19 ms·

Because some animals fuck anything that moves and doesn't, including dead animals[1] and other species[2]. Not sure if applying human categories such as "homose

by Kristine1975 11y ago

Because some animals fuck anything that moves and doesn't, including dead animals[1] and other species[2]. Not sure if applying human categories such as "homosexual" to non-human animals is helpful, though. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jun/09/sex-depravity-penguins-scott-antarctic http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jun/09/sex-depravity-p... [2] http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141117-why-seals-have-sex-with-penguins http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141117-why-seals-have-sex-w...

AdrianRossouw 11y ago
the article is more about pair bonding than just sex.
- mkrfox 11y ago
  People still have trouble wrapping their heads around the fact that same-gender attraction (at least in humans) is about more than sex.
  - jccc 11y ago
    ... and in the lifelong pair-bonded geese who were the major first example in TFA.
  - omginternets 11y ago
    I don't think that's the claim. I think the claim is that what typically call homosexuality involves pair bonding and sex.
    - mkrfox 11y ago
      That's not always the case. Personally, I lean toward bisexual homoromantic. This kind of split attraction is probably more common than it seems, but we didn't have language or a concept for it until recently. I know several people who are asexual and have various romantic orientations.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
setra 11y ago
Exactly. I can't help but feel that this is just modern day projection for political purposes.
- Agustus 11y ago
  Absolutely, a recent recording of an iTunes U course had a professor commenting on the projection of homosexuality in ancient scripts where a Roman Emperor had an appreciation for a male individual. The professor noted that a number of professors wanted to label the relationship homosexual, but he disagreed and noted that other types of relationships exist. That being said, Hans Hermann von Katte and Friedrich the 2nd were lovers.
- hockeybias 11y ago
  Ditto. And surprising it had not been hauled out sooner...
- hartpuff 11y ago
  Surely it's simply a rebuttal to people who argue against homosexuality, and gay people, by claiming same-sex behaviour is "unnatural" and that animals don't exhibit it. (A recent example being Manny Pacquiao, which may have influenced the timing of this article.)
  - RUG3Y 11y ago
    Attempts from both sides of the argument are politicized and misguided. There's no need to argue from the standpoint that "animals do it/ don't do it." There are plenty of things animals do that we don't. We're not animals and we should leave the poor animals out of our politics.
    - ossreality 11y ago
      boy, it sure is nice to be reminded that my life is just politics to some people.
    - mkrfox 11y ago
      I want a variety of options for dealing with people who aren't persuaded by "why do you even care though" or "love is love."
jMyles 11y ago
Although this is... well... close enough to true, it is not a sufficient explainer as the animals who behave in the manner you describe account for only a very small number of species. Most species have sex extremely conservatively, and very few are capable of the frequency and duration of sex that humans engage in. But why can we observe same-sex pair bonding and sexual contact so frequently, even in species that don't seem particularly sexually obsessed?
- acqq 11y ago
  > Most species have sex extremely conservatively That's what my ex-girlfriend claimed, because she never actually observed animals behaving, "the animals are so peaceful." Then as she was in the park, she was witness of, named with the human-related names, a violent prolonged gang-rape of one female duck by the group of male ducks. The female duck was wounded, repeatedly and observably. My girlfriend was deeply shocked. By the way, a male duck has a 20-cm corkscrew-shaped penis and he can pull it out in a third of a second: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwjEeI2SmiU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwjEeI2SmiU And penises of cats are barbed, evolved and now necessary to make pain to females: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UVw7cgv36A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UVw7cgv36A
  - openasocket 11y ago
    Ducks are notorious for having very aggressive sex. There are plenty of species which are well documented to have monogamous, long-term sexual relationships. Off the top of my head, seabirds have monogamous sexual behaviors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabird_breeding_behavior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabird_breeding_behavior
    - acqq 11y ago
      > There are plenty of species How much in percents is that "plenty"? It's easy to toss qualifications, it's much harder to reasonably quantify what we research. I don't agree it's "plenty of species" (Edit: of course, in a sense that it's useful for a discussion argument, as in "majority", certainly not in a sense "an example can't be found" of course it can).
acqq 11y ago
