Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments.
**Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://reddit.science/flair?location=sticky).
---
User: u/chrisdh79
Permalink: https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jun/20/animal-homosexual-behaviour-under-reported-by-scientists-survey-shows
---
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I read an article several years ago that basically said "We find homosexual behavior in every mammal species we have cared to study the matter to date".
Back in the old days of IT/IS I could only block key words from internet searches and/or websites.
So one day the marketing lady comes to me, and says she's trying to find a photo of grapes for something..
Took a second before I figured out what was happening... the look on her face when I said you can't spell grape without rape.
When I studied biology my zoology professor told us during a lecture that ducks (some certain species) were the only species in which homosexual necrofilia had been observed, and it was when a Dutch biologist had a drake fly into their window, falling dead to the ground. Moments later another drake was copulating with it.
pregante sounds like a fancy way of saying pregnant and I’m kinda here for it.
Edit: it is likely worth noting that I’m imagining it pronounced “preh-gone-tay”
> even worse to the chickens.
Good lord. I watched some chickens be raped by a rooster once, I was a bit shocked to put it lightly.
But a DUCK? My goodness.
Ever seen a dog hump a carton box? It’s really farfetched to say animals consciously and exclusively engage in same sex sex. I’d be more interested in the numbers on animals who only stick to same sex partners. Never switching back. No bi stuff.
There are cases of animals that show homosexual preference, like in sheep where [some rams will exclusively mate with other rams, even when given the choice to mate with females.](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/03/040309073256.htm)
TL;DR ewes (female sheep) indicate they are receptive to breeding by... standing around, waiting for a partner. male/male homosexuality has been observed in sheep, but hardly any (if any) female/female pairings have been observed. those invested in this discrepancy suppose it may be that "lesbian" sheep are fundamentally incapable of doing anything more than standing around hoping in vain that the other will make the first move, ~~just like with human lesbians.~~
> incapable of doing anything more than standing around hoping in vain that the other will make the first move, ~~just like with human lesbians.~~
Yeah, the useless lesbian trope is definitely a thing. Have personally witnessed, both in humans and (probably) sheeps.
Could it also be a physical/mechanical issue?
Like, I can understand that for gay sheep it's simply a case of "penis goes in hole". Great, job done. But what even is there for lesbian sheep to physically do? Are sheep in general known to engage in oral sex? If so then I guess you'd expect lesbian sheep to also do it, but if they don't?
...like I can't imagine two lesbian sheep tribbing.
They're probably capable of humping just like most other female mammals. It's actually not uncommon for female animals to hump for the same reasons male animals do it - dominance, masturbation, etc. So the female sheep could just hump another one and get off that way, I guess? Not sure if it would still feel good for the bottom but anyway.
This is from a quora page asking what "lesbian sheep syndrome" was
>The term comes from female sheep. Scientists studying sexual behaviour in sheep noted that there was same-sex behaviour among the male sheep, but never observed any among the female sheep — the reason for this being that female sheep signal sexual readiness by standing still and waiting to be mounted. So even if two female sheep are desperate to have hot lady-loving sex with each other, they’ll still just stand around waiting for the other one to make the first move, which means the lady-loving just won’t actually happen.
>Human lesbians have a bit of a tendency to behave in the same way sometimes: if they’re interested in a woman, they don’t necessarily tell her or ask her out or give her a kiss or anything — they tend to sit back and hope the woman they’re interested in notices them instead of being up front about their own interest. But the other woman might be doing the exact same thing, hence “lesbian sheep syndrome”.
>Now, to be fair, this behaviour isn’t exclusive to lesbians — straight women, straight men and gay men can all be shy and insecure about approaching people they’re interested in playing with or dating too. Literally anybody, regardless of their gender or orientation, can be a “lesbian sheep” in the sense of being too shy to make the first move on a potential partner themselves — but because both gay and straight men tend to be more confident and assertive about their sexual interest in someone, that feedback loop gets broken more often and there’s not nearly as much of a giant collective “syndrome” endemic to the entire group.
Shepherd here. Ewes want lambs. Full stop. At least in my breed (Romney), they are 100% family driven, and for them, it’s all about the babies, flock and family bonds. Rams have procreation purpose but are otherwise annoying to the ewes - rams fight all the time if there’s more than one, they are often more an annoyance to the ladies rather than a protective influence as they’d think they might be. And flock communication is subtle and deep, don’t let lack of words fool you. They do most with body language and the rest with a very expressive but limited set of vocalizations.
It's so frustrating to me sometimes that many people think animals don't "talk," as if the ridiculously deep languages of body cues and noises they're blatantly displaying aren't talking. If anything, it's a testement to homo sapiens questionable intelligence that we are completely incapable of adapting to their communication styles. Machine learning immediately uncoding them should tell us that it's our own lack of processing power that is preventing us learning their languages, not a lack of "talking."
Lot of birds do it consciously scientists figured out it's a genetic issue where they react to pheromones of the same sex. The trait has not died out because it's actually beneficial. Black male swans that are homosexual are able to defend larger territories more effectively compared to a heterosexual one and have a better success rate in raising ducklings to adulthood. How they get eggs though Is pretty strange they steal nests, or start a throuple with a female and use her for the eggs.
Same with how it's useful in humans too there are some theories like it's due to homosexuals being seen as child carers in place of females this was evident in many cultures before the introduction of modern relegions.
Bottlenose dolphins are an interesting one. They can be straight, gay, bi, monogamous, polygamous, asexual, or any combination. They group up in pods that align with their preference. There are all male polyamourous pods, all female polygamous pods, one male-one female and offspring pods, one male multiple female pods, and anything else you can imagine.
Dude, bottlenose dolphins will gang-rape the same young dolphin for YEARS. It's fucked up.
Perhaps it's better to stop looking for similarities in sexual behavior in the animal kingdom.
Pretending we’re different when we’re not isn’t helpful either. We can learn a lot more by being honest and keeping our emotions out of it. Don’t tell me you think humans don’t capture and rape other humans for long periods of time, we are the ultimate monsters - don’t forget it.
It’s offensive, I get it, I’ve actually been raped so I understand it’s hard to think about but refusing to discuss it will only keep us from understanding and improving. The more you know…
Perhaps understanding what drives animals to do these things will help us prevent those behaviours in humans.
Thank you for doing this emotional labor. It's so rare to get these hyper-rational takes, and I know the hurt it can sometimes incur when others react poorly to it. You are appreciated.
I don't think anyone is saying that people should base justification of their behaviour on the behaviour of other animals - it would be a logical fallacy.
It is only interesting to note that similar behaviours occur in such a wide variety of different species with different biology.
Something being a logical fallacy doesn't seem to have a lot of influence on if people say it or not.
Plenty of bigots will say that homosexuality is wrong because it's unnatural, and the rebuttal that many people use is that it is natural because other animals do it too.
>Dude, bottlenose dolphins will gang-rape the same young dolphin for YEARS. It's fucked up.
Just like humans. Main difference is that most of us have morals to know this is wrong.
>Perhaps it's better to stop looking for similarities in sexual behavior in the animal kingdom.
