Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity

For cross-cultural and other surveys of the wide variety of human homosexualities, see Ford, C. S., and F. A. Beach (1951) Patterns of Sexual Behavior (New York: Harper and Row); Bell, A. P., and M. S. Weinberg (1978) Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women (New York: Simon and Schuster); Blackwood, E., ed., (1986) The Many Faces of Homosexuality: Anthropological Approaches to Homosexual Behavior (New York: Harrington Park Press); Greenberg, D. F. (1988) The Construction of Homosexuality (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press); Murray, S.O.,ed., (1992) Oceanic Homosexualitites (New York: Garland); Plummer, K., ed., (1992) Modern Homosexualities: Fragments of Lesbian and Gay Experience (London: Routledge); Murray, S. O. (1995) Latin American Homosexualities (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press); Murray, S., and W. Roscoe (1997) Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature (New York: New York University Press).

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Kangaroos: Dagg, A. I. (1984) “Homosexual Behavior and Female-Male Mounting in Mammals—a First Survey,” p. 179, Mammal Review 14:155—85. Bighorn Sheep: Weinrich, J. D. (1987) Sexual Landscapes, p. 294 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons). Bottlenose Dolphins (Caldwell and Caldwell 1977:804).

4

For some discussion of the parameters, complexities, and variations found in prison homosexuality (including male “pairing” as opposed to “rape”), see Donaldson, S. (1993) “A Million lockers, Punks, and Queens: Sex Among American Male Prisoners and Its Implications for Concepts of Sexual Orientation,” lecture delivered at the Columbia University Seminar on Homosexualities; Wooden, W. S., and J. Parker (1982) Men Behind Bars: Sexual Exploitation in Prison (New York: Plenum). For discussion of similar factors in other types of “situational” homosexuality (i.e., evidence for the nonmonolithic nature of sexual activity in all-male groups), see Williams, W. L. (1986) “Seafarers, Cowboys, and Indians: Male Marriage in Fringe Societies on the Anglo-American Frontier,” chapter 8 in The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture, pp. 152—74 (Boston: Beacon Press).

5

Donaldson, S., and W. R Dynes (1990) “Typology of Homosexuality,” in W. R. Dynes, ed., Encyclopedia of Homosexuality, vol. 2, pp. 1332-37 (New York and London: Garland). Donaldson and Dynes’s typology uses three main axes, representing sexual orientation, gender expression, and temporal or chronological patterning. This triaxial schema has been expanded here to include a number of other axes.

6

For discussion of “axes” not specifically considered here, such as gendered homosexual interactions and the complex manifestation of gender roles in same-sex contexts, see chapter 4.

7

Weinrich, J. D. (1982) “Is Homosexuality Biologically Natural?” in W. Paul, J. D. Weinrich, J. C. Gonsiorek, and M. E. Hotveldt, eds., Homosexuality: Social, Psychological, and Biological Issues, pp. 197-211 (Beverly Hills, Calif.: SAGE Publications).

8

Gadpaille, W. J. (1980) “Cross-Species and Cross-Cultural Contributions to Understanding Homosexual Activity,” Archives of General Psychiatry 37:349-56; Dagg, “Homosexual Behavior and Female-Male Mounting in Mammals”; Vasey, P. L. (1995) “Homosexual Behavior in Primates: A Review of Evidence and Theory,” International Journal of Primatology 16:173-204.

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This does not include domesticated species, in which the evidence for exclusive homosexuality is sometimes even more conclusive, as in the recent behavioral and physiological studies of domesticated sheep; see Adler, T. (1996) “Animals’ Fancies (Why Members of Some Species Prefer Their Own Sex,” Science News 151:8-9; Resko et al. 1996; Perkins et al. 1992, 1995. The question of homosexual orientation or “preference” also ties in to the common misconception that animal homosexuality is largely a matter of “necessity” or “last resort,” i.e., a response to the absence or unavailability of the opposite sex. This issue will be addressed more fully in chapter 4.

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