Can animals be gay? | Disver Wildlife

Contents:

• FLIPPER CLEARED! DOLPHS ARE NOT GAY OR BISEXUAL RAPISTS AFTER ALL
• MORE GAY DOLPHS OBSERVED OFF COAST OF WTERN ATRALIA
• 11 ANIMAL SPECI THAT PROVE BEG GAY IS NATURAL
• CAN ANIMALS BE GAY?
• CAN ANIMALS BE GAY?

FLIPPER CLEARED! DOLPHS ARE NOT GAY OR BISEXUAL RAPISTS AFTER ALL

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. 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.

MORE GAY DOLPHS OBSERVED OFF COAST OF WTERN ATRALIA

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.

11 ANIMAL SPECI THAT PROVE BEG GAY IS NATURAL

” 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. 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. 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. Zoologists are disverg that homosexual and bisexual activy is not unknown wh the animal kgdom.Roy and Silo, two male chstrap pengus at New York's Central Park Zoo have been separable for six years now. There are male ostrich that only urt their own genr, and pairs of male flamgos that mate, build nts, and even raise foster chicks.Filmmakers recently went search of homosexual wild animals as part of a Natnal Geographic Ultimate Explorer documentary about the female's role the matg game.

CAN ANIMALS BE GAY?

ET, 5 p.m PT on MSNBC TV.)The team ught female Japane maqu engaged timate acts which, if observed humans, would be the X-rated tegory."The homosexual behavr that go on is pletely bafflg and trigug," says Natnal Geographic Ultimate Explorer rrponnt, Mireya Mayor. "You would have thought femal that want to be mated, pecially over their fertile perd, would be seekg out mal."Well, perhaps, a roundabout way, they are seekg mal, suggts primatologist Amy Parish.She argu that female maqu may enhance their social posn through homosexual timacy which turn fluenc breedg succs. The fact that homosexualy do, after all, exist the natural world is bound to be ed agast people who sist such behavr is unnatural.In the U.S., particular, the moral bate over this issue rag on.

And only this month, Print Bh vowed to ntue his bid to ban gay marriag after the Senate blocked the proposal.Already, s of animal homosexualy have been ced succsful urt s brought agast stat like Texas, where gay sex was, until recently, illegal.Yet scientists say we should be wary of referrg to animals when nsirg what's acceptable human society.

For stance, fantici, as practiced by lns and many other animals, isn't somethg people, gay or straight, generally approve of humans.Human HomosexualySo how far n we go g animals to help unrstand human homosexualy? "The bottom le is that anythg that happens other primat, and particularly other ap, is likely to have strong evolutnary ntuy wh what happens humans," he said.Dunbar says the bonobo's e of homosexual activy for social bondg is a possible example, addg, "One of the ma arguments for human homosexual behavr is that helps bond male groups together, particularly where a group of dividuals are pennt on each other, as they might be huntg or warfare."For stance, the Spartans, ancient Greece, enuraged homosexualy among their ele troops.

CAN ANIMALS BE GAY?

"They had the not unreasonable belief that dividuals would stick by and make all efforts to rcue other dividuals if they had a lover relatnship," Dunbar add.Another suggtn is that homosexualy is a velopmental phase people go through. Off the back of this, there's the possibily you n get dividuals locked to this phase for the rt of their liv as a rult of the social environment they grow up ."But he adds that homosexualy don't necsarily have to have a functn.

However, as Dunbar adms, there's a long way to go before the of homosexualy humans are fully unrstood.He said, "Nobody's really vtigated this issue thoroughly, bee 's so polilly sensive. Exampl: bisexual and exclively gay dolphs (MSN); male dolphs are bisexual, US scientists claim (Atralia's News Ltd); and male bottlenose dolphs engage extensive bisexualy (ZeeNews, India) reports appear to be follow-ups to an article on that said male bottlenose dolphs engaged extensive bisexualy, bed wh perds of exclive allegatn was clud Disvery's otherwise reasonable acunt of an amic study to the behavur of 120 or so adult dolphs Wtern Atralia led by Profsor Richard Connor om the Universy of Massachetts and Dr Bill Sherw of the Universy of New South the gay-bisexual-rapist dolph story turns out to be bunkum. Nicholson add that homosexual behavr appears to play a role the velopment of social bonds between mal, helpg them to tablish domance and Mann, who has studied dolphs at Shark Bay for s, says another possible reason is for mal to practice matg.