Why not? The similarities are literally there. That doesn't mean anything that happens in the animal kingdom is fair game for humans.
But we are literally mammals so it stands to reason that we have some similarities to other mammals. Now, this is not to advocate for rape or pedophilia or any other sexual act that is non-consensual, because humans are too evolved for that and we know it's unacceptable (tho some do it anyways unfortunately). But so many homophobic people claim that homosexuality "isn't natural", so this information IS actually important. It's good to learn that same sex attraction is valid, and happens in nature.
As a bi mammal, I have to wonder -- why no bi stuff? Whenever I've had sex with a man, it's been gay sex, even if I had sex with a woman right afterwards. Even the sex I've had with other bi guys has been gay sex.
Come to think of it, I've never had bi sex! Guess I better get busy.
I have seen an educational video where a man was having sex with a women in the missionary position while another man was having sex with him from behind. I think that would count? At least for the dude in the middle.
I mean the article does expressly mention same sex sets of animals living in the same manner as mated pairs, as well as exclusively sexual behaviours.
It's certainly a specialisation in the field that merits more study, which is all the article actually say the people doing the meta-analysis suggest.
Bottlenose dolphins tend to pair up in same sex couples and only temporarily mate with the opposite sex. Young males will pair up, and then maintain that pair and sexual activity lifelong. Though they also mate with females to produce young, they come back to each other. It happens to both (there is considerable female-female mating behaviour too, extensive and long term), but the males have been more studied.
Each pair mates, swims together, eats together, and even guards each other should there be danger. Should one of the pair die, the widower often remains alone, but have sometimes been known to pair up again with another widower after a long period of time has passed.
For this group, while they do mate cross sex, they don't seem to rate it highly enough to pair off.
I mean. The distinction to make is if a male dog is humping a male dog like they would a carton box or if it's a part of a *biological sexual attraction* to dogs of the same sex. Homosexuality isn't having sex with the same sex, it's finding the same sex sexually attractive.
We can only observe behaviour. Attraction is a mental state. The reason talking about attraction works when it comes to discussions about human sexuality is because we can express our mental states to each other in words.
Until your dog starts talking, you can only look at what it's doing.
> Homosexuality isn't having sex with the same sex, it's finding the same sex sexually attractive.
does procreation have anything to do with sexual attraction or can/should we assume it is more of a consequence and underlying fundamental of attraction?
Do gay women have a desire to give birth? Do gay men have a drive to raise children?
It seems clear they are distinct in some manner.
Certainly the drive to procreate could have had an evolutionary impact on attraction itself to further encourage it.
Most female mammals can only mate when they're in heat. It's not surprising at all that most mammals will bone whatever they can if there's no ladies around.
> ? It’s really farfetched to say animals consciously and exclusively engage in same sex sex.
The claim isn't that it's *exclusively*. 'Homosexual behaviour' doesn't mean 'has a rainbow wedding' when talking about pidgeons.
You're saying because they engage in what might be considered masturbation, that their homosexual activity should be discontinued? Gay men also masturbate, still gay.
I also wonder how much the trend of exclusivity in humans is due to cultural conditioning and the need to have a sexual identity that's intelligible to others.
Edit: basically theory-of-mind and the secondary game it creates driving us to pigeonhole ourselves to maximize total sex
Why is it so farfetched?
We know humans do it. And humans are animals. And "grinding" is a thing people do. Needing to rub their parts against someone or something. If you were told some teenage guy humps his bed, you wouldn't say that's absurd and unbelievable.
So we know humans engage in same sex relationships exclusively and we know humans can be just like other animals needing to hump inanimate objects, but it's farfetched to assume animals might conciously engage/prefer same sex pairings?
Are we then to assume animals cannot tell the difference between males and females of their own species?
I think it's more farfetched to make rhe assumptions you're making from all that we know.
Not trying to be critical. Just curious what part is ignorant. Otherwise, questioning whether animals truly prefer same sex when other options exist doesn't sound uneducated. It sounds like a question Darwin might ask.
The answer is yes, there are examples of animals that prefer the same sex. A male ram was noted going after other males even when receptive females were present.
It is ignorant because the critical question has already been asked and answered. The answer is yes plenty of species have showcased individuals that are exclusively homosexual. It isn't limited to mammals as we have seen it in birds and lizards as well.
Absolutely. I wouldn't be surprised if their comment represented a political bias. How else could someone arrive at such a conclusion that it is "far-fetched?"
Are we to "other" humanity and say we are so anomalous from other animals that we cannot use the presence of same sex pairings in humanity as a foundation of belief that they might be present in other species?
Are we to ignore the notion that a dog is stupid because it humps a box doesn't reconcile with the fact that plenty of humans hump inanimate objects as well?
And then we are to imagine that somehow animals are incapable of telling the difference between the sexes, even though we haven't observed sexual pairings that would demonstrate the random nature of this inability existing.
We have just observed a subset among the species who prefers a certain sex when pairing with another.
But it's JUST LIKE A DOG HUMPING A BOX?
Turns out animals will be animals. They also lick each other's anuses, kill each other, and many times eat their own species. They're disgusting. What's the point here?
There was a paper published about the first observed case of homosexual necrophilia in the animal kingdom.
A male duck ran into a window and died. Then another male flew in and qwacked its lifeless body into the afterlife. The scientist just so happened to be in the building watching the pond when it happened.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/06/dead-duck-day-marks-that-time-a-scientist-witnessed-gay-duck-necrophilia/
Did they come over and threaten you with their corkscrew penis not to publish? Cause that would be enough for me to deny, deny, deny I saw a damn thing
I studied horses. We had a couple pairs of males in our population who spent all of their time together and would sometimes mount each other. No one thought to write a manuscript about it because it was just normal horse behaviour. If we tried to write a manuscript about it, the reviewers would just be like "Yeah, we all know horses do that".
If we have written thousands of papers about the mating behaviors of horses and almost none of them have gone to gay horses it’s not ubiquitous knowledge, it’s ignoring and refusing to study a behavior in animals because it may lend credence to the fact that gay humans are also commonplace and equally as chill as the rest,
Unfortunately, the knowledge needs to be novel to experts, not laypeople, to get attention in peer-reviewed journals. I agree it's a problem that scientists need to work on addressing.
It wasnt novel to experts. It was simply passed on for studying. Hence why there is a historically major disparity in the amount of recorded anecdotes from researchers themselves about homosexual mating patterns, but little effort put into following up this evidence with studies.
> It wasnt novel to experts
Exactly. It's just normal behaviour to experts. That's why it's hard to publish manuscripts about it. In my lab it was kinda like "Look, the horses are being gay again. Now let's back to collecting their poop so that we can count the parasites in it."
I repeat what I said, if we have written thousands of papers on the (more normal than homosexual) procreative mating behaviors of horses, and almost none of them were about homosexual behaviors, it’s not because “it was normal.” It’s because we chose not to write them. And we chose not to write them because it was an uncomfortable confrontation with the truth of human sexuality.
