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R E C E N T L Y

To sir, with love?
By Susanna Stromberg
It looked like sex, but maybe it was just old-fashioned teaching
(03/12/99)

The monk, the philosopher and the cynic
By Chris Colin
Christopher Hitchens torpedos the harmonious dialogue between philosopher Jean-François Revel and his son, Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard
(03/10/99)

The end of student activity groups?
By Kenneth Rapoza
Christian student groups are using the courts to attack the legality of student fees and changing the free speech debate on campus
(03/08/99)

Thong wars
By Jon Bowen
When asked not to go bare-assed at the campus pool, a professor makes it a constitutional issue
(03/08/99)

Pop culture studies turns 25
By David Jacobson
When Ray Browne founded the first department to study "Star Trek" semiotics and cartoon aesthetics, he expanded the boundaries of academic study forever
(03/05/99)

BROWSE THE
IVORY TOWER
ARCHIVE

THE FABULOUS KINGDOM OF GAY ANIMALS | PAGE 1, 2, 3
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It's not just about hot sex. Bagemihl includes nonsexual bonds. Friendships. Female grizzlies sometimes form partnerships, traveling together, defending each other, raising cubs together and putting off hibernation in what seems to be an attempt to stay together longer.

Nor is it all cuddling and consensuality. Bagemihl chronicles homosexual incest (foxes), rape (albatrosses) and homophobia (white-tailed deer).

His favorites are beasts with "a special courtship pattern found only in homosexual interactions." Two percent of male ostriches ignore females and court males with a lively dance that involves running toward your chosen partner at 30 mph, skidding to a stop in front of him, pirouetting madly, then "kantling," which includes crouching, rocking, fluffing your feathers, puffing your throat in and out and twisting your neck like a corkscrew. A male ostrich courting a female omits the speedy approach, shortens the display, adds a booming song and may include symbolic feeding displays. Male ostriches have not been seen actually having sex, unlike male flamingo pairs, who mate, build nests and sometimes rear foster chicks.

Some homosexual animals have one-night stands and some have long marriages. Gay and lesbian geese stay together year after year. Bottlenose dolphins don't form male-female couples, but males often form lifelong pairs with other males. Some are interested only in males, but others are bisexual and happily indulge in beak-genital propulsion and more with male or female alike.

Male black swans court and form stable pairs. With two males, they are able to defend huge territories from other swan couples, which sounds like a double-income-no-kids situation except that they often manage to wangle some eggs from somewhere -- all right, they steal them -- and become model parents, twice as successful as straight parents.

There's a certain temptation to leaf through the book shouting "Caribou? Gay! Red-necked Wallaby? Gay! Golden Plover? GAY GAY GAY!" But of course it's not that simple.

All bonobos and 1 percent of ostriches participate in homosexual activities -- so within the animal kingdom there is tremendous diversity of sexualities. Moreover, the world is full of animals who are straight. But we know so little about the sex lives of most animals that we must be cautious in our assumptions. Many creatures have never been seen having sex of any kind. The black-rumped flameback has been observed in male-male mating, but never male-female mating. Yet presumably they don't buy baby flamebacks at the corner store.

As for why some animals are bisexual or homosexual, Bagemihl gives the subject brief, annoyed discussion: Obviously it involves both nature and nurture, both environment and biology. He notes that different groups of Japanese macaques have different levels and kinds of homosexual behavior -- which he interprets as a cultural difference.

Besides showing the prevalence of alternative sexuality, Bagemihl tells a fascinating story of the suppression of this vast body of information. "Zoology is a very conservative profession," and focusing on animal homosexuality is not the road to success. One researcher documented homosexuality in sheep, but didn't publish until she got tenure.

Surprisingly often, observers don't know what they're seeing. If males and females look alike, researchers assume that when they see animals mating, they are seeing a male and a female, and the one on top is the male. Thus, the penguin Eric, later renamed Erica. If they switch positions, no doubt it's just confusion.

Often, it's plain that animals are engaging in homosexual behavior -- short of wearing gay pride T-shirts, there's no way those walruses could be clearer -- but the observer can't fathom it.

One unusually candid biologist wrestled with the realization that the bighorn rams he studied frequently had sex with each other, and weren't just showing nice wholesome aggression. "To state that the males had evolved a homosexual society was emotionally beyond me. To conceive of those magnificent beasts as 'queers' -- Oh God!"

N E X T_ P A G E .|. A million "excuses" for gay animals