Not-so-human sexuality

Posted by Brian Tyler on February 18, 2008 
Filed Under In the news

Two recent stories in the news highlight some of the ways in which human morals and human behaviors are used to discuss sex behavior in the animal world.

In the first story, two western lowland gorillas in Congo were filmed having sex in the “missionary” position - that is, face to face. This is a style of sex that has not been reported before in this subspecies of gorilla, much less filmed in the wild.

Leah and George’s encounter made their plight even more poignant for Breuer.

“It leads me to think about how similar gorillas can be to humans, [and yet] we humans are destroying them,” he said.

In the second story, wildlife experts and animal rights activists are clashing over the controversial pregnancy of a juvenile endangered elephant. Wildlife experts are excited over the pregnancy, as it represents the first pregnancy of a captive elephant in Australia; activists argue that the breeding standards for captive elephants have been violated and the zoo has acted irresponsibly in allowing a juvenile to become pregnant.

Allowing such a young elephant to fall pregnant was “the equivalent of allowing your 12-year-old daughter to become pregnant,” said Erica Martin, Asia Pacific Director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).

“It is completely irresponsible,” Martin said in a statement on Thursday. Martin said that under captive breeding plans elephants should be at least 11-years-old before conceiving.

Like Lauren’s earlier post on macaques and “grooming for sex,” these two stories are news, in part, because we attach human meaning to animal behaviors. Certainly, humans are animals themselves, but are we reasonable to ascribe human values to animal behaviors? Does face-to-face sex in the gorilla world suggest greater intimacy between partners, as we suggest about human lovemaking? Does the pregnancy of a juvenile in the animal world mean the same thing that it does in the human world? In what other ways do we ascribe human qualities to animal sexual behaviors, or vice versa?

Comments

7 Responses to “Not-so-human sexuality”

  1. Brent on February 19th, 2008 1:57 am

    I’m sure juvenile elephants might get pregnant in the wild, just like some 14 year old humans do. What’s the big deal? It’s an elephant.

  2. Syed Balkhi on February 19th, 2008 5:25 pm

    I dont see anything wrong with elephants being breeded either. Comparing elephants to humans is like comparing oranges to apple.

    Both oranges and apples are fruit but different ones just like both elephants and humans are animals but different.

  3. Stephanie Echeverria on March 3rd, 2008 10:10 pm

    In light of the video that was shown in class today about sexual orientation as well as a recent event that was pointed out by my TA today in discussion; I just wanted to point out the current event.

  4. Stephanie Echeverria on March 3rd, 2008 10:11 pm

    Um…the website is available by clicking on my name connected to the comment but just in case: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/23/us/23oxnard.html

  5. Kelly on March 4th, 2008 11:10 pm

    How can you compare morals humans to animals?

  6. Dr. Debby Herbenick on March 5th, 2008 8:38 am

    This is a great thread! As a human sexuality instructor (and sex researcher) myself, I get quite a lot of questions about sexual behavior among animals. As you probably know, the sexual behavior that they exhibit in captivity can be remarkably different in the wild, which makes it difficult, at times, to study (this is a similar problem that we have with studying human beings in the lab and trying to understand how that translates to their private, home experiences). To learn more about this topic, you might find some of Dr. Marlene Zuk’s work interesting - a particularly good book of hers is “Sexual Selections: What We Can and Can’t Learn About Sex From Animals.”

  7. M M Mahbub Hasan on April 24th, 2008 3:03 am

    I wanted to work on sexworker’s rights and sexuality issues, but I have not any good relation with those kind of donors who can provide these kinds of fund. Could you please provide me some funding information about these?

    Regards

    M M Mahbub Hasan
    Partnership Coordinator
    Coastal Development Partnership (CDP)
    Dhaka, Bangladesh

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