Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity

Even use of the term homosexual is controversial. Although the majority of scientific sources on same-sex activity classify the behavior explicitly as “homosexual” —and a handful even use the more loaded terms gay or lesbian⁴⁰—many scientists are nevertheless loath to apply this term to any animal behavior. In fact, a whole “avoidance” vocabulary of alternate, and putatively more “neutral,” words has come into use. “Male-male” or “female-female” activity is the most common appellation, although some more oblique designations have also appeared, such as “male-only social interactions” in Killer Whales or “multifemale associations” for same-sex pairs in Roseate Terns and some Gulls. Homosexual activities are also called “unisexual,” “isosexual,” “intrasexual,” or “ambisexual” (meaning single-sex, same-sex, within-sex, and bisexual, respectively) in various species such as Gorillas, Ruffs, Stumptail Macaques, Hooded Warblers, and Rhesus Macaques. The use of “alternate” words such as unisexual is sometimes advocated precisely because of the homophobia evoked by the term homosexual: one scientist reports that an article on animal behavior containing homosexual in its title was widely received with a “lurid snicker” by biologists, many of whom never got beyond the “sensationalistic wording” of the title to actually read its contents.⁴¹

Occasionally there are directly opposing assertions regarding the suitability of the term homosexual for the same behavior and species. In a relatively enlightened treatment of same-sex activities in Giraffes, for example, one zoologist stated, “Such usage [of the term homosexual] is acceptable provided it is used without the usual human connotation of stigma and sexual abnormality … . In giraffes the erection of the penis, mounting, and even possibly orgasm leaves little doubt as to the sexual motivation behind these actions.” In contrast, a decade later another zoologist objected, “Considerable significance has been attached to the fact that necking males sometimes show penis erections and that one may mount the other … such behavior has been called ‘homosexual.’ However … I … do not feel that the use of the term homosexual, with its usual (human) connotation, is justified in this context.”⁴² Ironically, where the first scientist objected only to the stigma associated with the term as applied to people, the second objected to the connotation of genuinely sexual behavior in the term as applied to people.

When it comes to heterosexual activities, however, scientists are not at all adverse to making analogies with human behaviors. Opposite-sex courtship-feeding in birds is described as “romantic” and reminiscent of human lovers kissing, male canaries whose vocalizations attract female partners are said to sing “sexy” songs, while avian heterosexual monogamy and foster-parenting are compared to similar activities in people (in spite of the acknowledged differences in the behaviors involved). Even more flagrant anthropomorphizing sometimes occurs: male-female interactions in Savanna Baboons, for example, are likened to “May-December romances,” “flirting,” and other human courtship rituals in a “singles bar”; polyandry in Tasmanian Native Hens is termed “wife-sharing”; opposite-sex bonds between cranes who readily pair with one another are characterized as “magic marriages”; and heterosexually precocious male Bonobos are dubbed “little Don Juans.” Female fireflies that lure males of other species by courting and then eating them are labeled “femmes fatales,” and one scientist even uses the term gang-bang to describe group courtship and forced heterosexual activity in Domestic Goats. Regardless of whether these characterizations are appropriate, among zoologists it is still more acceptable (in practice if not in theory) to draw human analogies where heterosexuality is concerned.⁴³