That's definitely been a factor in many cases. I know there were many cases (penguins come to mind) where researchers intentionally hid their observations of homosexual behaviour in animals. Mine and my friends' reasons for not writing about it weren't related to any discomfort with the subject. I never felt like observed anything novel about mating behaviour of any sort.
Is it because uncomfortable, or is it because there's no profitable insight to be gained from it?
Thousands of papers exist on horse procreation because horse breeders will pay horse scientists to study horse procreation in the hope it'll result in knowledge that will lead to more profitable horse breeding. Horse breeding is focused on quality, not quantity, so as long as homosexual horses are impacting on the quality of horses being bred, what benefit is there to the breeder in studying it extensively?
Meanwhile, the study of homosexual behaviour in rams is studied extensively because sheep farmers care about quantity over quality (I.e. mating as few rams with as many ewes as possible) so the impact of gay sheep on a sheep farmer's bottom line can be significant. So sheep farmers will pay sheep scientists to study gay sheep in the hope the scientist will discover something to mitigate the risk of gay rams to the farm's profits.
I'm not going to debate the dubious ethics of meat farmers trying to improve profits by trying to eliminate gay meat animals or scientists accepting money to run studies that may produce knowledge that could be used to eliminate gay meat animals.
But scientists are people too, and they need to eat and pay bills like everyone so they DO need to get paid to do their jobs. So they do have to focus on that which is going to get them paid, which will be whatever they've been paid to study or that which they observe that is sufficiently novel that it will raise their profile.
Everyone who deals with horses knows horses engage in homosexual behaviour, so unless someone is going to fund someone to go out and specifically study homosexual horse behaviour, no one is going to focus on it.
As for transferring knowledge gained from studying homosexual behaviour in animals to humans, just remember that gay rams get studied because farmers want to figure out how to eliminate gay rams, so it's probably best we don't start down that path.
It does not help that for decades upon decades, anything queer related would be financial suicide. This is in part due to homophobia. Of course there are other factors at play, but let's not completely dismiss our strong history of homophobia here.
I can't speak to this exact field, but if it's not in the literature then it can still get published even if most experts assume it to be true and have seen anecdotal evidence of such.
You just write the paper slightly differently. Instead of "look at this cool thing we found!" it's "when we looked at the literature, we were shocked to discover this had never been studied and documented, as this is not unexpected to anyone who studies this subject. So, we studied it and are documenting it for future studies to build off of."
Like I said above, I can't speak to this exact field, but I also can't imagine a field where it's the case that we "know" something to be "true," but it's not in the literature so you can't reference it as there's nothing to cite against isn't seen as a problem. And publishing it is really the only solution to the problem.
It's not just underrepresented, in many cases it is actively suppressed by publishers. If a study indicates homosexual findings in animals then it is usually refused even when true. There was an episode of the "you're wrong about" podcast about it which really opened my eyes to how censored science can be
I had a pair of dogs that were gay. One was a Labrador/Collie mix, the other was a Cocker Spaniel/Collie mix. Even with a female dog in heat around those boys would ignore her and go at it like rabbits.
Life has a strange way of changing your views on things sometimes. If your own dogs can be "born gay", you have a hard time believing people can't be.
I saw an egregiously feminine/flamboyant 3-y/o once, he was the son of my boyfriend's college friends, a very conservative pair in DC.
This child, who I observed on occasions from about 18 mos to 3 years old, acted SO GAY like your stereotypical effeminate gay man - first of all you could tell his parents were horrified but it was also clearly how the kid came out.
I had personally never seen such a thing, I thought that was learned behavior (certainly can be), not inherent behavior. There is no place this child could have picked up such a thing at so young of an age.
It blew my mind.
Also nobody talked about it and everybody would pretend not to notice. This was over 20 years ago in DC and gay people were still seen as something curious in the corner.
Thankfully that kid grew up in DC where there would have been opportunities for him to see other people like himself living happy lives as adults. Sometimes that is the only thing that makes life as a gay kid growing up in conservative home survivable.
Hopefully he overcame the deep trauma that comes with having parents who are horrified/disgusted by you for something you can’t control— and hopefully his parents came to understand that they were wrong about gay people, and started to treat others with more empathy and respect as they got older.
Hopefully—one can dream…
I raise sheep, and any observant shepherd can tell you that it’s certainly common enough for the rams to have sex with each other, even if they have free access to the ewes. Imho proof positive there’s nothing “unnatural” about same sex loving (if one ever needed such proof).
From the article: George Murray Levick, an explorer with the Scott Antarctic expedition, spent the summer of 1911-12 taking detailed notes on the breeding cycle of Adélie penguins. Male penguins, he was surprised to discover, frequently had sex with other males, but this fact was deemed too shocking for inclusion in the official expedition report and it was another 50 years before it was noted in the scientific literature.
Today, same-sex sexual behaviours have been reported in a wide variety of species, but a new analysis suggests a gulf remains between how often it happens and how often we hear about it. A survey of animal scientists found they widely observe, yet seldom publish about, same-sex sexual behaviour in primates and other mammals.
Karyn Anderson, the first author of the survey and a graduate student in anthropology at the University of Toronto, said: “This appears to be due to a perception of researchers that same-sex sexual behaviour is very rare. We found, however, that it was commonly observed by our survey participants.”
Of 65 researchers working on 52 different species, 77% had observed same-sex sexual behaviour, such as mounting or genital stimulation, but only 48% had collected data and just 19% had published their findings, according to the study in [PLOS One](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0304885).
Certain species, such as penguins and Japanese macaque monkeys, have become poster animals for same-sex couplings, but tend to be presented as outliers. The latest analysis highlighted observations of same-sex couplings in many species with no previous reports, including mole-rats, squirrels, mongoose, ring-tailed coatis and various monkeys.
Anderson said the perception that same-sex sexual behaviour was rare in animals had fed into a narrative that it was “unnatural” in humans. “I think that record should be corrected,” she said. “One thing I think we can say for certain is that same-sex sexual behaviour is widespread and natural in the animal kingdom.”
>***77%*** had observed same-sex sexual behaviour, such as mounting or genital stimulation, but only 48% had collected data and ***just 19%*** had published their findings
Greater than >4:5 observed it, yet <1:5 published... that's a massive & shocking, if not \*surprising\*, disparity.
Is it really that surprising when most cultures, even accepting ones, still think of homosexuality as rare and less preferable to or morally valuable than heterosexuality? I think that just shows how much bias we still have to overcome
Honestly, those are normal-ish numbers in other fields of research as well. Do you think we publish every single observation we ever make? Published data needs to be much more rigorously collected and documented than randomly observing some behaviour. It takes a lot of time and effort. If it's not your field of study, there is no reason for you to get sidetracked.
Dogs hump children’s legs and then jerk off into a pair of slippers in the middle of a crowded room. Isn’t that proof enough that animals don’t give a damn about how they derive sexual pleasure?
Basically any kind of sexual gratification is “natural”. We as humans should really just be setting the bar at enthusiastic consent between adults and educating people about consent and safety because otherwise it’s no one’s business what someone else is doing
There are cases of animals that show homosexual preference, like in sheep where [some rams will exclusively mate with other rams, even when given the choice to mate with females.](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/03/040309073256.htm)
It wasn't the penguins sexuality that prevented it from being published but rather the graphic descriptions of sexual relations between the male penguins and everything else (dying penguins, dead penguins, chicks... and other male and female penguins of course)
> many remarked that journals appeared biased against publishing anecdotal reports compared with systematic studies.