Exactly, as soon as we project our human-related names the behavior of "jumping on whatever" becomes something like "homosexual necrophilia" or "sadomasochism" or "rape" or whatever: "The first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard Anas platyrhynchos (Aves: Anatidae)" http://www.hetnatuurhistorisch.nl/fileadmin/user_upload/documents-nmr/Persberichten/Persberichten/persberichten_2013/DSA8_243-248.pdf http://www.hetnatuurhistorisch.nl/fileadmin/user_upload/docu... or more popular: Kees Moeliker: How a dead duck changed my life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUQLN4o63SY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUQLN4o63SY or "Kangaroo shown 'grieving' was actually trying to mate with dying female: experts" http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-14/grieving-kangaroo-actually-sexually-aroused-expert-says/7088654 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-14/grieving-kangaroo-actu... Even cannibalism of the partner's body during or after sex can be supported with "nature": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_cannibalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_cannibalism Evolution produces everything we can imagine, and more.
- Kristine1975 11y ago
  Don't ever look up "traumatic insemination"...
  - acqq 11y ago
    Thanks for the suggestion, the nature is really beautiful in all the variations it devises! "Traumatic insemination, also known as hypodermic insemination, is the mating practice in some species of invertebrates in which the male pierces the female's abdomen with his penis and injects his sperm through the wound into her abdominal cavity (hemocoel)." "The process is detrimental to the female's health. It creates an open wound which impairs the female until it heals, and is susceptible to infection."
    - Kristine1975 11y ago
      Then I have another one for you: When mating, the male spider Nephilengys malabarensis snaps off his penis and leaves it inside the female. That way he can fend off other males and also is better able to defend himself against the female that tries to eat him: http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2012/06/12/male-spider-castrates-himself-and-gets-more-stamina/ http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2012/06/12/male-spid... Nature is absolutely fascinating (and makes me happy I'm a human).
whyenot 11y ago
This article is about same-sex pair bonding, not mating. An interesting question is if homosexual pair bonding might be an evolutionary stable strategy under some circumstances.
- acqq 11y ago
  "Bonding" in this kind of research absolutely doesn't mean the promiscuity is excluded: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals "Roughly 60% of all bonobo sexual activity occurs between two or more females."
  - whyenot 11y ago
    Actually, pair-bonding and promiscuity are almost completely mutually exclusive, as used in animal behavior research. Pair-bonding implies long term attachment between two animals, often, but not necessarily, including mating. Promiscuity implies a sexual encounter without a long term bond. This article is about the former, not the latter.
    - dogma1138 11y ago
      They aren't many bird species that mate for "life" procriate with other mates during the actual mating season but nest with their original mate. It seems that there are 2 nearly opposite evolutionary drives one is that long term bonding increase the likelihood of offspring survivability and the other that promiscuous mating increases the overall group genetic diversity. Some bird species that also present same sex bonding will have single sex bonds nesting and having another female lay eggs in their nest, other species that operate under more communal care for their offspring show behavior akin to what we would call adoption.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
kingkawn 11y ago
Your objection to the term is equally as cultured as the application you think we should avoid.
nathanvanfleet 11y ago
That's kind of reductive, and I wonder if you read the article. The goose example is a long-term pairing and not just a roll in the hay. Some people might find your comment a bit offensive.
- kiproping 11y ago
  If the facts don't happen to conform to the narrative, offense is meaningless.
  - Kristine1975 11y ago
    I suspect it was not about facts, but about my choice of words. I was going for a Blue Velvet reference.
    - acqq 11y ago
      I've watched it as it premiered but I haven't remembered that line. I guess the concept of "anything that moves" wasn't shocking for my perception, the unexpectedly found cut ear in the grass, however...
      - Kristine1975 11y ago
        Dennis Hopper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7NitmzzZX8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7NitmzzZX8
        acqq 11y ago
        Looking at your HN handle, I guess you've discovered the film at the time of Twin Peaks, if it was at the time it was premiered, you've had a hard childhood.
- acqq 11y ago
  I have read it, it's almost exclusively about some geese, but the title is "So Many Animals." Actually "many" animals aren't choosy, having no problem jumping on the same sex or even corpses or non-living objects, and don't make long-term unbreakable bonds. There are enough links here in responses. Honestly, have you never had a male dog trying to copulate with your leg?
taimurkhaliq 11y ago
I logged in after a year to reply to this comment. That was just hilarious. Kudos on the sources.

