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Free-love Bonobos: The Hippies of the Ape World
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Rating: 15 user(s) have rated this article
Posted by: SexOracle, on 10/7/2008
, in category "Sex in the Animal Kingdom"
Views: this article has been read 926 times
Location: United States
Abstract: This piece is about the sexual behaviours of one of our closest non-human cousins*, the bonobos. Despite what most of us believe, animals other than humans have sex for recreation, not just procreation. Bonobos also use sex as a social tool, to maintain peace and harmony in their tribes. Sex Oracle will attempt to explain.
Bonobo Sex: Make Love, Not War
Bonobos live in small groups. The males stay in the same groups they were born in, and the females are originally from other groups. To look at it another way, a female bonobo will leave her family and go to live with another group in her adolescence (around 7-9 years of age). The young female will then suck up to the older, powerful females (introducing the “alpha female”). Surprisingly, the unrelated female bonobos have much closer friendships than the related male bonobos. Why? Working as a unit, the strong alpha females control access to food. A male can only become an alpha male with the alpha females’ approval. Feminist apes! Where’s the sex in this? Here:
New female group members get in the strong females’ good books by having sex with them. Yes, bonobo ladies strengthen their bonds through lesbian sex. They rub their genitalia together in a face-to-face embrace similar to the missionary position. This is to prevent conflict, to gain favor from stronger females, to show affection and to simply play. Another major function of sex is to distribute food evenly. As a lady bonobo, you are more likely to get in and stay in with the food-controlling alpha females, if you make them feel good first. Lower-ranked bonobo girls will also ‘buy’ food from powerful males with sexual favors.
Males and females have sex for fun too, and sometimes males and males will swing together. I mean swinging literally – a favorite position for homosexual bonobos is hanging from a branch and rubbing their penises together. Another is to stand back-to-back and rub their scrotums together from behind.
These happy, swinging, shagging apes make love, not war, and enjoy a life of little conflict. You can bet the life of a bonobo would make for a great adult movie! If only they could afford sex toys…
*Bonobos and chimpanzees share a common ancestor that lived around 3 million years ago; their ancestor and humans share a common ancestor that lived about 8 million years ago.
Information for this piece was sourced from:
- Cawthon Lang, K. A. (2005). Primate Factsheets: Bonobo (Pan paniscus) Behavior. In Primate Info Net. Retrieved October 7, 2008, from http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/entry/bonobo/behav.
- Human Sexuality, 2006, 2nd Ed., written by Simon Levay and Sharon M. Valente; published by Sinauer Associates, Inc., Massachusetts
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