Sexual Diversity in Nature

[Mare Tranquillity]

There is a fairly new book out on the market by Bruce Bagemihl, Ph.D., in which he details the research of hundreds of scientists who have spent tens of thousands of hours studying animal sexuality. It isn't just that they have discovered that animals indulge in almost all the same kinds of sexual practices that people do, such as homosexuality, transvestism, transsexualism, oral sex, anal sex, mutual masturbation, self-masturbation, masturbation with instruments, group sex, and several things for which humans are not physically equipped, but the fact that sex for reproduction is only peripheral when compared to the quantity of sexual activities for recreation, pair-bonding, affection, group-bonding, socializing, and just plain fun.

This represents a paradigm shift away from the "sex for procreation only when they are in heat" view of animals that has prevailed for so many decades. The book runs to more than 700 pages, has copious notes, sources, and references. Of the more than 1500 animals we know engage in homosexual activity, this work only details the research on 450 different animals because the book simply got too big to include more. The variety of sexual behavior patterns is incredibly diverse from elephants and grizzly bears to hummingbirds, dolphins, geese, bighorn sheep, and giraffes. It's an amazing journey through the world of animal behavior in which there are many surprises--such as male homosexual pairs of geese are considerably more successful in raising goslings than heterosexual pairs.

Maybe God gave us a wide variety of sexual opportunities as a way of making our lives more interesting and fun, an examination of the world of animals would suggest that this could be the truth. This should lay to rest once and for all the myth of homosexuality being "unnatural" or that homosexuals cannot reproduce. Our view of sex has been stifled for centuries by religious myths and taboos based on fear and ignorance. This book shines a lot of light into some heretofore very dark corners.

Please do not try to argue the contents of the book with me until you have at least read the overview in the first chapter.

BIOLOGICAL EXUBERANCE: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity by Bruce Bagemihl, Ph.D. from St. Martins Press, New York , ISBN 0-312-19239-8

 

[Lagboltz]

On a more humorous note, some time ago I read in Science News that behavior goes down to bugs. The title of the article was "Transvestite fruit flies". Some males occasionally act like females (god knows how it is done by fruit flies) so that other males will bring them food in a courting ritual. The article didn't go in to what transpires after they have been punked, or even if they realized they were punked.

On a more serious note, those that don't believe in evolution will say "so what; who gives a crap about what animals do".

On a more religious note, if there is no such thing as evolution, then if God put these traits in animals, why wouldn't he do that for humans?

 

[The Scotsman]

........ a transvestite fruit fly!!??

...........the mind somehow boggles more than usual.................

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

........ a transvestite fruit fly!!??

...........the mind somehow boggles more than usual.................

"Ultimately, the synthesis of scientific views represented by Biological Exuberance brings us full circle--back to a way of looking at the world that is in accordance with some of the most ancienct indigenous conceptions of animal (and human) sexual and gender variability. This perspective dissolves binary oppositions, uniting dualities while simultaneously cherishing unlikeness. It suffers difference, honoring the "anomalous" and the "irregular" without reducing them to something familiar or "manageable". And it embraces paradox, recognizing the coexistence of contradictory and seemingly incompatible phenomena. It is about the unspeakable inexplicability of earth's mysteries--which are as immediate as the next heartbeat. Biological Exuberance is, above all, an affirmation of life's vitality and infinite possibilities: a worldview that is at once primodial and futuristic, in which gender is kaleidoscopic, sexualities are multiple, and the categories of male and female are fluid and transmutable. A world, in short, exactly like the one we inhabit." Bruce Bagemihl, author of Biological Exuberance.

Read the book, it will boggle your mind in the most informative ways and challenge our sexual sterotypes across the board.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

........ a transvestite fruit fly!!??

...........the mind somehow boggles more than usual.................

How about gay grizzly bears? Gay lions? Learn about "wuzzles" and manatee group sex. Giraffes "necking". There is a lot more kinds of sex going on out there than we have been lead to believe.

 

[Dr.Who]

Maybe God gave us a wide variety of sexual opportunities as a way of making our lives more interesting and fun, an examination of the world of animals would suggest that this could be the truth. This should lay to rest once and for all the myth of homosexuality being "unnatural" or that homosexuals cannot reproduce. Our view of sex has been stifled for centuries by religious myths and taboos based on fear and ignorance. This book shines a lot of light into some heretofore very dark corners.

Or alternatively maybe all animals do not have their sexual orientation hard wired and all of us respond to both internal and external stimuli in different ways.

Animals that respond to stimuli with less instinct and more cerebral function just might even make choices.

Absolutely sex is supposed to be fun. You get to choose how to make it fun and how to conform to the norms that create an orderly set of institutions that are the basis for civilization.

We all get to debate just what makes up the most healthy order of things.