Since the notorious Kinsey Report of the 1950's, it has been accepted that roughly 5% to 7% of humans are homosexual. Further, the report suggested that up to 37% of males have homo-erotic experiences. The question immediately arises: How is homosexuality observed in the animal kingdom, with which humans share a significant section of our genome?
Observation of homosexuality in animals was recorded as far back as 200 years ago. However, because of the controversy, the social order of the day enforced censorship on these findings. In a word, the topic became the science that dares not speak its name.
Today, some enlightenment is dawning upon Mankind in the area of sexuality and sexual behaviour. Consequently, the study of animal homosexual behaviour has again been rekindled and the results are quite staggering to say the least.
In short, it would appear from scientific observations that homosexual behaviour is highly prevalent in the animal kingdom. Far from being a minority phenomenon as accepted amongst humans, homosexuality can be the norm - together with heterosexual behaviour. Finding an explanation within the framework set by Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is another matter altogether. Beyond any doubt, homosexuality is somehow sustained in the animal kingdom and therefore must play a beneficial role to have survived the process of natural selection.
Since humans share at least 98% of our genome with other mammals and sexuality is a rather primary function in all species, one could conjecture that the sexual trends of mammals may also be present in humans in one form or another. Conversely, according to Wikipedia, "[r]esearchers have observed monogamy, promiscuity, sex between species, sexual arousal from objects or places, rape, necrophilia, and a range of other practices among animals. Observers have documented behavior analogous to sexual orientation (heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality and situational sexual behaviour) in humans."
In light of the above, the moral arguments against homosexuality that often support the bigotry against homosexual and bisexual people have little ground beyond religious considerations. Certainly normality cannot be the premise. Subjective and perilous at the best of times, the concept of normality would rather seem to be supported in favour of homosexual behaviour by the above research findings of sexual behaviour in animals closely related to humans.
A brief glance at human history and culture shows how at different times and in different cultures the free expression of homosexuality was more or less prevalent. Most famous for the free expression of homosexuality and homo-eroticism were the ancient Greek and Roman cultures. If homosexuality was not a feature of the inherent human sexual behaviour then a more liberal culture would hardly have evoked such behaviour on such a broad scale. Moreover, the persistence of homosexuality under duress of persecution is a stronger argument for the inherent inclination to some degree of homosexuality in humans.
At the very least the truth about human sexuality is likely that sexual orientation is variable in the same individual according to circumstance. There may even be evidence to suggest that it is quite natural and advantageous also to form strong, enduring same-sex bonds and partnerships as opposed to exclusively heterosexual partnerships. And to take this argument to its extreme, the institution of marriage - that holy cow of the major religions - suddenly seems not so fundamental and solidly founded as we have been indoctrinated to believe.
In the end we still do not understand the evolutionary role of homosexuality, yet we cannot refute the prevalence of homosexuality in several species, including ourselves. Chances are that monogamy and marginalizing of homosexual tendencies are rather unnatural behaviour for the human species.
It remains to be seen whether scientific and therefore biological honesty will translate into human cultures open to bisexual as well as homosexual behaviour in the sexually active population.
[Detailed discussions follow in comments to this post.]
Further reference:
Bruce Bagemihl. Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity, ISBN: 0312192398, St. Martin's Press, 1999.
To reproduce or not to reproduce, that is the question!
1 comment:
A number of studies of sexual behaviour in animals deserve further attention.
These studies serve to illustrate certain aspects of social behaviour amongst mammals, namely
a. Homosexual partnerships
b. Interaction with the opposite sex
c. Raising of off-spring
d. Purpose of sex
There are several examples of homosexual partnerships in mammals. In some species, the males and in others, the females form homosexual partnerships.
For example, the Bottlenose Dolphin males form homosexual relations when adolescent to last a lifetime. This partnership often court together and share females. Defence seems another purpose of the partnership. Mainly the females of the pod raise offspring.
The shoe seems to be on the other foot when female macaques form homosexual partnerships while the males don't. Even so, these homosexual females will mate with males and have offspring, which are raised by the mother. Females seem to rule the troop.
Free for all gets a new meaning amongst Bonobo chimpanzee. This species engage in sex of all persuasions with almost everyone (except mother with son) in the chimp community. They do not form a particular partnership or pair. It has been argued that Bonobo’s have adapted to sex for pleasure in addition to procreation. Sex seems to play several roles, such as stress relieve and conflict resolution as well as general bonding amongst members of a Bonobo community.
It is important to notice:
There seem to be an underlying tendency for homosexual behaviour in more than 450 species including Homo sapiens (excuse the pun).
The examples do not demonstrate exclusive homosexuality because mating still occurred to produce offspring.
A feature or behaviour that does not promote chances of reproduction and survival tends to recede and eventually disappear from a species. See Darwin as well as Dawkins [The Selfish Gene] on this topic.
Sex has evolved primarily promoted by the goal of successful reproduction of genes. That is, all aspects of sex evolved towards the primary goal, including the pleasurable aspects. Still, a species such as humans spend less than 10% of the available time having sex for procreation since a female is only fertile for 1-3 days a month. Also, the reproductive group of a society is larger than the group of homosexuals. Therefore, it is plausible that a species may also adapt to exploit pleasure from sex without having procreation in mind all of the time, such as the Bonobo or humans.
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