Gay Animals: Alternate Liftyl the Wild | Live Science

Contents:

• HOW COMMON ARE GAY ANIMALS?
• 11 ANIMAL SPECI THAT PROVE BEG GAY IS NATURAL
• GAY ANIMALS: ALTERNATE LIFTYL THE WILD
• GAY MOSW MOSW CY GUI
• GAY MOSW · CY GUI

HOW COMMON ARE GAY ANIMALS?

In fact, no speci has actually been monstrated to show no cince of homosexual behavur at all, apart om those that don’t actually have sex.

Over the past 20 years, a burst of rearch — driven part by a new generatn of scientists more acceptg of queerns — has shown signifint amounts of prevly unreported homosexual behavr throughout the animal kgdom, om flour beetl to gorillas.

While few animals are exclively “gay” or “lbian, ” an extraordary number, appears, engage some form of same-sex relatns.

11 ANIMAL SPECI THAT PROVE BEG GAY IS NATURAL

Christian theologians have long poted to the absence of animal homosexualy as evince that humans oughtn’t to be dog , eher.

Thirteenth-century philosopher and prit Thomas Aquas argued that homosexual behavr humans is wrong precisely bee don’t occur between animals.

Gee Murray Levick, the explorer who wrote about homosexual behavr Adélie pengus 1911, shield his observatns of pengu “pravy” om sual observers by rerdg them his field not g the Greek alphabet — and they were still cut om the official expedn reports. A proment mammalogist, Valeri Geist, uldn’t help but notice equent homosexual sex at his bighorn sheep field se the 1960s, but Geist avoid publishg those fdgs bee ma him “crge … to nceive of those magnificent beasts as ‘queers.

GAY ANIMALS: ALTERNATE LIFTYL THE WILD

’ ” Years later he relented, wrg that he eventually “admted that the rams lived sentially a homosexual society. The fact that a bird populatn wh many bond femal sharg a few mal between them would have higher reproductive output led historian and ornhologist Jared Diamond to dryly wonr whether “further study of homosexually paired female birds may help clarify what, if anythg, mal are good for — an evolutnary sense, of urse. ” In social animals, the logic go, absolute homosexualy would produce no offsprg, but absolute heterosexualy uld also be limg, as might make for an anism that is “poor at formg social allianc.

“The bisexual advantage mol, ” Savolaen nclus, “is perhaps the most nservative geic explanatn for the persistence of homosexual behavr. Therefore, aversn to homosexual sex would have had to specifilly arise over the history of life, which this team of rearchers fds unlikely, sce the opportuny st of same-sex sex is relatively low. The bonobo ap, for example, palize on the release of the bondg hormone oxytoc durg homosexual sex to strengthen the social allianc between femal.

(As one gay weekly newspaper joked, “Grdr has announced a new gay cisg app for dolphs, lled Flippr.

GAY MOSW MOSW CY GUI

Vasey and his team methodilly tted the var theori that have been proposed for the persistence of homosexual sex the monkeys: that the femal were exprsg domance; that they were barterg for parental re; that they were rencilg after a fight; or (my personal favore) that they were stagg sexual enunters to exce nearby mal, what I’d ll the “you wish, guys” theory of monkey lbianism.

Sodomy laws stayed on the books until 2003, when the Supreme Court led them unnstutnal — aid by an amic brief cg the rearch that had e out the meantime documentg homosexual activy among might have known about the sheer diversy of animal sexualy a long time ago if we, as a culture, had managed to lower our blrs. Rehgly, Alaimo not this began to shift wh the publitns of Bce Bagemihl’s Blogil Exuberance: Animal Homosexualy and Natural Diversy (1999) and Joan Roughgarn’s Evolutn’s Rabow: Diversy, Genr, and Sexualy Nature and People (2004). Bøckman was the amic advisor for "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.

GAY MOSW · CY GUI

Bonobos, one of our clost relativ, may be the most well-known homosexual animals.Killer whal, bottlenose dolphs, Wt Indian manate, and giraff are known to have all-male i. 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’?

A first-ever mm display, "Agast Nature?, " which opened last month at the Universy of Oslo's Natural History Mm Norway, prents 51 speci of animals exhibg homosexualy. "Homosexualy has been observed more than 1, 500 speci, and the phenomenon has been well scribed for 500 of them, " said Petter Bockman, project ordator of the ia, however, is rarely discsed the scientific muny and is often dismissed as unnatural bee don't appear to benef the larger e of speci ntuatn. Conversely, some argue that homosexual sex uld have a bigger natural e than jt pure ecstasy: namely evolutnary benefs.