I assume you mean: > He suggested that perhaps the male was responding to female preference—wink-wink, nudge-nudge—but hadn’t bothered to actually examine the

I assume you mean: > He suggested that perhaps the male was responding to female preference—wink-wink, nudge-nudge—but hadn’t bothered to actually examine the female. I think "wink-wink nudge-nudge" is an unfair characterisation of someone's motivation to dissect duck genitals. It's a statement about evolutionary pressure, not a bawdy joke.