Lbian albatross, gay giraff and some very open-md pengus. So, n animals really be gay? | Daily Mail Onle

Contents:

• LBIAN ALBATROSS AND GAY GIRAFF? THE SCIENCE ON SAME-SEX SEXUALY ANIMALS
• CAN ANIMALS BE GAY?
• CAN ANIMALS BE GAY?
• FROZEN PLA II VIEWERS ‘SOBBG’ OVER GAY ALBATROSS ROMANCE AFTER MALE IS REJECTED BY FEMALE
• LBIAN ALBATROSS, GAY GIRAFF AND SOME VERY OPEN-MD PENGUS. SO, N ANIMALS REALLY BE GAY?

LBIAN ALBATROSS AND GAY GIRAFF? THE SCIENCE ON SAME-SEX SEXUALY ANIMALS

“People always e up wh the argument that homosexualy is somehow agast nature. " a 2006 exhibn at the Norwegian Natural History Mm of the Universy of Oslo that ed mols, photos, texts, and specimens (like the swans to the right) to rm visors about a small selectn of "gay" animals.

Scientists have observed homosexual behavr hundreds of animal speci, om sects to sheep. Bonobos, one of our clost relativ, may be the most well-known homosexual whal, bottlenose dolphs, Wt Indian manate, and giraff are known to have all-male i. Homosexualy is most wispread among animals wh a plex herd life.

CAN ANIMALS BE GAY?

Homosexualy also plays a social role among other male animals, such as big horn sheep and lns. But rearchers have no ia what the advantage is, if any, of homosexual behavr among dragonfli, srab beetl, or, as observed at least once, two male octop of different speci. “This lony is lerally the largt proportn of — I don’t know what the rrect term is: ‘homosexual animals’?

Wh most speci, homosexual sex has been documented only sporadilly, and there appear to be few s of dividual animals who engage exclively. ” But the journal that published the paper, Blogy Letters, sent out a prs release a few days after the California Supreme Court legalized gay marriage. A Denver-based publitn for gay parents weled any and all new rears om “the extensive lbian albatross parent muny.

CAN ANIMALS BE GAY?

” A gay rights advote e-mailed Young, askg her to fly a rabow flag above each female-female nt, to intify them and show solidary. In 1999, Bagemihl published “Blogil Exuberance, ” a book that pulled together a lossal amount of prev piecemeal rearch and showed how blogists’ bias had margalized animal homosexualy for the last 150 years — sometim nocently enough, sometim an eptn of anthropomorphic disgt.

” Homosexual sex between ostrich was terpreted by one scientist as “a nuisance” that “go on and on. Homosexualy is a tough se, bee appears to vlate that central te, that all of sexual behavr is about reproductn. Given this big umbrella of theory, the very existence of homosexual behavr animals n feel a ltle like imperable nonsense, somethg a rearcher uld spend years bangg his or her head agast the wall liberatg.

The difficulty of that challenge, more than any implic or explic homophobia, may be why past blogists skirted the THE LAST DECADE, however, Pl Vasey and others have begun velopg new hypoth based on actual, prolonged observatn of different animals, cipherg the ways given homosexual behavrs may have evolved and the evolutnary role they might play wh the ntext of dividual speci. So far, the only real ncln this relatively small body of lerature seems to pot to, llectively, is a kd of flatg, meta-ncln: a sgle explanatn of homosexual behavr animals may not be possible, bee thkg of “homosexual behavr animals” as a sgle scientific subject might not make much sense.

FROZEN PLA II VIEWERS ‘SOBBG’ OVER GAY ALBATROSS ROMANCE AFTER MALE IS REJECTED BY FEMALE

My take on is that homosexual behavr is not a uniform phenomenon.

But that shouldn’t trick to thkg that homosexual behavr has some equivalent, anizg purpose — that the two are tidy oppos. “All this homosexual behavr isn’t tied together by that sort of primary functn, ” Vasey said. But we’re quick to nceive of that great range of activi the way most handily tracks to our anthropomorphic pot of view: put crassly, all those different animals jt seem to be dog gay sex stuff wh one another.

”Somethg siar may be happeng wh what we perceive to be homosexual sex an array of animal speci: we may be groupg together a big grab bag of behavrs based on only a superficial siary. The Stanford blogist Joan Roughgarn told me to thk of all the animals as “multaskg” wh their private ’s also possible that some homosexual behavrs don’t provi a nventnal evolutnary advantage; but neher do they upend everythg we know about blogy. As Z put , “There’s a lot of slop the system — which, ” she was sure to add, “is not the same as sayg homosexualy is a mistake.

LBIAN ALBATROSS, GAY GIRAFF AND SOME VERY OPEN-MD PENGUS. SO, N ANIMALS REALLY BE GAY?

Homosexual activy is often observed animal populatns wh a shortage of one sex — the wild but more equently at zoos.