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Its easy to cherrypick examples, but at least in the mammal world being in heat for a limited time makes a lot of evolutionary sense. Humans are notorious for b

Its easy to cherrypick examples, but at least in the mammal world being in heat for a limited time makes a lot of evolutionary sense. Humans are notorious for being horny all the time and really are an exception. Animals, in general, aren't at all like us. The GP is correct, sex in the animal world is typically conservative. There's this historic recontexualizing of animals as being "just like us." I think that's just wrong and it leads to bad outcomes. Its only recently that we've been able to acknowledge the intelligence of octopus or crows because we were so focused on animals 'like us' which were primarily mammals. Ten years ago it would have been unthinkable to say an octopus is smarter than a dog in polite company. You would have sounded like a crazy person. I suspect these views aren't academic but actually political. The "animals are just like us" seems to be 60's counterculture vegitariansism and the "animals fuck all the time and are gay" seems to stem from the gay rights movement to validate their position as "natural," whatever that means. In fact, I read a book about this in the 90s and the thesis was just that. It was a fairly popular book. Your penis design doesn't really help your argument. A hard to remove penis means a higher chance of pregnancy. Humans don't have this probably because we have sex so often, but for animals with a short heat period its very important to fertilize those eggs on the first try. Also, animals are not as lingual or culturally complex like humans so the barb is how the male controls the female. In human society we do this too via cultural baggage, male domination, marriage norms, dating norms, one-sided social pressure, and sometimes the outright threat of violence or rape. So the idea that penis barbs are these awful things is questionable compared to the alternatives. Lastly, one of the big issues with repairing the damage of human encroachment into wildlife areas is that we can't just get animal populations back up easily. They're not used to smaller mating populations, less territory, less younger and more viable mates, etc and their sexual habits reflect that. Pandas are an extreme example, but this issue happens with most animals. They can't just magically become as promiscuous as humans. It would be nice if they could, but its just not in the cards and that's going to lead to issues like extinction down the line for many of today's endangered species and already has happened for so many more.

acqq 11y ago
> Animals, in general, aren't at all like us. The GP is correct, sex in the animal world is typically conservative. Please name percentage that supports your "typically" claim. It depends what you want to count. If we count our closest relatives, they are bonobos and chimps. Bonobos: http://www.psmag.com/nature-and-technology/bonobos-have-sex-with-everyone-are-awesome-may-hold-key-to-our-past-59956 http://www.psmag.com/nature-and-technology/bonobos-have-sex-... "Bonobos Have Lots of Sex, Are Awesome, May Hold Key to Our Past" Chimps: http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/entry/chimpanzee/behav http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/entry/chimpanzee/beha... "The majority of chimpanzee reproductive behavior is promiscuous, with females mating with multiple males opportunistically during estrus, though the majority of copulation occurs during the 10-day period of maximal tumescence (Goodall 1986)." The observations of Goodall were disputed by some stupid male "scientist" who claimed that she "projects her values to chimpanzees." But she observed the behavior in the nature, documented it and published. He was the one who "projected." 100% of our closest relatives are provably promiscuous. And some of them do copulate with the same sex too.
- drzaiusapelord 11y ago
  Except the frequency there is compared to other animals not humans. The bonobo example is a little overplayed. I don't consider 'sexually greeting' each other by grabbing assess to be on the same page as sex. That's not sex. You can't impregnate a female by grabbing. Also, having lots of sex in a 10 day period is impressive, but humans don't have a 10 day heat period. They're in heat all the time. Its not really comparable. I think we can split hairs all day, but I don't think its controversial to say that animal mating and human mating evolved in very different ways. Obviously our closest relatives in the animal kingdom will be most like us, but even they have heat periods.
  - acqq 11y ago
    > The bonobo example is a little overplayed. No: > I don't consider 'sexually greeting' each other by grabbing assess to be on the same page as sex. They actually do greetings by involving their reproduction organs. "Genito-genital rubbing of bonobo females" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdeAJUxJ7gg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdeAJUxJ7gg > but humans don't have a 10 day heat period. They're in heat all the time. Bonobos and chimps don't have too. They do make sex all the time. Google "concealed ovulation." That's the evolved mechanism where female never signals when it actually ovulates. And it's present by bonobos.
RobertoG 11y ago
'There's this historic recontexualizing of animals as being "just like us."' I don't know. In my opinion, is not that "they are like us" but that "we are one of them". We are animals. In this context, to pretend to separate animal behavior from human behavior is what is "just wrong and leads to bad outcomes". The singular behaviors of humans are not more singular that other animals. Why to focus in "being horny all the time" and not in eating the mate after copulation?. This is a political decision too, a kind of human chauvinism. Just to be clear, I don't say that there is nothing special about humans, but we have to see in the context of what we are, another animal that have evolved in a curious way. In my opinion, this category separation is the wrong way to think about the subject.

acqq 11y ago

> Animals, in general, aren't at all like us. The GP is correct, sex in the animal world is typically conservative. Please name percentage that supports your "typically" claim. It depends what you want to count. If we count our closest relatives, they are bonobos and chimps. Bonobos: http://www.psmag.com/nature-and-technology/bonobos-have-sex-with-everyone-are-awesome-may-hold-key-to-our-past-59956 http://www.psmag.com/nature-and-technology/bonobos-have-sex-... "Bonobos Have Lots of Sex, Are Awesome, May Hold Key to Our Past" Chimps: http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/entry/chimpanzee/behav http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/entry/chimpanzee/beha... "The majority of chimpanzee reproductive behavior is promiscuous, with females mating with multiple males opportunistically during estrus, though the majority of copulation occurs during the 10-day period of maximal tumescence (Goodall 1986)." The observations of Goodall were disputed by some stupid male "scientist" who claimed that she "projects her values to chimpanzees." But she observed the behavior in the nature, documented it and published. He was the one who "projected." 100% of our closest relatives are provably promiscuous. And some of them do copulate with the same sex too.

drzaiusapelord 11y ago
Except the frequency there is compared to other animals not humans. The bonobo example is a little overplayed. I don't consider 'sexually greeting' each other by grabbing assess to be on the same page as sex. That's not sex. You can't impregnate a female by grabbing. Also, having lots of sex in a 10 day period is impressive, but humans don't have a 10 day heat period. They're in heat all the time. Its not really comparable. I think we can split hairs all day, but I don't think its controversial to say that animal mating and human mating evolved in very different ways. Obviously our closest relatives in the animal kingdom will be most like us, but even they have heat periods.
- acqq 11y ago
  > The bonobo example is a little overplayed. No: > I don't consider 'sexually greeting' each other by grabbing assess to be on the same page as sex. They actually do greetings by involving their reproduction organs. "Genito-genital rubbing of bonobo females" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdeAJUxJ7gg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdeAJUxJ7gg > but humans don't have a 10 day heat period. They're in heat all the time. Bonobos and chimps don't have too. They do make sex all the time. Google "concealed ovulation." That's the evolved mechanism where female never signals when it actually ovulates. And it's present by bonobos.

RobertoG 11y ago

'There's this historic recontexualizing of animals as being "just like us."' I don't know. In my opinion, is not that "they are like us" but that "we are one of them". We are animals. In this context, to pretend to separate animal behavior from human behavior is what is "just wrong and leads to bad outcomes". The singular behaviors of humans are not more singular that other animals. Why to focus in "being horny all the time" and not in eating the mate after copulation?. This is a political decision too, a kind of human chauvinism. Just to be clear, I don't say that there is nothing special about humans, but we have to see in the context of what we are, another animal that have evolved in a curious way. In my opinion, this category separation is the wrong way to think about the subject.