Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity

Not only do zoologists apply nonsexual interpretations to behaviors when they know that the participants are of the same sex, they also do the reverse, assuming that a superficially nonsexual behavior—especially if it involves aggression—must involve animals of the same sex. A particularly interesting example of these assumptions concerns the flip-flop in interpretation of sexual chases in Redshanks, part of the courtship repertoire of this sandpiper. Because of their somewhat aggressive nature, these chases were originally interpreted as a nonsexual, territorial interaction and assumed to involve two males—in spite of the fact that some scientists reported seeing chases between birds of the opposite sex. Subsequently, more detailed study involving banded birds (enabling individual identification) revealed that most chases did in fact involve a male and a female and occurred early in the breeding season—at which point the behavior was reclassified as a form of courtship. However, it was also discovered that in a few instances two males were actually chasing each other—and of course scientists then tried to claim that, only in these cases, the chasing was once again nonsexual (in spite of the fact that the two males often copulated with each other as well).¹⁰⁴

Sometimes the arbitrary categorization of behaviors reaches absurd levels. In a few instances components of one and the same activity are given separate classifications, or the undeniably sexual character of a homosexual interaction is taken to mean only that the activity is “usually” heterosexual. For example, in one report on female Crested Black Macaques, a behavior labeled the “mutual lateral display” is classified as a “sociosexual” activity, i.e., not fully or exclusively sexual. It is described as a “distance-reducing display” or a form of “greeting” that “precedes grooming or terminates aggression between two animals.” Yet the fact that females masturbate each other’s clitoris during this “display”—about as definitively sexual as a behavior can get—is inexplicably omitted from the description of this activity. Instead, this detail is included separately in the “sexual behavior” section of the report under the heading “masturbation”—a contradictory recognition that, apparently, part of this behavior is not truly sexual yet part of it is! In the same species, males often become sexually aroused while grooming one another, developing erections and sometimes even masturbating themselves to ejaculation. Amazingly, this is interpreted by another investigator not as evidence of the sexual nature of grooming between males, but rather that grooming is probably an activity “typically” performed by females to males prior to copulation. Apparently such overt sexuality could only be a case of misplaced heterosexuality, not “genuine” homosexuality.¹⁰⁵

Often a behavior is automatically assumed to involve courtship or sexuality when its participants are known to be of the opposite sex—and the criteria for a “sexual” interpretation are generally far less stringent than those applied to the corresponding interactions between like-sexed individuals. In other words, heterosexual interactions are given the benefit of the doubt as to their sexual content or motivation, even when there is little or no direct evidence for this or even overt evidence to the contrary. For example, simple genital nuzzling of a female Vicuna by a male—taking place outside of the breeding season, and without any mounting or copulation to accompany it—is classified as sexual behavior, while actual same-sex mounting in the same species is considered nonsexual or “play” behavior. In Musk-oxen, foreleg-kicking in heterosexual contexts is often much more aggressive than in homosexual contexts. The male’s blow to a female’s spine or pelvis is sometimes so forceful that it can be heard up to 150 feet away, yet this behavior is still classified as essentially courtship-oriented. If this level of aggression were exhibited in foreleg-kicking between males, the behavior would never be considered homosexual courtship (as it is, this classification is granted only grudgingly, accompanied by the obligatory reference to its “dominance” function between males).