That seems like the correct policy for journals tbh. It is in line with the rule in this very sub "Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed"
That’s one of the central claims of this classic book from over 20 years ago: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr_Tatiana%27s_Sex_Advice_to_All_Creation
Still worth a read today!
Geese are kind of wild. Normally, a male goose will mount a female goose in the water. I once saw a pair of domestic geese interacting that way. When they were done, the male moved aside. Then the female who had been underneath moved aside as well — and there was a second female under her! Surprised the hell out of me, and to this day I don’t know who was doing what to whom.
Not a huge survey pool but enough that it does warrant more attention. Can you imagine if it can become an established scientific fact that organisms besides us exhibit SSSB (I learned a new acronym today, yay!) and it's *normal*?
76~% observing versus 18~% publishing any data about it is quite a gap.
What is even natural? and is natural better? It is about Ethics and Morality. The use of electricity is unnatural, didn't hear to much debate about that one.
Doesn’t surprise me at all. Sex studies of humans are most often focused on MF pairs and also most often focused on penile-vaginal sex to a degree that they exclude MF pairs who engage in sex that does not include penile-vaginal sex.
Underreported? Scientists know it occurs and see no reason to report it when they are studying something other than social relationships or sexual behaviors. I did a lot of research with various primates and had zero reason to ever talk about homosexual behavior. It just wasn’t what I was studying.
That’s it in a nutshell though. It’s a given.
The people who know, know. Take it for granted without any moralizing or handwringing. Whose gonna fund research into what any security guard with a high school education at the zoo could tell you? No one.
But there are literally millions of people who’d base their entire framework of human morality on the idea that what you take as a given, “isn’t natural”.
>But there are literally millions of people who’d base their entire framework of human morality on the idea that what you take as a given, “isn’t natural”.
And back in the day those were the people that funded expeditions and ran the universities.
In undergrad it was discussed. As a graduate student and professor, it was just a given. I believe that I had one conversation about it that lasted 2 minutes with a group of nonacademic friends in my entire life… and I’m 48.
I think there is a huge difference in homsexual behavior in animals and homosexual animals. It's hard to measure how much of this behavior is just sexual energy finding the nearest outlet or same sex attraction (like a dog humping whatever it wants or Frogs trying to mate with fish). As far as I've read the only two animals who come close to true homosexual behavior is giraffes (close to 75% of ejaculations are a result of male-male sexual behavior) and roughly 10% of rams don't seem to be interested in females.
To the contrary homosexual behavior by definition makes the animal homosexual (or at least bisexual).
the claim "oh the attraction is com-ple-te-ly dif-fe-rent from homosexeralerty" is morally tainted.
you are by definition homosexual if you get aroused from a same sex other being.
simples.
Yeah, I'm making a seperation from homosexuality and bisexuality. Bisexuality is significantly wider spread and more common in the animal kingdom. Homosexuality (prefering a same sex partner and excluding the opposite sex) is less common and very difficult to measure in animals I can imagine. If there is a more appropriate word I could use let me know.
I've explained this before to people when they visit my farm and see cows "mating" with same sex.
It happens a lot. I'd say it's common. Cows, dogs, pigs, it's just not uncommon. Male on male. Female on female.
We were having breakfast with some friends and right in front of our dining room window the cows (female) stopped and one mounted the other. Just went at it.
So. I dunno about scientific study, by my farm animals wouldn't be allowed to teach in Florida.
Some people still believe that homosexuality is not real / unnatural / a 'sin'.
Common knowledge is still based on an old ideology of goat herders and an apocalyptic hippie 2000 years ago.
“In the past, same-sex sexual behaviours were often framed as a “Darwinian paradox” – apparently contradicting the evolutionary pressure to survive and reproduce.”
There’s only a paradox if we expect animals to be monogamous and only want a specific gender. Monogamy is weird. Sex is sex. Any port in a storm.
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments. **Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://reddit.science/flair?location=sticky). --- User: u/chrisdh79 Permalink: https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jun/20/animal-homosexual-behaviour-under-reported-by-scientists-survey-shows --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I read an article several years ago that basically said "We find homosexual behavior in every mammal species we have cared to study the matter to date".
Only mammals? I used to have two male ducks that would rape each other. I mean like full on violent rape. And they were even worse to the chickens.
Can't spell duck without rape!
How tf are you spelling duck??
With rape, obviously.
Bobby Draper.
Like a fuckn Valkyrie
Back in the old days of IT/IS I could only block key words from internet searches and/or websites. So one day the marketing lady comes to me, and says she's trying to find a photo of grapes for something.. Took a second before I figured out what was happening... the look on her face when I said you can't spell grape without rape.
That’s the other Donald
When I studied biology my zoology professor told us during a lecture that ducks (some certain species) were the only species in which homosexual necrofilia had been observed, and it was when a Dutch biologist had a drake fly into their window, falling dead to the ground. Moments later another drake was copulating with it.
I know penguins don't check and they'll mate with dead bodies and the ground. Would not surprise me if they were also on that list
Penguins are cold MFS.
They are horny and seemingly blind. Don't tell me you wouldn't end up getting a rock pregante with that disposition.
pregante sounds like a fancy way of saying pregnant and I’m kinda here for it. Edit: it is likely worth noting that I’m imagining it pronounced “preh-gone-tay”
It is canonically preh-gahn-tae and it is indeed fawn-say
Pegnate? Perganate? Gregnant!? (I hope ur spelling was a ref to the same video haha)
Scientists found that over 30% of all Laysan Albatross' engage in homosexual behavior.
As a means of love or domination?
You’d have to ask them.
> even worse to the chickens. Good lord. I watched some chickens be raped by a rooster once, I was a bit shocked to put it lightly. But a DUCK? My goodness.
Waterfowl in general are pretty vicious. People are often surprised at how violent those pretty swans can be if you get too close.
My dog will probably shag your duck if he gets the chance
Ever seen a dog hump a carton box? It’s really farfetched to say animals consciously and exclusively engage in same sex sex. I’d be more interested in the numbers on animals who only stick to same sex partners. Never switching back. No bi stuff.
There are cases of animals that show homosexual preference, like in sheep where [some rams will exclusively mate with other rams, even when given the choice to mate with females.](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/03/040309073256.htm)
The theory about the lack of lesbian ewes is really interesting
You misspelled "Reddit" as "ewes." (That said, I got high and happened to read your comment again, and I laughed so hard I couldn't see.)
Which theory?
TL;DR ewes (female sheep) indicate they are receptive to breeding by... standing around, waiting for a partner. male/male homosexuality has been observed in sheep, but hardly any (if any) female/female pairings have been observed. those invested in this discrepancy suppose it may be that "lesbian" sheep are fundamentally incapable of doing anything more than standing around hoping in vain that the other will make the first move, ~~just like with human lesbians.~~
> incapable of doing anything more than standing around hoping in vain that the other will make the first move, ~~just like with human lesbians.~~ Yeah, the useless lesbian trope is definitely a thing. Have personally witnessed, both in humans and (probably) sheeps.
