Homosexuality in nature
 

Someone posted recently that homosexuality exists in nature. Does anyone know of any specific examples? First thing I thought of was a seahorse, but that's just the male carrying the babies.

Anyone else?

I've read that when the duck population gets too large, male ducks start mating with male ducks; however I can't find a link.

I googled, however, and found several links to articles re: homosexulity in nature. Here is one that was a quick easy read and has several other links embedded in it.
http://www.salon.com/it/feature/1999...5featurea.html

Penguins. There's a pair of male penguins at a zoo (I THINK it's the national zoo, but don't quote me on that) that are obviously homosexual. In fact, they do everything, including raising an orphaned chick, together.

Most of the higher primates have been observed engaging in homosexual activity.

It's a lot more common than most people think, and it makes the "they chose to be homosexual" argument that much more stupid - after all if we're going to say that homosexuality is a choice then we have to admit that animals have much greater intelligence than we have previously given them credit for ;)

The thing about this is that in that animal world sexual behavior towards an animal of the same sex is more often then not a show of dominance.

dogs... my dog is a female and she use to hump my cousins female dog all the time... i always thought that was very strange.

animals just dont care about wut they are humping as long as they are humping somthing.

Oddly enough...I know some guys like that :D

Yeah, it's pretty common. Really it's kind of ridiculous to be so pick though...I mean, it just so happens that MOST organisms are asexual.

And it's not always a show of dominence....I'm pretty sure you just said that because it sounded good. The penguins someone else mentioned, for example, do everything a normal penguin pair would do.

There are groups of chimpanzees who will basically perform every type of sexual act people will do and are largely bisexual.

In the case of dogs, humping is most definitely a dominance display. Explain, otherwise, why a female dog would hump? That motion and activity has nothing to do with a female dog's sexuality. Female dogs (and, for that matter, neutered male dogs) hump other dogs to assert dominence.

I'm not saying homosexuality doesn't occur in non-human species, just that dog humping isn't an example of it.

Oh, wait... i thought this thread was about "outdoor gay sex." Sorry.

Kidding. I've heard the theory as well, but can't back it up with documentation as such.

I posted this a few days ago.

Link in the post is to NY Times.

Gay penguins thread:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...threadid=44943

I have two bitches that munched carpet when they were little. (And shoes, and bones, and anything else they could put in their mouth.)

My female daschshunds also occasionally lick each other's personal areas, but I don't think it's sexual.

First, you have to discriminate between two different aspects of homosexuality. One is what people (or animals) are, and the other is what people (or animals) do. Do you define homosexuality as a pattern of behaviors, or an internal desire for the same sex. For instance, prisoners who rape other prisoners of the same sex are not usually considered fully homosexual by many people because when they are free, they prefer to have sex with women. So, if we see that animals have sex with other animals of the same sex, we cannot be sure if they are truly homosexual or they just happen to engage in homosexual acts. Also, humans are one of the three or so animal species that sometimes have sex without the intent of reproduction. For animals that only have sex for reproduction, sexuality is irrelevant because they are just humpin to make babies.

I still don't see what the point is even if homosexuality does occur in certain animal behavior ?

It still is enacted by a minority of even primitive minded animals.


Some dogs eat their own feces to try and cover their tracks.
Animals kill each other in the natural food chain.
Certain monkeys resort to cannibalism.

What is my point ?

My point is that even though it may be found in nature that certainly doesn't make it normal or acceptable behavior.
I don't believe making comparisons of primitive animal behavior to humans is a good example. Most animals have little capability of reason or thought. They usually just act on their primitive instincts.

But even then............it's still rarely found even in animals.

This is the fuckin' strangest thread ever.

Primitive minded animals. What does that mean?


Very true. Inferring what "ought to be" from what "is" in nature is called the naturalistic fallacy. "Well, it's natural. So, it must be (morally) right" makes no sense. Of course, it doesn't make it morally wrong either.

What is a "primitive instinct"? I'm not sure that I would say that animals have "little capability of reason or thought." Findings in comparative psychology have revealed that animal cognition is far more complex than we had once thought.

I'm not sure what "rarely" means, but homosexuality has been documented in more than 450 species of mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, and other animals .

