It isn't just us...

[sleigh]

Homosexual/bisexual behavior among other species is relatively common is the contention of a recent Scientific American article.

My favorite quote from the article: "“Animals don’t do sexual identity. They just do sex,” says sociologist Eric Anderson of the University of Bath in England."

Comments

[greenmtnboy18.livejournal.com]

Hee!

One of my current favorite books: Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity, by Bruce Bagemihl.

It's EVERYWHERE. :) And unfortunately incredibly repressed by scientific literature, as a matter of course. (Part of that same underlying impulse that led to lobotomies or castration in early animals expressing sexually diverse behavior.)

Bruce also effectively refutes some of the implications even in this article (which I found to have a very positive tone, but still noted some of the "assumptions" that BB targets re sexual behavior, likely because these assumptions come directly from the scientists quoted, who often treat them as facts). For instance - that homosexual or bisexual behavior occurs at a "much higher" rate in captivity. Bruce also challenges the common assumption that animal homosexuality occurs mainly due to a lack of opposite sex partners.

It's a GREAT book. :)

Thanks for linking the article... it's so nice to see stuff like that. I loved the sentence that was recounting reasons why animals might practice homosexual or bisexual behavior, and ended with "and because it's fun." LOL!

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Animal sexual behavior is far stranger than anything humans are biologically capable of doing. Honeybee drone genitalia are elastically dehiscient. A male praying mantis cannot ejaculate until after the female has eaten his head. Nudibranchs engage in penile fencing and have been known to chew off each other's weaponry.

It makes writing science fiction very easy.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

I'll have to check out that book. Sounds interesting...

Re: Thoughts

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

Wow. Penile fencing. Wonder if that would make it as an Olympic sport? :-)

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

It's certainly entertaining enough. There's a video of it online now:
http://essentialvideo.blogspot.com/2007/08/hermaphroditic-flatworms-mating.html

I first discovered it in a science magazine some years ago. It was the inspiration for my poem "Cockfight" which appeared in Star*Line.

[piratejenny.livejournal.com]

That is a most awesome quote.

[ontology101.livejournal.com]

I don't know where man got all his high falutin' ideas that he's better than "the animals."

Thanks to you and your commentors for a smile today.

Anne

[carolf.livejournal.com]

If you've not come across it, you might want to look into "Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation: The Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex."

The author, Olivia Judson, also has a blog on the online NY Times, entitled "The Wild Side," which is worth following. She is an evolutionary biologist, author and research fellow in biology at Imperial College London.

"Dr. Tatiana" is not only interesting and informative, but one of the laugh-out-loud funniest books I've read in a long time.

Homosexuality doesn't even scratch the surface.