Bruce Bagemihl - Biological Exuberance

Infanticide —Hrdy, S. B., C. Janson, and C. van Schaik (1994/1995) “Infanticide: Let’s Not Throw Out the Baby with the Bath Water,” Evolutionary Anthropology 3:151-54; Sussman, R. W., J. M. Cheverud, and T. Q. Bartlett (1984/1985) “Infant Killing as an Evolutionary Strategy: Reality or Myth?” Evolutionary Anthropology 3:149-51; Small, “Female Primate Sexual Behavior and Conception.”

Sex segregation (including migratory) —Miquelle et al. 1992 (Moose); Myers, J. P. (1981) “A Test of Three Hypotheses for Latitudinal Segregation of the Sexes in Wintering Birds,” Canadian Journal of Zoology 59:1527-34; Stewart and DeLong 1995 (Northern Elephant Seal).

Masturbation —Baker, R. R., and M. A. Bellis (1993) “Human Sperm Competition (Ejaculate Adjustment by Males and the Function of Masturbation,” Animal Behavior 46:861-85; Wikelski, M., and S. Bäurle (1996) “Pre-Copulatory Ejaculation Solves Time Constraints During Copulations in Marine Iguanas,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London , Series B 263:439-44.

On a related point, a number of insightful analyses of otherwise puzzling aspects of sexual and reproductive behavior are now being offered by two relatively recent (and complementary) strains in biological thinking. One of these is the theory of “sperm competition,” which contends that reproductive anatomy, physiology, and behavior are fundamentally shaped by the phenomenon of sperm from different males competing for fertilization by being present simultaneously in the female’s reproductive tract. The other is the theory of “cryptic female choice,” which argues that females themselves exert considerable influence on paternity after mating takes place by controlling whether and how sperm is utilized for fertilization. However, the complete absence of any discussion of sexual pleasure in these analyses (even where human beings are concerned) is notable. Not only is sexual pleasure as a “motivating force” compatible with many “sperm competition” and “cryptic female choice” analyses (and should therefore be considered as an important cofactor), it also offers significant insights into phenomena that continue to elude even these approaches (such as the extraordinarily high copulation rates of monogamous raptors, or mating far in advance of sperm storage periods in birds, or extrapair copulations with nonfertilizable females). For some discussion of these theories, see Baker and Bellis, Human Sperm Competition ; Birkhead and Møller, Sperm Competition in Birds ; Ginsberg and Huck, “Sperm Competition in Mammals”; Smith, ed., Sperm Competition and the Evolution of Animal Mating Systems ; Eberhard, Female Control; Birkhead and Møller, “Female Control of Paternity.” For a critique of the general male-centeredness of most sperm-competition studies, see Gowaty, P. A. (1997) “Principles of Females’ Perspectives in Avian Behavioral Ecology,” pp. 97-98, Journal of Avian Biology 28:95- 102. For additional observations on the limitations of sperm competition (and sexual selection) theory as applied to species such as Oystercatchers, see Ens (1998:637).

159

On the “function” of kissing in various species, see Common Chimpanzee (Nishida 1970:51-52); Orang-utan (Rijksen 1978:204-6); Squirrel Monkey (Peters 1970); West Indian Manatee (Moore 1956; Hartman 1979:110). For similar analyses applied to human kissing in various cultures, see Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. (1972) Love and Hate: The Natural History of Behavior Patterns , pp. 134-39 (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston).

160

cummings, e. e. (1963) Complete Poems 1913-1962, p. 556 (New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich).

161

Dawson, W. L. (1923) The Birds of California, pp. 1090-91 (San Diego: South Moulton Co.); Jehl, J. R., Jr. (1987) “A Historical Explanation for Polyandry in Wilson’s Phalarope,” Auk 104:555-56. Likewise, an even more “innocuous” phenomenon—the existence of female choice in mating among a wide variety of organisms—was considered “controversial” less than 20 years ago (Eberhard, Female Control, pp. 420-21), owing to the widespread belief among biologists that females are merely passive participants or “receptacles” in mating activities. Unfortunately, this idea still persists among many biologists today (cf. Gowaty, “Principles of Females’ Perspectives in Avian Behavioral Ecology”). Similarly, de Waal (1997:76) suggests that cultural biases and sexism may have contributed to scientists’ denial, until 1992, of the occurrence of female dominance in Bonobos. Indeed, he points out that if any scientists had proposed this thirty years ago—along with the full set of traits now known to be a part of Bonobo life (including a richly elaborated nonreproductive sexuality)—they would simply have been “laughed out of the halls of academe” (ibid., p. 160).

1

Boswell, J. (1980) Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century , pp. 48–49 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press); Carse, J. P. (1986) Finite and Infinite Games, pp. 75, 159 (New York: Ballantine Books).

2

Homosexuality and transgender of various types have also been reported from numerous indigenous cultures of South America, Asia, Africa, the Pacific islands, and Australia, and many of these cultures deserve further investigation in terms of how they perceive systems of gender and sexuality in animals. Two potentially rich sources of knowledge about animal homosexuality/transgender are the many aboriginal cultures of Africa and South America. The Mongandu people of Congo (Zaire), for example, have long known of the sexual activity (genito-genital rubbing) between female Bonobos, which they call hoka-hoka. Among the Hausa of Nigeria, transgendered men known as ’yan daudu (who are effeminate, usually married to women, and also sometimes have homosexual relations) are culturally linked to Cattle Egrets, a species in which heterosexually paired males do sometimes copulate with other males (Wrangham, R., and D. Peterson [1996] Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence, p. 209 [New York: Houghton Mifflin]; Gaudio, R. P. [1997] “Not Talking Straight in Hausa,” p. 420-22, in A. Livia and K. Hall, eds., Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender, and Sexuality, pp. 416–29 [New York: Oxford University Press]). In South America, the U’wa people of Columbia have a myth involving copulation between a male fox and a male opossum, as well as various forms of gender mixing such as pregnancy in the male fox and transformation into a woman by the male opossum (Osborn, A. [1990] “Eat and Be Eaten: Animals in U‘wa [Tunebo] Oral Tradition,” pp. 152–53, in R. Wills, ed., Signifying Animals: Human Meaning in the Natural World, pp. 140-58 [London: Unwin Hyman]). The creation myth cycle of the Mundurucú people of the Amazon includes images of birds as symbols of anal birth and a male homosexual reproductive capacity, and the male tapir as a creature with symbolically female sexual organs, undergoing anal penetration and being sexually attracted to a man disguised as a woman (Nadelson, L. [1981] “Pigs, Women, and the Men’s House in Amazonia: An Analysis of Six Mundurucú Myths,” pp. 250, 254, 260–61, 270, in S. B. Ortner and H. Whitehead, eds., Sexual Meanings: The Cultural Construction of Gender and Sexuality , pp. 240–72 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press]). And among the Waiwai and other cultures, the scent gland on the backs of both male and female peccaries is considered to have androgynous sexual functions (Morton, J. [1984] “The Domestication of the Savage Pig: The Role of Peccaries in Tropical South and Central America and Their Relevance for the Understanding of Pig Domestication in Melanesia,” pp. 43–44, 63, Canberra Anthropology 7:20–70). Undoubtedly many other similar examples remain to be discovered and studied, even within the culture areas surveyed here (New Guinea, Siberia/Arctic, and indigenous North America), since this topic has yet to be systematically investigated in the anthropological literature.