Biological Exuberance : Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity by Bruce Bagemihl (Author) provides a good overview of the research

Female monkeys are often bisexual they often rub up to one another before mating with a man

I don't know if this applies, really, but male dolphins will rape (yes, rape) other male dolphins- I believe it's scientifically viewed as a punishment if one member of a pod breaks the "law" (so to speak).

And I know of the penguins and chimpanzees....

And additionally, humans are part of nature (we've just built ourselves shelter and comfort from it), homosexuality in our own particular species is not a condition, but a natural phenomenom.

I just read what I wrote earlier and it is really fucked up sounding.

I know, change a few words and you have a cynical, yet strangely accurate statement about football players.

Yes, and we humans, who pride ourselves so in our capacity for "reason or thought," use that higher intelligence to get so wrapped up in the private activities of people who have nothing to do with us and who have no effect on us that we persecute them mercilessly for daring to be a little different from us.

Who's more evolved now?

The reason why it's interesting that homosexuality occurs in animal species besides humans is that it strengthens the argument that homosexuality is a biological rather than a purely social phenomenon. This sorta sucks the wind out of the sails for those who would argue that sexual preference is a "choice."

The chimps that have been alluded to in previous posts are the Bonobos. They share sex as a greeting, a gift, a conflict defuser.
Surprise, the are bi, and the the culture is matriarical. :)

I don't know about that since there are obviously social constructs in the animal kingdom as well.

I don't know whether homosexual tendencies are biological but I certainly believe that some people choose to be gay rather than it being hardwired into them. I'm not saying everyone makes a choice, but there are people who do.

I think it's ironic that there are so many who argue that humans fall outside of nature (free will, high level cognitive thought, etc) rather than are a part of it and yet many of these same people go back to "nature" to support other theories.

I realize that we are skewing a bit off topic, but onetime2 I'm curious if any gay person has ever said to you in earnest that they chose their sexual orientation. I'm 39 and I've known single and coupled gay people for 25 years and not one of them have ever said to me that they chose their orientation. That's not conclusive, of course, but I find it hard to believe that I chose my orientation, or that anyone I know has. I think that some bisexual friends of mine went AC/DC for a while in college, etc., and eventually settled with a partner (some same-sex, some not), but that partner was the choice, not the bisexual orientation.

Natural selection would likely minimize the incidence of homosexual orientation in the animal kingdom, but genetics throws curveballs at all creatures, and I think that the behavior simply makes itself extinct in any non-reasoning creature.

There are countless motivations for people to adopt a certain lifestyle or culture without being "programmed" for it. Certainly the gay culture is more accepting of different personalities and expressions of those personalities than the "straight" culture and this could be one motivation. In different terms, if a gay man (or woman) can "act" straight for days, weeks, years, decades, or lifetimes why does the same not hold true for the reverse?

Female benobo monkeys will rub their genitalia together for pleasure. I also saw a show that had a section about a pair of male swans that had nested together in an apparent homosexual relationship. Buy hey, swans, ya had to figure.

To me, the ability to answer the question is only relevant if you know what action you would take once having gotten the answer. Does knowing that there is a biological rather than sociological root cause change how we deal with homosexuality? Should it?

There are plenty of suboptimal outcomes that occur naturally (Down's syndrome, some might say alcoholism, etc). Does the fact that they occur naturally mean that we shouldn't fix (or avoid)these outcomes? I had the same conversation with my wife when deciding whether or not to have an amnio test late in her pregancy. What would you do if you had the information?

I think there are some kind of lesbian monkeys somewhere in Asia. Not sure if its true though.

I think it's fair to say that homosexuality differs from down syndrome and alcoholism in that it isn't inherently destructive.

The fact that it occurs naturally lends weight to the idea that it is indeed completely natural for people to be homosexual. But this point is really moot, since as onetime came close to pointing out, humans and all our actions are quite natural on their own.

My neighbors dogs were fucking one time on my birthday. Both male. I am not sure if they were homosex but whatever. It was funny. The owner came out and started to beat them with a broomstick, and that was not funny. But what was funny, was the bigger dog started huming the face of the slightly smaller dog, and then he got beat again with a stick.

Both dogs were rottweilers (sp?)

It was funny.