Word: sexualizing
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...homosexual activity purely for pleasure, their behavior still serves as an incomplete model--and an incomplete explanation--for human behavior. "In our society homosexuality means a principal or exclusive orientation," says psychology professor Frans de Waal of the Yerkes Primate Center in Atlanta. "Among animals it's just nonreproductive sexual behavior...
...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...
That 20% may spend its time lustily or quite tenderly. Among bonobos, a chimplike ape, homosexual pairings account for as much as 50% of all sexual activity. Females especially engage in repeated acts of same-sex sex, spending far more than the 12 or so seconds the whole transaction can take when a randy male is involved. Male giraffes practice necking--literally--in a very big way, entwining their long bodies until both partners become sexually aroused. Heterosexual and homosexual dolphin pairs engage in face-to-face sexual encounters that look altogether human. Animals as diverse as elephants and rodents...
What struck Bagemihl most is those forms that go beyond mere sexual gratification. Humboldt penguins may have homosexual unions that last six years; male greylag geese may stay paired for 15 years--a lifetime commitment when you've got the lifespan of a goose. Bears and some other mammals may bring their young into homosexual unions, raising them with their same-sex partner just as they would with a member of the opposite...
Whether any of this turns out to be good for the gay and lesbian community is unclear. While the new findings seem to support the idea that homosexuality is merely a natural form of sexual expression, Bagemihl believes such political questions may be beside the point. "We shouldn't have to look to the animal world to see what's normal or ethical," he says. Indeed, when it comes to answering those questions, Mother Nature seems to be keeping an open mind...