Gay Animals are Common; Scientists Say

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Same Sex Couples Common in the Wild

Same Sex Couples Common in the Wild

By Clara Moskowitz, LiveScience Staff Writer

posted: 16 May 2008 05:10 pm ET

As gay couples celebrate their newfound right to marry in California and opposition groups rally to fight the ruling, many struggle with this question: Is homosexuality natural?

On this issue, Nature has spoken: Same-sex lovin' is common in hundreds of species, scientists say.

Roy and Silo, two male chinstrap penguins at New York's Central Park Zoo, were a couple for about six years, during which they nurtured a fertilized egg together (given to them by a zookeeper) and raised the young chick that hatched.

According to University of Oslo zoologist Petter Böckman, about 1,500 animal species are known to practice same-sex coupling, including bears, gorillas, flamingos, owls, salmon and many others.

If homosexuality is natural in the animal kingdom, then there is the question of why evolution hasn't eliminated this trait from the gene pool, since it doesn’t lead to reproduction.

It may simply be for pleasure.

"Not every sexual act has a reproductive function," said Janet Mann, a biologist at Georgetown University who studies dolphins (homosexual behavior is very common in these marine mammals). "That's true of humans and non-humans."

Some scientists have proposed that being gay may serve its own evolutionary purpose.

"It could be a way that you strengthen bonds — that's one hypothesis," Mann told LiveScience. "Another is that it could be practice for heterosexual sex. Bottlenose dolphin calves mount each other a lot. That might benefit them later on."

Marlene Zuk, a biologist at the University of California, Riverside, suggested that gay individuals contribute to the gene pool of their community by nurturing their relatives’ young without diverting resources by having their own offspring.

One thing that does seem to be exclusive to humans is homophobia.

"It's a very interesting question as to why anybody ever cares," Mann said. "There are different theories about why people find it threatening. Some think it disrupts male bonds, like you're not playing for the right team. The funny thing is that people say homosexuality is unnatural, that non-humans don't engage in homosexual behavior, but that's not true. Then they'll say it's base and animalistic."

Humans' resistance to the idea of homosexuality extends even to research on the behavior in animals. Scientists who study the topic are often accused of trying to forward an agenda, and their work can come under greater scrutiny than that of their colleagues who study other topics, Mann said

"It's kind of a shame because I think that probably is a reason why people don't look at it more," Mann said. "That's probably why we haven't gotten further. You would think we'd know more than we do by now."

* Top 10 Gay Animals: Alternate Lifestyles in the Wild
* Sex Quiz: Myths, Taboos and Bizarre Facts
* Mom's Genetics Could Produce Gay Sons

[Kanastrous]

Salmon?

I'm trying to visualiza gay salmon love.

Okay, I give up.

[Wyrm]

Old news to me, my railgunning friend. I've had this argument up my sleeve for some homophobe to pull out the "It ain't natural!" argument for years.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Old news... though with exception of some birds, exclusive homosexuality is almost specially human. In most organisms they are, what I would call facultatively bisexual

[Wicked Pilot]

Animals only choose to be gay because that's what their liberal godless evolutionist professors told them was 'cool' these days.

[PainRack]

Of course, this merely leads to the argument used by Nazis and other homophobes in the last century... That homosexuals were ANIMALS and that clean humans don't bat that way.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

*sigh* Anyone who's had pets should know that most animals' sexuality will readily change in accordance to environmental pressures.

[Kanastrous]

*sigh* Anyone who's had pets should know that most animals' sexuality will readily change in accordance to environmental pressures.

I haven't been able to pressure my cat to go past second base.

In (Broca's Brain?) Carl Sagan relates having been to object of gay dolphin advances - so add interspecies attraction of the spectrum, I guess.

[Superman]

I think anyone who has owned two male dogs would know this...

[Andrew_Fireborn]

Aye, it's almost exclusively prison gay...

And Salmon? Seriously sounds like they were streching for something there... Don't these, like most fish, breed by the 'orgy soup' method? What'd the do to test this? Observe two lone males excreating 'alone.'

Dammit, now I'm gonna have to look it up... >_>

[CaptJodan]

I think anyone who has owned two male dogs would know this...

Or it could just be a sign of dominance. Really, my female dog tries to hump people/the cat on occasion. Doesn't mean she's secretly wishing to be a man, just that she's trying to gain dominance over someone.

