Word: bagemihl
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...gender sex as a uniquely human phenomenon, one of the many ways our famously corruptible species flouts the laws of nature. But nature's morality, it seems, may be remarkably flexible, at least if the new book Biological Exuberance (St. Martin's Press), by linguist and cognitive scientist Bruce Bagemihl, is to be believed. According to Bagemihl, the animal kingdom is a more sexually complex place than most people know--one where couplings routinely take place not just between male-female pairs but also between male-male and female-female ones. What's more, same-sex partners don't meet...
...Bagemihl's ideas have caused a stir in the higher, human community, especially among scientists who find it simplistic to equate any animal behavior with human behavior. But Bagemihl stands behind the findings, arguing that if homosexuality comes naturally to other creatures, perhaps it's time to quit getting into such a lather over the fact that it comes naturally to humans too. "Animal sexuality is more complex than we imagined," says Bagemihl. "That diversity is part of human heritage...
...love that long dared not speak its name, animal homosexuality is astonishingly common. Scouring zoological journals and conducting extensive interviews with scientists, Bagemihl found same-sex pairings documented in more than 450 different species. In a world teeming with more than 1 million species, that may not seem like much. Animals, however, can be surprisingly prim about when and under whose prying eye they engage in sexual activity; as few as 2,000 species have thus been observed closely enough to reveal their full range of coupling behavior. Within such a small sampling, 450 represents more than...