What Can we Learn From Animals?
As with most science, we often look to animals as models to study sexual behavior. This can take many forms. We study sexual behavior in lab animals, such as drosophila flies and rats, by manipulated their genes or their environment. We look to wild behaviors of animals, trying to understand why homosexual behaviors inconsistent with reproductive goals might arise in nature. In both cases, it is hard to tell exactly what animals say about sexuality and much less what they say about human sexuality. Below we have collected various sources that look at the study of homosexuality in animals.
Article: "Unnatural Acts" in Nature: The scientific Fascination with Queer Animals, Jennifer Terry
“The stories animals tell are always the stories humans tell about them…” ~Jennifer Terry
Throughout much of the scientific study of human nature, animals are used to “tell stories about ourselves” (151). This is especially pronounced in the study of human sexuality, where animal sexual behaviors are obsessively examined as models for humans. The author refers to the flow of ideas as “traffic.” Often the traffic in the study of animal sexual behavior to the broader understanding of human nature involves scientists posing these behaviors as the “essential foundations” (152) for understanding the biology behind sexuality in humans, describing the “nature” facet of the nature vs. nurture dichotomy. How is science affected by the perceptions of the scientists performing these studies? What do we see about human sexuality in these animals? How much do animals tell us about human sexuality? These are questions addressed in this article.
Sexuality in scientific discourse has commonly been defined in terms of heterosexual reproduction. Just as human sexuality has come to include much more than reproductive acts, as of late scientists have come to include nonreproductive behaviors in conceptions of animal sexual expression, such as homosexuality. However, such conceptions have come to define nonreproductive in terms of “how it thwarts, disturbs, or…merely supplements heterosexual reproduction,” (154) always posed in an evolutionary framework.
Science is never free of a bias and motive, and this is clearly present in studies of sexuality in the animals. Many of the studies in the literature today focus solely on males, inferior “female” behaviors often prescribed to males as evidence of their “condition” of homosexuality. Female homosexuality is simply ignored in much of these studies, or shoddy extrapolations from males to female are made. Assumptions of sexuality are made across species on the popular notion that “animals are simply primitive humans whose behavior always reflects on ours” (155). This work, looking for a cause of homosexuality, uses animals as a “screen on which meanings to human sexuality can be projected” (183). Perhaps looking for such an innate cause could help promote tolerance of such behavior. However, good intentions are not equivalent to good science.
Throughout much of the scientific study of human nature, animals are used to “tell stories about ourselves” (151). This is especially pronounced in the study of human sexuality, where animal sexual behaviors are obsessively examined as models for humans. The author refers to the flow of ideas as “traffic.” Often the traffic in the study of animal sexual behavior to the broader understanding of human nature involves scientists posing these behaviors as the “essential foundations” (152) for understanding the biology behind sexuality in humans, describing the “nature” facet of the nature vs. nurture dichotomy. How is science affected by the perceptions of the scientists performing these studies? What do we see about human sexuality in these animals? How much do animals tell us about human sexuality? These are questions addressed in this article.
Sexuality in scientific discourse has commonly been defined in terms of heterosexual reproduction. Just as human sexuality has come to include much more than reproductive acts, as of late scientists have come to include nonreproductive behaviors in conceptions of animal sexual expression, such as homosexuality. However, such conceptions have come to define nonreproductive in terms of “how it thwarts, disturbs, or…merely supplements heterosexual reproduction,” (154) always posed in an evolutionary framework.
Science is never free of a bias and motive, and this is clearly present in studies of sexuality in the animals. Many of the studies in the literature today focus solely on males, inferior “female” behaviors often prescribed to males as evidence of their “condition” of homosexuality. Female homosexuality is simply ignored in much of these studies, or shoddy extrapolations from males to female are made. Assumptions of sexuality are made across species on the popular notion that “animals are simply primitive humans whose behavior always reflects on ours” (155). This work, looking for a cause of homosexuality, uses animals as a “screen on which meanings to human sexuality can be projected” (183). Perhaps looking for such an innate cause could help promote tolerance of such behavior. However, good intentions are not equivalent to good science.
Click on the images below for examples from the article
Original Article
Documentary: "Out in Nature: Homosexual behavior in the animal kingdom"
"To conceive of these magificent beasts as queers was emotionally beyond me..." ~Valerius Geist
This documentary detailed a wide array of cases of homosexuality in the animal kingdom. Hundreds of species display homosexual behavior that up until recently was simply dismissed as irrelevant by scientists. Do we need to think again? Most Western scientists have been brought up with the belief in Noah's Ark, a story that paints animals as exclusively heterosexual, only requiring one male and one female to drive the population. Darwin propagated this through his evolutionary theories, posing everything an animal does as a means to improving its reproductive success. Historically, studies of homosexuality in wildlife has been the "science that dare not speak its name," and even now it is barely acknowledged as a component of animal behavior.
But exactly what is classified as homosexuality in the animal kingdom? There are many different interpretations. In a strictly behavioral sense, it involves any genital touching, courtship, or pair bonding between members of the same sex. However, this says nothing of consent or motivation of the animals involved. But what does this say of animals where same sex groups manage parental care, such as in lions, or in family groups where members are pansexual, mating with any and all members of the group regardless of age or sex, like bonobos? It's obvious that in the animal kingdom things are much more complex and multifaceted than the simple discrete homosexual and heterosexual labels that are placed on humans. Animals as separated as bison, antelope, dolphins, birds, rams, seals, and even octopuses display homosexual behaviors. What role have these behaviors played in the evolution of the species? As it is put in the documentary, we simply do not know. Even in organisms as simple as drosophila flies, the determinants of behavior are "already complicated enough," and we are a "long way off" before these studies can have any implications for humans.
This documentary detailed a wide array of cases of homosexuality in the animal kingdom. Hundreds of species display homosexual behavior that up until recently was simply dismissed as irrelevant by scientists. Do we need to think again? Most Western scientists have been brought up with the belief in Noah's Ark, a story that paints animals as exclusively heterosexual, only requiring one male and one female to drive the population. Darwin propagated this through his evolutionary theories, posing everything an animal does as a means to improving its reproductive success. Historically, studies of homosexuality in wildlife has been the "science that dare not speak its name," and even now it is barely acknowledged as a component of animal behavior.
But exactly what is classified as homosexuality in the animal kingdom? There are many different interpretations. In a strictly behavioral sense, it involves any genital touching, courtship, or pair bonding between members of the same sex. However, this says nothing of consent or motivation of the animals involved. But what does this say of animals where same sex groups manage parental care, such as in lions, or in family groups where members are pansexual, mating with any and all members of the group regardless of age or sex, like bonobos? It's obvious that in the animal kingdom things are much more complex and multifaceted than the simple discrete homosexual and heterosexual labels that are placed on humans. Animals as separated as bison, antelope, dolphins, birds, rams, seals, and even octopuses display homosexual behaviors. What role have these behaviors played in the evolution of the species? As it is put in the documentary, we simply do not know. Even in organisms as simple as drosophila flies, the determinants of behavior are "already complicated enough," and we are a "long way off" before these studies can have any implications for humans.