Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it, let’s do it…
Let’s talk gay animal stuff for pride month, it’s clearly what Cole Porter intended.
Today’s Moment of Science… Super gay critters that would have the audacity to look bored while fucking on Ron DeSantis’ front lawn.
While all great apes have been known to engage in homosexual behavior, the bonobos are some of our closest evolutionary cousins and they’re likely- technical term- the gayest. The entire species is bisexual. A matriarchal society, over half of their sexy times involve two (or more) females. It’s believed to be an important part of how the species defuses tension of all types. They’re down for make-up sex and stress-relief quickies and ‘hey we made moderately awkward eye contact so we should bang to make sure everything’s cool’ fucking. Where other primates would settle conflicts with violence, bonobos only escalate to scissor fights.
Approximately 10% of rams are exclusively into other rams. Another 20% are bisexual. It must be the liberal indoctrination from hanging out with all those goddamn sheep.
Dolphins are slippery perverts who understand that every hole is a good hole. Males have been known to stick it in any number of their bros’ orifices including the blowhole because, I reiterate, hole. Females have highly developed clits (my band name), and will perform something referred to as “beak-genital propulsion” on each other. Which is… almost certainly exactly what you think it is.
A rumor floated around the internet a quarantime ago that ninety percent of giraffes are gay. They do this thing called ‘necking and it happens most frequently with two males. This can look like a mating behavior complete with nuzzling and genital stimulation. It’s likely more akin to what’s going on when dogs hump to show dominance than ungulate flirting though. To be fair though, it could be (even more) wacky sexual hijinks we don’t understand yet. Giraffes engage in ritualistic pre-coital piss drinking, allegedly to check if the female is ovulating, but I’m pretty sure some of them are just into it. That said, since necking can range in intensity from playful to deadly, I have my doubts it’s their preferred form of foreplay.
No article about being gay and doing crimes in the animal kingdom would be complete without mention of the penguin. It’s true, same sex pairs raising chicks together are found in several species of the flightless rascals, and I want every goddamn rainbow penguin enamel pin I’ve ever seen. But frankly? The rumors that penguins are monogamous lovebirds for life have gotten out of hand. It varies species to species, but it’s more typical that they mate for a year, not for life, and not even necessarily monogamously.
A Vice article reported that Antarctic explorer George Levick was so “scandalized” by the penguins’ “homosexual courtship and copulation” that he didn’t publish his observations for a century. This is simply untrue. Levick was scandalized from watching unpartnered adult male penguins sexually attack injured females, babies, and dead penguins of all stripes. I guess gay penguin necrophilia was too scandalous for Vice.
Facing a lack of eligible bachelors, female Laysan albatrosses found themselves a goddamn way. In Oahu, about ⅓ of paired birds are two females. They’re sneaking off and fertilizing new eggs with males, but socially the two are bonded, often staying together for life. Even if both partners lay eggs, only one survives each mating season. It’s not an issue with resources or survival of the fittest; it’s simple luck of the draw which egg rolls into the right spot to be successfully incubated.
This has been your Moment of Science, humbly requesting rainbow albatross pins before next pride.
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