AdrianRossouw 11y ago

the article is more about pair bonding than just sex.

mkrfox 11y ago
People still have trouble wrapping their heads around the fact that same-gender attraction (at least in humans) is about more than sex.
- jccc 11y ago
  ... and in the lifelong pair-bonded geese who were the major first example in TFA.
- omginternets 11y ago
  I don't think that's the claim. I think the claim is that what typically call homosexuality involves pair bonding and sex.
  - mkrfox 11y ago
    That's not always the case. Personally, I lean toward bisexual homoromantic. This kind of split attraction is probably more common than it seems, but we didn't have language or a concept for it until recently. I know several people who are asexual and have various romantic orientations.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

setra 11y ago

Exactly. I can't help but feel that this is just modern day projection for political purposes.

Agustus 11y ago
Absolutely, a recent recording of an iTunes U course had a professor commenting on the projection of homosexuality in ancient scripts where a Roman Emperor had an appreciation for a male individual. The professor noted that a number of professors wanted to label the relationship homosexual, but he disagreed and noted that other types of relationships exist. That being said, Hans Hermann von Katte and Friedrich the 2nd were lovers.
hockeybias 11y ago
Ditto. And surprising it had not been hauled out sooner...
hartpuff 11y ago
Surely it's simply a rebuttal to people who argue against homosexuality, and gay people, by claiming same-sex behaviour is "unnatural" and that animals don't exhibit it. (A recent example being Manny Pacquiao, which may have influenced the timing of this article.)
- RUG3Y 11y ago
  Attempts from both sides of the argument are politicized and misguided. There's no need to argue from the standpoint that "animals do it/ don't do it." There are plenty of things animals do that we don't. We're not animals and we should leave the poor animals out of our politics.
  - ossreality 11y ago
    boy, it sure is nice to be reminded that my life is just politics to some people.
  - mkrfox 11y ago
    I want a variety of options for dealing with people who aren't persuaded by "why do you even care though" or "love is love."

jMyles 11y ago

Although this is... well... close enough to true, it is not a sufficient explainer as the animals who behave in the manner you describe account for only a very small number of species. Most species have sex extremely conservatively, and very few are capable of the frequency and duration of sex that humans engage in. But why can we observe same-sex pair bonding and sexual contact so frequently, even in species that don't seem particularly sexually obsessed?

acqq 11y ago
> Most species have sex extremely conservatively That's what my ex-girlfriend claimed, because she never actually observed animals behaving, "the animals are so peaceful." Then as she was in the park, she was witness of, named with the human-related names, a violent prolonged gang-rape of one female duck by the group of male ducks. The female duck was wounded, repeatedly and observably. My girlfriend was deeply shocked. By the way, a male duck has a 20-cm corkscrew-shaped penis and he can pull it out in a third of a second: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwjEeI2SmiU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwjEeI2SmiU And penises of cats are barbed, evolved and now necessary to make pain to females: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UVw7cgv36A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UVw7cgv36A
- openasocket 11y ago
  Ducks are notorious for having very aggressive sex. There are plenty of species which are well documented to have monogamous, long-term sexual relationships. Off the top of my head, seabirds have monogamous sexual behaviors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabird_breeding_behavior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabird_breeding_behavior
  - acqq 11y ago
    > There are plenty of species How much in percents is that "plenty"? It's easy to toss qualifications, it's much harder to reasonably quantify what we research. I don't agree it's "plenty of species" (Edit: of course, in a sense that it's useful for a discussion argument, as in "majority", certainly not in a sense "an example can't be found" of course it can).