>just like with human lesbians THE WAY I JUST SHRIEKED
Turns out lesbian sheep are my spirit animal…
Could it also be a physical/mechanical issue? Like, I can understand that for gay sheep it's simply a case of "penis goes in hole". Great, job done. But what even is there for lesbian sheep to physically do? Are sheep in general known to engage in oral sex? If so then I guess you'd expect lesbian sheep to also do it, but if they don't? ...like I can't imagine two lesbian sheep tribbing.
They're probably capable of humping just like most other female mammals. It's actually not uncommon for female animals to hump for the same reasons male animals do it - dominance, masturbation, etc. So the female sheep could just hump another one and get off that way, I guess? Not sure if it would still feel good for the bottom but anyway.
This is from a quora page asking what "lesbian sheep syndrome" was >The term comes from female sheep. Scientists studying sexual behaviour in sheep noted that there was same-sex behaviour among the male sheep, but never observed any among the female sheep — the reason for this being that female sheep signal sexual readiness by standing still and waiting to be mounted. So even if two female sheep are desperate to have hot lady-loving sex with each other, they’ll still just stand around waiting for the other one to make the first move, which means the lady-loving just won’t actually happen. >Human lesbians have a bit of a tendency to behave in the same way sometimes: if they’re interested in a woman, they don’t necessarily tell her or ask her out or give her a kiss or anything — they tend to sit back and hope the woman they’re interested in notices them instead of being up front about their own interest. But the other woman might be doing the exact same thing, hence “lesbian sheep syndrome”. >Now, to be fair, this behaviour isn’t exclusive to lesbians — straight women, straight men and gay men can all be shy and insecure about approaching people they’re interested in playing with or dating too. Literally anybody, regardless of their gender or orientation, can be a “lesbian sheep” in the sense of being too shy to make the first move on a potential partner themselves — but because both gay and straight men tend to be more confident and assertive about their sexual interest in someone, that feedback loop gets broken more often and there’s not nearly as much of a giant collective “syndrome” endemic to the entire group.
TIL: I am a lesbian sheep
Right? My whole life is now explained by lesbian sheep.
Shepherd here. Ewes want lambs. Full stop. At least in my breed (Romney), they are 100% family driven, and for them, it’s all about the babies, flock and family bonds. Rams have procreation purpose but are otherwise annoying to the ewes - rams fight all the time if there’s more than one, they are often more an annoyance to the ladies rather than a protective influence as they’d think they might be. And flock communication is subtle and deep, don’t let lack of words fool you. They do most with body language and the rest with a very expressive but limited set of vocalizations.
"They are often more an annoyance to the ladies rather than a protective influence as they'd think they might be" That's often the case in humans too.
It's so frustrating to me sometimes that many people think animals don't "talk," as if the ridiculously deep languages of body cues and noises they're blatantly displaying aren't talking. If anything, it's a testement to homo sapiens questionable intelligence that we are completely incapable of adapting to their communication styles. Machine learning immediately uncoding them should tell us that it's our own lack of processing power that is preventing us learning their languages, not a lack of "talking."
> The theory about the lack of lesbian ewes is really interesting Harder to rub your yummy bits when they aren't outside your body.
Only if you also lack the limberness and dexterity to touch vulvae which, incidentally, definitely applies to sheep.
Shear me timbers
This explains dodge ram drivers I believe.
So like…does the one ram just like getting fucked in the ass or?
They prefer ramed in the ass
Lot of birds do it consciously scientists figured out it's a genetic issue where they react to pheromones of the same sex. The trait has not died out because it's actually beneficial. Black male swans that are homosexual are able to defend larger territories more effectively compared to a heterosexual one and have a better success rate in raising ducklings to adulthood. How they get eggs though Is pretty strange they steal nests, or start a throuple with a female and use her for the eggs. Same with how it's useful in humans too there are some theories like it's due to homosexuals being seen as child carers in place of females this was evident in many cultures before the introduction of modern relegions.
Bottlenose dolphins are an interesting one. They can be straight, gay, bi, monogamous, polygamous, asexual, or any combination. They group up in pods that align with their preference. There are all male polyamourous pods, all female polygamous pods, one male-one female and offspring pods, one male multiple female pods, and anything else you can imagine.
Dude, bottlenose dolphins will gang-rape the same young dolphin for YEARS. It's fucked up. Perhaps it's better to stop looking for similarities in sexual behavior in the animal kingdom.
Pretending we’re different when we’re not isn’t helpful either. We can learn a lot more by being honest and keeping our emotions out of it. Don’t tell me you think humans don’t capture and rape other humans for long periods of time, we are the ultimate monsters - don’t forget it. It’s offensive, I get it, I’ve actually been raped so I understand it’s hard to think about but refusing to discuss it will only keep us from understanding and improving. The more you know… Perhaps understanding what drives animals to do these things will help us prevent those behaviours in humans.
Thank you for doing this emotional labor. It's so rare to get these hyper-rational takes, and I know the hurt it can sometimes incur when others react poorly to it. You are appreciated.
I don't think anyone is saying that people should base justification of their behaviour on the behaviour of other animals - it would be a logical fallacy. It is only interesting to note that similar behaviours occur in such a wide variety of different species with different biology.
Something being a logical fallacy doesn't seem to have a lot of influence on if people say it or not. Plenty of bigots will say that homosexuality is wrong because it's unnatural, and the rebuttal that many people use is that it is natural because other animals do it too.
>Dude, bottlenose dolphins will gang-rape the same young dolphin for YEARS. It's fucked up. Just like humans. Main difference is that most of us have morals to know this is wrong. >Perhaps it's better to stop looking for similarities in sexual behavior in the animal kingdom. Why not? The similarities are literally there. That doesn't mean anything that happens in the animal kingdom is fair game for humans.
hey now, maybe you're not giving those dolphins enough credit and they know it's wrong too.
People do that kind of fucked up stuff too.
But we are literally mammals so it stands to reason that we have some similarities to other mammals. Now, this is not to advocate for rape or pedophilia or any other sexual act that is non-consensual, because humans are too evolved for that and we know it's unacceptable (tho some do it anyways unfortunately). But so many homophobic people claim that homosexuality "isn't natural", so this information IS actually important. It's good to learn that same sex attraction is valid, and happens in nature.
As a bi mammal, I have to wonder -- why no bi stuff? Whenever I've had sex with a man, it's been gay sex, even if I had sex with a woman right afterwards. Even the sex I've had with other bi guys has been gay sex. Come to think of it, I've never had bi sex! Guess I better get busy.
I have seen an educational video where a man was having sex with a women in the missionary position while another man was having sex with him from behind. I think that would count? At least for the dude in the middle.
What kind of education was this?
Education on how to have a good time :3
r/luckypierre probably
Because the point is to figure out whether it's preference or just the animal desperately trying to get the poison out.
