They tended to veer off to look at the spectators, remnants of things on the road, and to generally inspect their environment.  The mother had to drop back and, like a Border Collie with sheep, herd them in line and keep them moving.  The humans who had gathered around were oohing and aahing and wishing aloud that they had their cameras.  The mother eventually got the young across the road and into the water and they paddled away into the rushes, out of sight.

That is my one encounter with minks in the wild.  It consisted of no fucking, but provided fairly convincing evidence that minks do.
 

A minx. 

My experience as a naturalist provided no clue as to the origin of that saying.  So when I got home I began to peruse old textbooks on folklore and google around the Web.  I encountered a conundrum.  Mind you, not a condom.  A conundrum,  Originally, the  saying had nothing to do with those prize fur-bearers.  It applied to a  minx, which is an aggressively flirtatious and seductive woman.  Apparently it was assumed that a woman who worked her wiles on a  male with such enthusiasm would demonstrate the same enthusiasm, energy, and alacrity in the follow-through.  The saying was that "she fucks like a minx."  Through the same grammatical twist to which I had fallen victim all these years, "minx" had been heard as "minks," and most of us thought two creatures were involved, not just one minx.  So we said "they fuck like minks," not "she fucks like a minx."

I am glad that at my advanced age, I got that straightened out. It is worthy of a scholarly paper.  But I belong to no scholarly organizations who would want it.  The language would embarrass them and they'd say Newquist knows shit.

I do like the minks concept better than the minx, however.  In this cyber age, it is more interactive.