That's not say that this flies with every species, but I'd rule out social factors before I'd call it gay. The article doesn't do a sufficient job in giving us the details of the research, for example. I'd like to know if they do experiments where a female is present, or if that's the only real choice they had in mating at the time (ie prison phenomenon). Either way, I think we're looking more towards bisexuality, as has already been mentioned.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

I think the penguins are the only ones that actually stuck with it in the presence of the opposite gender.

At least, at the last time I'd heard about it in any way.

[Justforfun000]

I'm venturing a thought to those here that might know the science side of this phenomenon..

Is it possible that exclusive homosexuality is just very rare because mating pheromones and other types of conditioning are just too strong to resist? Is it possible they don't REALLY want to participate, but can't just block out the impelling force? Homo Sapiens have evolved so far out of senses like scent in comparison to others that it's barely useful. A dog can blow us out of the water with both paws behind his back.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I'm venturing a thought to those here that might know the science side of this phenomenon..

Is it possible that exclusive homosexuality is just very rare because mating pheromones and other types of conditioning are just too strong to resist? Is it possible they don't REALLY want to participate, but can't just block out the impelling force? Homo Sapiens have evolved so far out of senses like scent in comparison to others that it's barely useful. A dog can blow us out of the water with both paws behind his back.

Probably not. If an animal was exclusively homosexual it would not respond to the stimulus, there is no cultural conditioning to speak of, so you have to rule out social pressures...

Exclusive homosexuality is rare in other animals because there is no selective pressure that would allow it to exist. Homosexuality can exist as a facultative strategy for the purpose of alliance building etc, but exclusive homosexuality will get weeded out so fast it will make your head spin unless there is heavy group-level selection, kin-selection, or a direct benefit to something else that has a proximate mechanism that makes exclusive homosexuality side-effect that is difficult to purify out of the system.

I have been reading the lit, and there are a couple ways this could happen.

The first is that tribal cultures have a high male-female ratio. About 1.3 males to every female. This is due to selective culling of females. THis may seem stupid, but tribal cultures benefit more from having more males, as they have increased resource production output. females tend to get pregnant early and often, as a result they are net drains on group resources until they hit reproductive senescence. In situations like this though, there is a cost. Lots of males do not reproduce, and this causes... issues. High levels of male competition that could lead to negative consequences. Rape, murder, various forms of delinquency, etc. This needs to be compensated for. Homosexuality seems to be the perfect way to do this. And we would expect that there would be some form of male density dependent control. We see this in the Fraternal Birth Order Effect. Facultative bisexuality would be selected for in males, as the male-male sexual activity would have promoted alliance-building and eased mate competition. Exclusive homosexuality though still would have been a net fitness loss. As a result, this is a group-level solution to homosexuality. The exclusive homosexuals would in this case be the losers of a genetic and developmental lottery, sacrificed on the altar of inter-societal competition and harsh survival conditions. Simply put, no lineages would have survived that did not have these mechanisms, despite the fitness loss to individuals. Once this pressure is eased though, say with the advent of agriculture, we would expect the facultative bisexuality and thus homosexuality to disappear under selective pressure.

There is another route, and this is through direct benefit to males, or lineages. It also does not rely on homosexuality being an artifact of tribal sex ratios. Once agriculture developed, it is possible that selective pressures shifted. This relies on facultative bisexuality being separated from obligate bisexuality and exclusive homosexuality. Facultative bisexuality could be mediated by cultural pressures (read: prison sex, alliance building etc) while homosexuality and obligate bisexuality are the result of selective pressures on heterozygotes leading to a balanced polymorphism. That was probably a bit dense wasnt it? Ok. Exclusive Homosexuality in humans has been shown to be the result of feminizing effects on the brain. This can be selected for it it provides and advantage. Once agriculture developed, the pressures shifted, males now needed to have better linguistic skills, social skills etc. These are traits associated with female brains. Prior to this, aggression and other classically masculine traits would have been favored in males. The easiest way to deal with the new selective pressure is to mediate the masculinization of the default feminine brain during development. Selection will favor optimization, where males are still hetero, but also have social skills. If these mechanisms are subject to a heterozygote advantage you will end up with a normalized distrubution of masculine and feminine traits, with an according probability of being gay... This mechanism is supported by the high degree of feminine traits (such as landmark navigation, and superior linguistic ability) in homosexuals, as well as high degrees of gender atypical behavior in homosexuals. It also explains obligate bisexuality.

dear god that took a long time....

[Axiomatic]

"Bbbut animals weren't gay in EDEN!"

[Natorgator]

Now they'll just say that "natural" doesn't have any bearing on whether it's right.