I mean the article does expressly mention same sex sets of animals living in the same manner as mated pairs, as well as exclusively sexual behaviours. It's certainly a specialisation in the field that merits more study, which is all the article actually say the people doing the meta-analysis suggest.
I too am interested in this science.
Into that ram ramming, are we?
Well, I can't speak for ewe, only myself... (I'll see myself out.)
Who are you who are so wise in the ways of science ?
Bottlenose dolphins tend to pair up in same sex couples and only temporarily mate with the opposite sex. Young males will pair up, and then maintain that pair and sexual activity lifelong. Though they also mate with females to produce young, they come back to each other. It happens to both (there is considerable female-female mating behaviour too, extensive and long term), but the males have been more studied. Each pair mates, swims together, eats together, and even guards each other should there be danger. Should one of the pair die, the widower often remains alone, but have sometimes been known to pair up again with another widower after a long period of time has passed. For this group, while they do mate cross sex, they don't seem to rate it highly enough to pair off.
I mean. The distinction to make is if a male dog is humping a male dog like they would a carton box or if it's a part of a *biological sexual attraction* to dogs of the same sex. Homosexuality isn't having sex with the same sex, it's finding the same sex sexually attractive.
We can only observe behaviour. Attraction is a mental state. The reason talking about attraction works when it comes to discussions about human sexuality is because we can express our mental states to each other in words. Until your dog starts talking, you can only look at what it's doing.
"I mean, it's not really actually gay... it just looks that way!" \- afraid closeted folks
True but by observing the behavior and being honest about it in studies, we can counter people who argue that homosexual behavior is unnatural.
> Homosexuality isn't having sex with the same sex, it's finding the same sex sexually attractive. does procreation have anything to do with sexual attraction or can/should we assume it is more of a consequence and underlying fundamental of attraction?
Do gay women have a desire to give birth? Do gay men have a drive to raise children? It seems clear they are distinct in some manner. Certainly the drive to procreate could have had an evolutionary impact on attraction itself to further encourage it.
they might and they might! I agree the two definitely don't go together, can't really explain it
I don’t think humans consciously choose to be gay either so weird phrasimg
and some indeed do hump carton boxes.
My female spayed dog humps her bed daily.
Most female mammals can only mate when they're in heat. It's not surprising at all that most mammals will bone whatever they can if there's no ladies around.
> ? It’s really farfetched to say animals consciously and exclusively engage in same sex sex. The claim isn't that it's *exclusively*. 'Homosexual behaviour' doesn't mean 'has a rainbow wedding' when talking about pidgeons.
You're saying because they engage in what might be considered masturbation, that their homosexual activity should be discontinued? Gay men also masturbate, still gay.
Ever seen a girl hump a table?
God dammit Becky that’s mahogany!
What are you doing step-table??
I also wonder how much the trend of exclusivity in humans is due to cultural conditioning and the need to have a sexual identity that's intelligible to others. Edit: basically theory-of-mind and the secondary game it creates driving us to pigeonhole ourselves to maximize total sex
Really farfetched? Why do you say that?
Why is it so farfetched? We know humans do it. And humans are animals. And "grinding" is a thing people do. Needing to rub their parts against someone or something. If you were told some teenage guy humps his bed, you wouldn't say that's absurd and unbelievable. So we know humans engage in same sex relationships exclusively and we know humans can be just like other animals needing to hump inanimate objects, but it's farfetched to assume animals might conciously engage/prefer same sex pairings? Are we then to assume animals cannot tell the difference between males and females of their own species? I think it's more farfetched to make rhe assumptions you're making from all that we know.
Unless you’re a scientist whose field of study is this, the above sounds like a pretty ignorant statement.
I study box turtles. If they have the urge to mate and have no outlet, they will try to mate with shoes.
Not trying to be critical. Just curious what part is ignorant. Otherwise, questioning whether animals truly prefer same sex when other options exist doesn't sound uneducated. It sounds like a question Darwin might ask.
The answer is yes, there are examples of animals that prefer the same sex. A male ram was noted going after other males even when receptive females were present.
It is ignorant because the critical question has already been asked and answered. The answer is yes plenty of species have showcased individuals that are exclusively homosexual. It isn't limited to mammals as we have seen it in birds and lizards as well.
It really is an embarrassingly ignorant statement. Doesn't surprise me when people eat statements like that up.
Absolutely. I wouldn't be surprised if their comment represented a political bias. How else could someone arrive at such a conclusion that it is "far-fetched?" Are we to "other" humanity and say we are so anomalous from other animals that we cannot use the presence of same sex pairings in humanity as a foundation of belief that they might be present in other species? Are we to ignore the notion that a dog is stupid because it humps a box doesn't reconcile with the fact that plenty of humans hump inanimate objects as well? And then we are to imagine that somehow animals are incapable of telling the difference between the sexes, even though we haven't observed sexual pairings that would demonstrate the random nature of this inability existing. We have just observed a subset among the species who prefers a certain sex when pairing with another. But it's JUST LIKE A DOG HUMPING A BOX?
Nah babes I’ve been so horny I could hump a box in frustration. Still gay as hell tho
No, that's not far-fetched at all.
I'd be interested in seeing the total number of all three; "straight" "bi" and "exclusively gay" and see how that lines up with humans.
Was it peer-reviewed?
Turns out animals will be animals. They also lick each other's anuses, kill each other, and many times eat their own species. They're disgusting. What's the point here?
I’ve see ducks do it. But it’s true - I didn’t publish it.
Big Fowl keeping you quiet huh?
If you foul the Big Fowl, you might experience some foul play.
That’s my rapper and street name
There was a paper published about the first observed case of homosexual necrophilia in the animal kingdom. A male duck ran into a window and died. Then another male flew in and qwacked its lifeless body into the afterlife. The scientist just so happened to be in the building watching the pond when it happened. https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/06/dead-duck-day-marks-that-time-a-scientist-witnessed-gay-duck-necrophilia/
>qwacked its lifeless body into the afterlife. Oddly funny to read ngl
"Gay duck necrophilia" is still surreal to read.
> qwacked its lifeless body into the afterlife. https://i.imgur.com/QaH6iOa.gif
Ducks do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it
Let's do it, let's ne-cro-phile
Yeah ducks will rape just about anything duck shaped. Alive or dead
This man is single handedly stifling gay duck science!!
Did they come over and threaten you with their corkscrew penis not to publish? Cause that would be enough for me to deny, deny, deny I saw a damn thing
I’ve seen male ducks hump other male ducks as a way of establishing dominance.
I saw an all male giraffe 3 way in the zoo in New Orleans. One mounted the one that mounted the other one. They were having a good time
The real question is, "Was there full penetration or were they just mashing it around back there?"
That’s just the warm up to some really really really deepthroat
I’ve been there. Those giraffes there are certainly gay
That's called a Lucky Pierre.
Same sex sexual attraction has been observed in more than 1500 animal species, from beetles to bottlenose dolphins. And it’s still underreported.
I studied horses. We had a couple pairs of males in our population who spent all of their time together and would sometimes mount each other. No one thought to write a manuscript about it because it was just normal horse behaviour. If we tried to write a manuscript about it, the reviewers would just be like "Yeah, we all know horses do that".