acqq 11y ago

Exactly, as soon as we project our human-related names the behavior of "jumping on whatever" becomes something like "homosexual necrophilia" or "sadomasochism" or "rape" or whatever: "The first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard Anas platyrhynchos (Aves: Anatidae)" http://www.hetnatuurhistorisch.nl/fileadmin/user_upload/documents-nmr/Persberichten/Persberichten/persberichten_2013/DSA8_243-248.pdf http://www.hetnatuurhistorisch.nl/fileadmin/user_upload/docu... or more popular: Kees Moeliker: How a dead duck changed my life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUQLN4o63SY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUQLN4o63SY or "Kangaroo shown 'grieving' was actually trying to mate with dying female: experts" http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-14/grieving-kangaroo-actually-sexually-aroused-expert-says/7088654 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-14/grieving-kangaroo-actu... Even cannibalism of the partner's body during or after sex can be supported with "nature": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_cannibalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_cannibalism Evolution produces everything we can imagine, and more.

Kristine1975 11y ago
Don't ever look up "traumatic insemination"...
- acqq 11y ago
  Thanks for the suggestion, the nature is really beautiful in all the variations it devises! "Traumatic insemination, also known as hypodermic insemination, is the mating practice in some species of invertebrates in which the male pierces the female's abdomen with his penis and injects his sperm through the wound into her abdominal cavity (hemocoel)." "The process is detrimental to the female's health. It creates an open wound which impairs the female until it heals, and is susceptible to infection."
  - Kristine1975 11y ago
    Then I have another one for you: When mating, the male spider Nephilengys malabarensis snaps off his penis and leaves it inside the female. That way he can fend off other males and also is better able to defend himself against the female that tries to eat him: http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2012/06/12/male-spider-castrates-himself-and-gets-more-stamina/ http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2012/06/12/male-spid... Nature is absolutely fascinating (and makes me happy I'm a human).

whyenot 11y ago

This article is about same-sex pair bonding, not mating. An interesting question is if homosexual pair bonding might be an evolutionary stable strategy under some circumstances.

acqq 11y ago
"Bonding" in this kind of research absolutely doesn't mean the promiscuity is excluded: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals "Roughly 60% of all bonobo sexual activity occurs between two or more females."
- whyenot 11y ago
  Actually, pair-bonding and promiscuity are almost completely mutually exclusive, as used in animal behavior research. Pair-bonding implies long term attachment between two animals, often, but not necessarily, including mating. Promiscuity implies a sexual encounter without a long term bond. This article is about the former, not the latter.
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    They aren't many bird species that mate for "life" procriate with other mates during the actual mating season but nest with their original mate. It seems that there are 2 nearly opposite evolutionary drives one is that long term bonding increase the likelihood of offspring survivability and the other that promiscuous mating increases the overall group genetic diversity. Some bird species that also present same sex bonding will have single sex bonds nesting and having another female lay eggs in their nest, other species that operate under more communal care for their offspring show behavior akin to what we would call adoption.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

kingkawn 11y ago

Your objection to the term is equally as cultured as the application you think we should avoid.

nathanvanfleet 11y ago

That's kind of reductive, and I wonder if you read the article. The goose example is a long-term pairing and not just a roll in the hay. Some people might find your comment a bit offensive.

kiproping 11y ago
If the facts don't happen to conform to the narrative, offense is meaningless.
- Kristine1975 11y ago
  I suspect it was not about facts, but about my choice of words. I was going for a Blue Velvet reference.
  - acqq 11y ago
    I've watched it as it premiered but I haven't remembered that line. I guess the concept of "anything that moves" wasn't shocking for my perception, the unexpectedly found cut ear in the grass, however...
    - Kristine1975 11y ago
      Dennis Hopper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7NitmzzZX8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7NitmzzZX8
      - acqq 11y ago
        Looking at your HN handle, I guess you've discovered the film at the time of Twin Peaks, if it was at the time it was premiered, you've had a hard childhood.
acqq 11y ago
I have read it, it's almost exclusively about some geese, but the title is "So Many Animals." Actually "many" animals aren't choosy, having no problem jumping on the same sex or even corpses or non-living objects, and don't make long-term unbreakable bonds. There are enough links here in responses. Honestly, have you never had a male dog trying to copulate with your leg?

taimurkhaliq 11y ago

I logged in after a year to reply to this comment. That was just hilarious. Kudos on the sources.