[Justforfun000]

That was well put Aly. Sounds quite reasonable. It also accounts for the seeming randomness of it.

[Surlethe]

Now they'll just say that "natural" doesn't have any bearing on whether it's right.

They might, but this result does cast doubt on the Catholic natural law bullshit. As I understand, the Catholic church says that by examining nature some sort of moral law is evident -- this is the natural moral law. Showing that homosexuality is the rule -- rather than the exception -- in nature debunks that notion.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Now they'll just say that "natural" doesn't have any bearing on whether it's right.

to which I respond that morality is merely a social construction built on a biological imperative.

[Darth Wong]

I have been reading the lit, and there are a couple ways this could happen.

The first is that tribal cultures have a high male-female ratio. About 1.3 males to every female. This is due to selective culling of females. THis may seem stupid, but tribal cultures benefit more from having more males, as they have increased resource production output. females tend to get pregnant early and often, as a result they are net drains on group resources until they hit reproductive senescence. In situations like this though, there is a cost. Lots of males do not reproduce, and this causes... issues. High levels of male competition that could lead to negative consequences. Rape, murder, various forms of delinquency, etc. This needs to be compensated for. Homosexuality seems to be the perfect way to do this. And we would expect that there would be some form of male density dependent control. We see this in the Fraternal Birth Order Effect. Facultative bisexuality would be selected for in males, as the male-male sexual activity would have promoted alliance-building and eased mate competition. Exclusive homosexuality though still would have been a net fitness loss. As a result, this is a group-level solution to homosexuality. The exclusive homosexuals would in this case be the losers of a genetic and developmental lottery, sacrificed on the altar of inter-societal competition and harsh survival conditions. Simply put, no lineages would have survived that did not have these mechanisms, despite the fitness loss to individuals. Once this pressure is eased though, say with the advent of agriculture, we would expect the facultative bisexuality and thus homosexuality to disappear under selective pressure.

Except that exclusive homosexuality occurs in such small proportions that it would have almost no effect on the social problems associated with male competition for females.

It seems to me that human society has traditionally solved this problem via the "women are for breeding, men are for love" attitude of the ancient Spartans. Interestingly enough, that same idea persists today, in macho blue-collar culture. In macho blue-collar culture, men swap derogatory anecdotes about their wives, and would much rather spend time with each other than with females. They take pride in being "one of the guys" and would be ashamed to admit in front of their peers that they love their wives or do nice things for them, or (worst of all) care enough about their wives that they would cancel an activity with other men if their wives asked them to.

There is another route, and this is through direct benefit to males, or lineages. It also does not rely on homosexuality being an artifact of tribal sex ratios. Once agriculture developed, it is possible that selective pressures shifted. This relies on facultative bisexuality being separated from obligate bisexuality and exclusive homosexuality. Facultative bisexuality could be mediated by cultural pressures (read: prison sex, alliance building etc) while homosexuality and obligate bisexuality are the result of selective pressures on heterozygotes leading to a balanced polymorphism. That was probably a bit dense wasnt it? Ok. Exclusive Homosexuality in humans has been shown to be the result of feminizing effects on the brain. This can be selected for it it provides and advantage. Once agriculture developed, the pressures shifted, males now needed to have better linguistic skills, social skills etc. These are traits associated with female brains. Prior to this, aggression and other classically masculine traits would have been favored in males. The easiest way to deal with the new selective pressure is to mediate the masculinization of the default feminine brain during development. Selection will favor optimization, where males are still hetero, but also have social skills. If these mechanisms are subject to a heterozygote advantage you will end up with a normalized distrubution of masculine and feminine traits, with an according probability of being gay... This mechanism is supported by the high degree of feminine traits (such as landmark navigation, and superior linguistic ability) in homosexuals, as well as high degrees of gender atypical behavior in homosexuals. It also explains obligate bisexuality.

This idea presumes that there is some individual fitness advantage to homosexuality, and there isn't. Exclusive homosexuals are not particularly successful.

It seems much simpler to conclude that exclusive homosexuality is simply the fringe of genetic variation. The evolutionary process does not dictate that every single example of the species will necessarily have a high level of fitness for existing environmental conditions. It only dictates that high levels of fitness will be advantageous in the process. There is nothing about the evolutionary process which is contradicted by a tiny minority having a trait which is not beneficial in any way. There is no evolutionary benefit to dwarfism either, but that has persisted in tiny proportions since ancient times.