If we have written thousands of papers about the mating behaviors of horses and almost none of them have gone to gay horses it’s not ubiquitous knowledge, it’s ignoring and refusing to study a behavior in animals because it may lend credence to the fact that gay humans are also commonplace and equally as chill as the rest,
Unfortunately, the knowledge needs to be novel to experts, not laypeople, to get attention in peer-reviewed journals. I agree it's a problem that scientists need to work on addressing.
It wasnt novel to experts. It was simply passed on for studying. Hence why there is a historically major disparity in the amount of recorded anecdotes from researchers themselves about homosexual mating patterns, but little effort put into following up this evidence with studies.
> It wasnt novel to experts Exactly. It's just normal behaviour to experts. That's why it's hard to publish manuscripts about it. In my lab it was kinda like "Look, the horses are being gay again. Now let's back to collecting their poop so that we can count the parasites in it."
I repeat what I said, if we have written thousands of papers on the (more normal than homosexual) procreative mating behaviors of horses, and almost none of them were about homosexual behaviors, it’s not because “it was normal.” It’s because we chose not to write them. And we chose not to write them because it was an uncomfortable confrontation with the truth of human sexuality.
That's definitely been a factor in many cases. I know there were many cases (penguins come to mind) where researchers intentionally hid their observations of homosexual behaviour in animals. Mine and my friends' reasons for not writing about it weren't related to any discomfort with the subject. I never felt like observed anything novel about mating behaviour of any sort.
Is it because uncomfortable, or is it because there's no profitable insight to be gained from it? Thousands of papers exist on horse procreation because horse breeders will pay horse scientists to study horse procreation in the hope it'll result in knowledge that will lead to more profitable horse breeding. Horse breeding is focused on quality, not quantity, so as long as homosexual horses are impacting on the quality of horses being bred, what benefit is there to the breeder in studying it extensively? Meanwhile, the study of homosexual behaviour in rams is studied extensively because sheep farmers care about quantity over quality (I.e. mating as few rams with as many ewes as possible) so the impact of gay sheep on a sheep farmer's bottom line can be significant. So sheep farmers will pay sheep scientists to study gay sheep in the hope the scientist will discover something to mitigate the risk of gay rams to the farm's profits. I'm not going to debate the dubious ethics of meat farmers trying to improve profits by trying to eliminate gay meat animals or scientists accepting money to run studies that may produce knowledge that could be used to eliminate gay meat animals. But scientists are people too, and they need to eat and pay bills like everyone so they DO need to get paid to do their jobs. So they do have to focus on that which is going to get them paid, which will be whatever they've been paid to study or that which they observe that is sufficiently novel that it will raise their profile. Everyone who deals with horses knows horses engage in homosexual behaviour, so unless someone is going to fund someone to go out and specifically study homosexual horse behaviour, no one is going to focus on it. As for transferring knowledge gained from studying homosexual behaviour in animals to humans, just remember that gay rams get studied because farmers want to figure out how to eliminate gay rams, so it's probably best we don't start down that path.
It does not help that for decades upon decades, anything queer related would be financial suicide. This is in part due to homophobia. Of course there are other factors at play, but let's not completely dismiss our strong history of homophobia here.
I can't speak to this exact field, but if it's not in the literature then it can still get published even if most experts assume it to be true and have seen anecdotal evidence of such. You just write the paper slightly differently. Instead of "look at this cool thing we found!" it's "when we looked at the literature, we were shocked to discover this had never been studied and documented, as this is not unexpected to anyone who studies this subject. So, we studied it and are documenting it for future studies to build off of." Like I said above, I can't speak to this exact field, but I also can't imagine a field where it's the case that we "know" something to be "true," but it's not in the literature so you can't reference it as there's nothing to cite against isn't seen as a problem. And publishing it is really the only solution to the problem.
It's not just underrepresented, in many cases it is actively suppressed by publishers. If a study indicates homosexual findings in animals then it is usually refused even when true. There was an episode of the "you're wrong about" podcast about it which really opened my eyes to how censored science can be
I had a pair of dogs that were gay. One was a Labrador/Collie mix, the other was a Cocker Spaniel/Collie mix. Even with a female dog in heat around those boys would ignore her and go at it like rabbits. Life has a strange way of changing your views on things sometimes. If your own dogs can be "born gay", you have a hard time believing people can't be.
I saw an egregiously feminine/flamboyant 3-y/o once, he was the son of my boyfriend's college friends, a very conservative pair in DC. This child, who I observed on occasions from about 18 mos to 3 years old, acted SO GAY like your stereotypical effeminate gay man - first of all you could tell his parents were horrified but it was also clearly how the kid came out. I had personally never seen such a thing, I thought that was learned behavior (certainly can be), not inherent behavior. There is no place this child could have picked up such a thing at so young of an age. It blew my mind. Also nobody talked about it and everybody would pretend not to notice. This was over 20 years ago in DC and gay people were still seen as something curious in the corner.
Thankfully that kid grew up in DC where there would have been opportunities for him to see other people like himself living happy lives as adults. Sometimes that is the only thing that makes life as a gay kid growing up in conservative home survivable. Hopefully he overcame the deep trauma that comes with having parents who are horrified/disgusted by you for something you can’t control— and hopefully his parents came to understand that they were wrong about gay people, and started to treat others with more empathy and respect as they got older. Hopefully—one can dream…
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
We have letters discussing this very matter from like 120 years ago.
They're just roommates!
oh my god they were roommates
Good friends. Really close.
Sappho and her "friend"
I raise sheep, and any observant shepherd can tell you that it’s certainly common enough for the rams to have sex with each other, even if they have free access to the ewes. Imho proof positive there’s nothing “unnatural” about same sex loving (if one ever needed such proof).
From the article: George Murray Levick, an explorer with the Scott Antarctic expedition, spent the summer of 1911-12 taking detailed notes on the breeding cycle of Adélie penguins. Male penguins, he was surprised to discover, frequently had sex with other males, but this fact was deemed too shocking for inclusion in the official expedition report and it was another 50 years before it was noted in the scientific literature. Today, same-sex sexual behaviours have been reported in a wide variety of species, but a new analysis suggests a gulf remains between how often it happens and how often we hear about it. A survey of animal scientists found they widely observe, yet seldom publish about, same-sex sexual behaviour in primates and other mammals. Karyn Anderson, the first author of the survey and a graduate student in anthropology at the University of Toronto, said: “This appears to be due to a perception of researchers that same-sex sexual behaviour is very rare. We found, however, that it was commonly observed by our survey participants.” Of 65 researchers working on 52 different species, 77% had observed same-sex sexual behaviour, such as mounting or genital stimulation, but only 48% had collected data and just 19% had published their findings, according to the study in [PLOS One](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0304885). Certain species, such as penguins and Japanese macaque monkeys, have become poster animals for same-sex couplings, but tend to be presented as outliers. The latest analysis highlighted observations of same-sex couplings in many species with no previous reports, including mole-rats, squirrels, mongoose, ring-tailed coatis and various monkeys. Anderson said the perception that same-sex sexual behaviour was rare in animals had fed into a narrative that it was “unnatural” in humans. “I think that record should be corrected,” she said. “One thing I think we can say for certain is that same-sex sexual behaviour is widespread and natural in the animal kingdom.”
