Gay animals | Psychology Today

Contents:

• GAY ANIMALS
• HOW DO THE FACT THAT THERE ARE GAY/HOMOSEXUAL ANIMALS IMPACT THE IA THAT HOMOSEXUALY IS A S?
• GAY ANIMALS WH THEIR HOMOSEXUAL NATURE
• 11 ANIMAL SPECI THAT PROVE BEG GAY IS NATURAL
• MALE LN CGHT “MATG” WH MALE LN… GAY PRI? NOT QUE
• CAN ANIMALS BE GAY?

GAY ANIMALS

*Note: We tentnally do not e terms such as “heterosexual” or “homosexual” to prevent any nflatn between human sexualy and nonhuman animal sexual behavrs. 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.

HOW DO THE FACT THAT THERE ARE GAY/HOMOSEXUAL ANIMALS IMPACT THE IA THAT HOMOSEXUALY IS A S?

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 WH THEIR HOMOSEXUAL NATURE

’ ” 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.

11 ANIMAL SPECI THAT PROVE BEG GAY IS NATURAL

”As most any Homo sapiens will tell you, sex that don’t brg about offsprg n still be worthwhile. 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.

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. Apart om "gay gen" humans, the ma evince that homosexualy is naturally selected is the fact that gay animals are so mon. The prevalence of homosexual pairgs among pengus is somethg of a puzzle.

MALE LN CGHT “MATG” WH MALE LN… GAY PRI? NOT QUE

Even if homosexualy were a sex-lked tra (see prev post) this cince would be unexpectedly high One of the more mon sex-lked tras, red-green lor bldns occurs about 8 percent of men which is far higher than most other leter gen. Homosexualy is fluenced by gen but n also occur when normal genr velopment go awry. Homosexualy n emerge due to perturbatns the hormonal environment of the womb for other speci also, humans clud.

Regardls of the particular blogil mechanism through which homosexualy aris, is a pervasive phenomenon the animal kgdom, a fact that discreds the mon argument that is "unnatural. " Acrdg to Joan Roughgarn, a trans-genred blogist who studied such phenomena, there is documented evince of homosexual behavr for some 450 different speci and undocumented reports for about another thoand speci (1). Among primat, perhaps the most pervasive, and most enthiastic exprsn of homosexualy is found amongst bonobos (a speci fairly closely related to mon chimpanze).

CAN ANIMALS BE GAY?

Bonobo antics provi a fairly pellg argument agast anyone who holds that homosexual behavr is "agast nature. Of urse, bonobos are not exclively homosexual, like some pengus, or humans.

In the last post, I argued that exclive homosexualy humans n be partly explaed terms of gen on the X-chromosome that crease reproductive succs for femal who rry them.

Evolutn of human homosexual behavr.