Let's look at this a different way: weaker, slower animals are also common in the wild. Despite millions of years of evolution weeding them out, animals persist in having babies which are weaker or slower than the species norm. Does this mean there must be some evolutionary advantage? No, it just means that it's part of the variation fringe which keeps getting culled every generation. It's just that weaker, slower animals are culled through violent death, while homosexuals fail to reproduce. Either way, the effect is the same, yet the variation persists.

[Junghalli]

Is it possible that primitive cultures like Midaeval Europe could have unwittingly promoted the survival of genes for exclusive homosexuality by taboos against homosexuality? I mean, I imagine there would probably have been tons of "closet cases" living in heterosexual marriages and having kids back then, just to not draw suspicion on themselves.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Except that exclusive homosexuality occurs in such small proportions that it would have almost no effect on the social problems associated with male competition for females.

Save that, if you did not notice, I said that it exists as a byproduct of facultative bisexuality. The males are capable of homosexual relations when they do not have a female mate, but as a result of the proximate mechanisms exclusive homosexuals exist in the population and basically just lose the genetic lottery.

It seems to me that human society has traditionally solved this problem via the "women are for breeding, men are for love" attitude of the ancient Spartans.

SPartan culture comes to mind, but bear in mind spartans were under different pressures. Facultative bisexuality would probably have already existed in the population, and they gain a fitness advantage via the social cohesion and bonding that such arrangements bring about.

Facultative bisexuality solves a LOT of problems. It is the fucking swiss army knife of social evolution. But as a result of its proximate developmental mechanisms could have created a small number of exclusive homosexuals that exist because there is no way to weed it out.

You are thinking along proximate "what are people actually thinking" lines. I am thinking more along ultimate evolutionary questions. Even if a particular culture has a certain way of incorporating facultative bisexuality, it does not explain the existence of it in the first place.

Interestingly enough, that same idea persists today, in macho blue-collar culture. In macho blue-collar culture, men swap derogatory anecdotes about their wives, and would much rather spend time with each other than with females. They take pride in being "one of the guys" and would be ashamed to admit in front of their peers that they love their wives or do nice things for them, or (worst of all) care enough about their wives that they would cancel an activity with other men if their wives asked them to.

The idea does, but the gay does not. Unless you are black and living in an urban area... In that case your wife has obscenely high HIV risk....



This idea presumes that there is some individual fitness advantage to homosexuality, and there isn't. Exclusive homosexuals are not particularly successful.

It seems much simpler to conclude that exclusive homosexuality is simply the fringe of genetic variation.

That is pretty much what I said.... though in a more complicated form. TO conceive of it, you can think of it as if there is a guantitative trait locus, or a system of genes that controls for a phenotype along a gradient. We can think of these as doing things like controling androgen sensitivity, number of receptors, relative intracellular signal strength and regulatory mechanisms etc.

Say, 5 genes. A, B, C, D, E,

Each of these with 2 alleles to make things simple.

Now, a complete heterozygote is most favored. This is the typical straight male, with decent social skills.

AbBbCcDdEe.

If we plot fitness on the Y axis and the 32 allele combinations possible on the X we end up with a bell curve, with AABBCCDDEE on one end with a low fitness, and aabbccddee on the other end with low fitness.

The first homozygote the all capital alleles, is what we will call the Idiot Meathead, the guy with such a bad case of testosterone poisoning that they cant find or maintain a mate, or die from their own stupidity prior to reproduction.

The all lower case are your obligate gays, or at least have a high probability to be obligate gays, or even transexuals... these are individuals who do not respond strongly to androgens in the womb, and thus their brains do not differentiate along masculine lines, but stay predominately feminine. This is deletarious. However, they are not bred out of existence because of stabilizing selection on the heterozygotes. (kind of like how sickle cell is not bred out of existence in africa because the heterozygotes are protected from malaria)

Bear in mind, there is probably a likelyhood to be gay with other genotypes, due to the fraternal birth order effect and other maternal effects on the fetus.

Either way, the effect is the same, yet the variation persists.

No... not the genetic variation... barring mutations, the heritability(variation due to genetics) drops as the genes that add to the ability of say, gazelles, to escape from predators go to fixation, leading to environmental variance. The only way to halt that is for the costs of predator avoidance to outweigh the predation risk.

[loomer]

I had a gay cat once.

And two female cats.

He was exclusively gay anyway. God, I loved that cat.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I had a gay cat once.

And two female cats.

He was exclusively gay anyway. God, I loved that cat.

I am sorry, but I cannot help but want to put italics around "loved" in this sentence...