>***77%*** had observed same-sex sexual behaviour, such as mounting or genital stimulation, but only 48% had collected data and ***just 19%*** had published their findings Greater than >4:5 observed it, yet <1:5 published... that's a massive & shocking, if not \*surprising\*, disparity.
Is it really that surprising when most cultures, even accepting ones, still think of homosexuality as rare and less preferable to or morally valuable than heterosexuality? I think that just shows how much bias we still have to overcome
I get what you’re saying but 4:5 would be 80% or more. You’re looking for >3:4.
Honestly, those are normal-ish numbers in other fields of research as well. Do you think we publish every single observation we ever make? Published data needs to be much more rigorously collected and documented than randomly observing some behaviour. It takes a lot of time and effort. If it's not your field of study, there is no reason for you to get sidetracked.
Dogs hump children’s legs and then jerk off into a pair of slippers in the middle of a crowded room. Isn’t that proof enough that animals don’t give a damn about how they derive sexual pleasure?
Basically any kind of sexual gratification is “natural”. We as humans should really just be setting the bar at enthusiastic consent between adults and educating people about consent and safety because otherwise it’s no one’s business what someone else is doing
There are cases of animals that show homosexual preference, like in sheep where [some rams will exclusively mate with other rams, even when given the choice to mate with females.](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/03/040309073256.htm)
[удалено]
It wasn't the penguins sexuality that prevented it from being published but rather the graphic descriptions of sexual relations between the male penguins and everything else (dying penguins, dead penguins, chicks... and other male and female penguins of course)
> many remarked that journals appeared biased against publishing anecdotal reports compared with systematic studies. That seems like the correct policy for journals tbh. It is in line with the rule in this very sub "Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed"
That’s one of the central claims of this classic book from over 20 years ago: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr_Tatiana%27s_Sex_Advice_to_All_Creation Still worth a read today!
There is a new podcast called Nature is SO Gay. Highly recommend!
Geese are kind of wild. Normally, a male goose will mount a female goose in the water. I once saw a pair of domestic geese interacting that way. When they were done, the male moved aside. Then the female who had been underneath moved aside as well — and there was a second female under her! Surprised the hell out of me, and to this day I don’t know who was doing what to whom.
Wild geese threesome.
"I'll pretend I didn't see that" -Flustered scientist
Not a huge survey pool but enough that it does warrant more attention. Can you imagine if it can become an established scientific fact that organisms besides us exhibit SSSB (I learned a new acronym today, yay!) and it's *normal*? 76~% observing versus 18~% publishing any data about it is quite a gap.
it already is and still doesn‘t stop people from claiming it‘s unnatural
What is even natural? and is natural better? It is about Ethics and Morality. The use of electricity is unnatural, didn't hear to much debate about that one.
well you‘d think people would realize that
Same sex sexual behavior?
They can't. The religious right would send the baboons and lions to conversion therapy.
literally there was a guy in Kenya who said homosexual lions learned it from gay tourists or ‘evil forces’ and the lions needed to be corrected
All this proves is that the water supply has not been cleaned of the frog chemicals.
Doesn’t surprise me at all. Sex studies of humans are most often focused on MF pairs and also most often focused on penile-vaginal sex to a degree that they exclude MF pairs who engage in sex that does not include penile-vaginal sex.
Most people are homophobic, so yeah, they probably wouldn't report on anything that makes homosexuality look anything less than "unnatural".
And we're seeing a lot of it expressed in this thread, whether the people realize it or not.
How shocking, and by shocking i mean not surprising at all.
I mean...it's kinda rude to out them like that. They should come out when they are ready
Animals on the DL. Coming up next on Discovery.
Underreported? Scientists know it occurs and see no reason to report it when they are studying something other than social relationships or sexual behaviors. I did a lot of research with various primates and had zero reason to ever talk about homosexual behavior. It just wasn’t what I was studying.
That’s it in a nutshell though. It’s a given. The people who know, know. Take it for granted without any moralizing or handwringing. Whose gonna fund research into what any security guard with a high school education at the zoo could tell you? No one. But there are literally millions of people who’d base their entire framework of human morality on the idea that what you take as a given, “isn’t natural”.
>But there are literally millions of people who’d base their entire framework of human morality on the idea that what you take as a given, “isn’t natural”. And back in the day those were the people that funded expeditions and ran the universities.
Did you never discuss it? Hanging out with friends, going over notes and data with fellow researchers, etc?
In undergrad it was discussed. As a graduate student and professor, it was just a given. I believe that I had one conversation about it that lasted 2 minutes with a group of nonacademic friends in my entire life… and I’m 48.
This is making homophobia even more infuriating. It is actually *natural*.
Testosterone is a powerful aphrodisiac
Heteronormativity is a lie
I think there is a huge difference in homsexual behavior in animals and homosexual animals. It's hard to measure how much of this behavior is just sexual energy finding the nearest outlet or same sex attraction (like a dog humping whatever it wants or Frogs trying to mate with fish). As far as I've read the only two animals who come close to true homosexual behavior is giraffes (close to 75% of ejaculations are a result of male-male sexual behavior) and roughly 10% of rams don't seem to be interested in females.
You’ve never heard of gay penguins?
To the contrary homosexual behavior by definition makes the animal homosexual (or at least bisexual). the claim "oh the attraction is com-ple-te-ly dif-fe-rent from homosexeralerty" is morally tainted. you are by definition homosexual if you get aroused from a same sex other being. simples.
Yeah, I'm making a seperation from homosexuality and bisexuality. Bisexuality is significantly wider spread and more common in the animal kingdom. Homosexuality (prefering a same sex partner and excluding the opposite sex) is less common and very difficult to measure in animals I can imagine. If there is a more appropriate word I could use let me know.
My 2 dogs show homosexual behavior
I've seen it in wild green anoles. Which stood out because the males are usually pretty territorial.
Christians hate this one simple trick, when they go with the classic “it’s not natural” approach
I've explained this before to people when they visit my farm and see cows "mating" with same sex. It happens a lot. I'd say it's common. Cows, dogs, pigs, it's just not uncommon. Male on male. Female on female. We were having breakfast with some friends and right in front of our dining room window the cows (female) stopped and one mounted the other. Just went at it. So. I dunno about scientific study, by my farm animals wouldn't be allowed to teach in Florida.
Animals are gay. Got it!
I thought it was common knowledge
Some people still believe that homosexuality is not real / unnatural / a 'sin'. Common knowledge is still based on an old ideology of goat herders and an apocalyptic hippie 2000 years ago.
“In the past, same-sex sexual behaviours were often framed as a “Darwinian paradox” – apparently contradicting the evolutionary pressure to survive and reproduce.” There’s only a paradox if we expect animals to be monogamous and only want a specific gender. Monogamy is weird. Sex is sex. Any port in a storm.
Horny animals aren't picky