I left my Wailord and Dedenne in the daycare yesterday for about an hour while I was training my other pokemon and when i went to pick them up, the man at the daycare said they had an egg? How did this happen? The daycare man said he doesn’t know how it got there so I thought maybe you had an explanation or a theory. Is there something he isnt telling?

Well, anonymous, when a male pokémon and a female pokémon in the same “egg group”—or collection of species that can, for some reason as of yet fully understood by scientists, crossbreed—love each other very much, the male and female will mate. This is a multi-step process that differs from species to species, so I can’t entirely form a generalized statement as to how the first steps work. Some pokémon begin the mating process with a dance; others simply … get right into it.

However, once the initial stages of mating are complete, the mating cycle begins to undergo a rather uniform process. It begin with the female forming the interior of the egg in her ovary, then coating this egg with a calcium-based shell in her uterus. This entire leg of the journey may last only a couple of hours from the end of a successful mating ritual. During this time, the male (or, in some cases, both partners) will begin work on a nest using whatever materials are available at the time.

After the egg and nest are complete, then you have the copulation stage. In this stage, the male will mount the female and deposit sperm in her cloacal folds via what’s known to biologists as a “cloacal kiss.” In cases where the female is much smaller than the male (such as in the case of a wailord male and dedenne female), this is achieved by having the female carefully tuck herself under the male. The male will typically give the female enough room to breathe, but it still is a risk to the female’s life and not a process that scientists recommend for the well-being of the pokémon. Conversely, in the cases of a female that is much larger than her mate (such as in the case of a wailord female and dedenne male), the female simply rolls over and allows the male to access her cloaca from above.

Once fertilized, the female will proceed to lay the egg and incubate it until it’s retrieved.

As a note, although in the Kingdom Animalia, copulation among egg-laying creatures only needs to happen once, as females may retain sperm in their cloacal folds for multiple fertilization instances, in Kingdom Pokémonae, the sperm will typically be spent after one use, which means the act of breeding—including the practice of breeding for specimens ideal for battling (which tends to be a popular practice among trainers)—will require multiple copulation sessions in order to produce multiple fertilized eggs.

In short, your wailord and dedenne [CENSORED]

I got through an entire article about the copulation habits of pokémon, and you censor that? —Bill

Well, yes, up until your summary, your article was purely scientific. Now you’re just asking for angry letters from parents. —LH

What is your opinion on Human/Pokémon relationships (meaning romantic and.. everything that comes with it)?

Well, considering the fact that it’s both illegal and taboo within virtually every country and culture on this planet, I don’t particularly condone it.

However, I do admit it’s a subject that deserves more discussion than that.

To play devil’s advocate, one of the issues brought up against poképhilia is the idea that pokémon can’t truly give consent. While this is true for many of the more animalistic pokémon, humanoid pokémon and those that possess superior intelligence such as jynx, alakazam, froslass, and so forth are all perfectly capable of comprehending the human concepts of love, sexuality, and communication and can therefore actually give consent if they wanted to.

That having been said, on the other hand, there are several unfortunate implications involved with such a relationship, including and mainly the fact that you technically do own your pokémon. I don’t particularly like to phrase it as such, but the human-pokémon relationship is that of master and pet. Thus, although a pokémon can clearly give a form of consent, it’s questionable as to whether it actually is full consent or instead a byproduct of that default relationship, as instilled by the poké ball.

Furthermore, pokémon possess far different concepts of love and sexuality for themselves than humans do. It should be kept in mind that as sapient and intelligent some pokémon seem to be, they are still of a different species and culture than our own. Thus, while some pokémon may understand what love and sexuality is to us, how that applies to them is completely different.

Lastly, there are simply biological differences. Many pokémon, such as alakazam actually, possess powers that could very well kill a human if the user loses control (such as during moments of excitement). And even then, even if a pokémon seems like it would be completely safe to have … a relationship with, some pokémon actually possess rather dangerous organs with which to mate. For example, did you know that a male golduck possesses a corkscrew [CENSORED] that is capable of [CENSORED] at possibly the highest velocity for [CENSORED—REALLY BILL?!]?

In short, in my personal opinion, it’s best to maintain a strictly platonic relationship with a pokémon. This is the best way to ensure that both sides are happy and that the human, at the end of the day, does not end up dead.