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?
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
And penises of cats are barbed, evolved and now necessary to make pain to females:
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).
Remember this is not a popularity contest and there are a lot of species out there. Why does behavior X happen is not asking what happens the other 99.99% of the time.
Why? What is being proved, unless we talk about majority? So we are able to find some animals that are monogamous and not violent? What then?
Like in the article, tossing "plenty" and "many" actually doesn't help for anything more than creating illusion that the behavior we like is somehow "supported" by nature.
It's not problem analyzing some behavior, the problem is unsupported "plenty" and "many."
Think of it in these terms, if one species of poisonous animal is brightly colored that says little. If several are brightly colored that's more significant.
Edit: In math you only need one counter example to disprove a theory. In science a few is generally enough.
That said, this whole thread is nothing but people trying to anthropomorphize nature, so that they can pretend it's more cuddly than it actually is. There is no chemical for morality secreted by all species. There is no evolution for empathy. These are things humans create through their own intelligence, and no amount of anthropomorophized behavior will make that not the case.
And then we come to our nearest relatives (bonobos, chimps) being both promiscuous and ready to jump on the same sex and to use that behavior as a bonding ritual.
> people trying to anthropomorphize nature, so that they can pretend it's more cuddly than it actually is
Exactly, Disney would certainly not approve Fark squirrel:
They also commit cannibalism, rape, murder, bullying. You can't get any morality or moral arguments out of nature.
Specifically, you can't use pure existence of some acts in the nature as an excuse or confirmation for validity of any human acts.
Still studying the nature and the dynamics of living beings can actually help us humans more understanding our own actions, it gives us a good context as we're also animals, even if that thought isn't pleasing to everybody.
You’re presupposing a specific morality, and then rejecting other forms of morality on that basis. Alternatives are going to by definition be different. So, you need another way to judge them.
Anderson, D. J. and P. T. Boag. 2006. No extra-pair fertilization observed in Nazca Booby (Sula granti) broods. Wilson Journal of Ornithology 118:244-247.
Moreno, J., L. Boto, J. A. Fargallo, A. de Leon, and J. Potti. 2000. Absence of extra-pair fertilisations in the Chinstrap Penguin Pygoscelis antarctica. Journal of Avian Biology 31:580-583.
Lifjeld, J. T., A. M. A. Harding, F. Mehlum, and T. Oigarden. 2005. No evidence of extra-pair paternity in the Little Auk Alle alle. Journal of Avian Biology 36:484-487.
Nazca Booby, Chinstrap Penguin, Little auk.
[1]Lack, D. 1968. Ecological Adaptations for Breeding in Birds. Methuen and Company, London.
[2]Griffith, S. C. , I. P F. Owens , and K. A. Thuman . 2002. Extra-pair paternity in birds: A review of interspecific variation and adaptive function. Molecular Ecology 11:2195–2212.
Sufficient if we just consider birds, of course. But what do we discuss here? It started with the
"There are plenty of species which are well documented to have monogamous relationships"
claim and all I see is birds and birds.
Edit: thanks for finally answering below my question "how much in percents is that "plenty of species"?" Your answer is "90% of birds." The rest of discussion would have been unnecessary, especially quoting some three specific birds as the answer. I also agree with yours "the average sexual behaviors across all species doesn't give you much insight."
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.
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-...
"Bonobos Have Lots of Sex, Are Awesome, May Hold Key to Our Past"
Chimps:
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.
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.
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
> 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.
The whole point here is that sex != reproduction. IE social sex constructs, homosexuality, conflict resolution through sex, and just recreation via sex.
> 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.
It's true that humans are available for sex all the time - a claim no other mammal can make as I understand it - but chimps and bonobos are also available for sex far more often than they are in a viable reproductive state.
Sexual swelling in bonobos, for example, is almost consistent throughout the cycle.
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.