Bonobos
Was talking recently about Bonobo apes.
Holy shit, they like to fuck a lot!
I watched a YT video and it makes a human feel weird because they violate all of our societal taboos about incest, pedophilia and a phenomenon I have termed "mistrikiphilia" - sexual love for your own parents. I witnessed one bonobo child apparently having sex with his own mother. A little disconcerting.
It's interesting to compare bonobos, humans, and gorillas. The three have evolved different, though arguably equally effective, methods for resolving conflict.
Gorillas avoid conflict by having an alpha male in charge who is so threatening and dangerous that the others have to fall in line. Anyone who challenges him, or fights amongst themselves, risks death. The women's safety is measured by the status of their male mate. When an alpha male dies or is murdered, a big power struggle breaks out to try to establish a new leader.
Gorilla society is therefore rather like the Mafia or a drugs gang. There is a Don at the top who is unassailable. Anyone who challenges him is killed. There is little internal fighting because it isn't allowed. If the Don is killed or arrested, the other men (and rival gangs) have a huge gang war to try to take over from him. This results in lots of deaths.
Humans mainly avoid conflict using their words. The best resolution of a dispute is to talk about it, and shake hands (physical contact) to show the other person that violence isn't needed and will not ensue. Of course, this doesn't always work too well as war shows :)
Notice that the first step to ending a war is to bring the warring parties together and make them talk to each other (diplomacy). The main problem with war is that your enemy is distant and you've never met them - thereby meaning you've never had to opportunity to talk face to face and use your language ability to bring about a resolution.
Bonobos don't have language, however. So they use a third tactic - they resolve tension and conflict by sexually pleasuring each other. This is made easier by the fact that the females are almost always sexually available and have genitals that stick out, making "GG Rubbing" (genital-genital rubbing) easier from a physical point of view. It's thought that they have actually evolved this way so as to facilitate it. The sex/masturbation tactic has no taboos - gay, lesbian, incest, pedophilia all exist. One notable point that goes some way to explaining this is that because they don't form monogamous relationships with each other, there's no jealousy or territoriality. Bonobos are therefore like free-lovin' hippies, who were a social grouping that also freely practiced sex, primarily through avoiding monogamous relationships. Once monogamy comes into it, some partners don't like to share - and jealousy, with its attendant conflict, is sure to ensue.
What's odd is that bonobos don't seem to be continuously pregnant as a result of all this sex - a female only gives birth about once every five years. Also very fascinating to me was that they usually have sex face to face, and there is tongue kissing. I certainly don't think I've ever heard of any other animal doing this. Their lips must be erogenous like ours.
Of course, humans do use intimacy and sex to resolve conflict or release tension to a certain degree, too. Friends "kiss and make up" after a fight. Couples sometimes make love after an argument ("make-up sex"). However, these are exceptions and you can't expect Yassar Arafat and Ehud Barak to engage in gay sex to show each other that they want Israelis and Palestinians to get along.
So could humans do this? There are many barriers. We form monogamous relationships which rule out casual sex with strangers, we have far closer bonds with our children which prohibits any kind of interference from others, we wear clothes and have recessed genitalia making sex more difficult, and we have linguistic ability which offers us an alternative. So no bonobo-style free-lovin', then.
There's one question I gotta ask, though. Nightline on ABC, was it really necessary to censor this shit for TV? Really?
Holy shit, they like to fuck a lot!
I watched a YT video and it makes a human feel weird because they violate all of our societal taboos about incest, pedophilia and a phenomenon I have termed "mistrikiphilia" - sexual love for your own parents. I witnessed one bonobo child apparently having sex with his own mother. A little disconcerting.
It's interesting to compare bonobos, humans, and gorillas. The three have evolved different, though arguably equally effective, methods for resolving conflict.
Gorillas avoid conflict by having an alpha male in charge who is so threatening and dangerous that the others have to fall in line. Anyone who challenges him, or fights amongst themselves, risks death. The women's safety is measured by the status of their male mate. When an alpha male dies or is murdered, a big power struggle breaks out to try to establish a new leader.
Gorilla society is therefore rather like the Mafia or a drugs gang. There is a Don at the top who is unassailable. Anyone who challenges him is killed. There is little internal fighting because it isn't allowed. If the Don is killed or arrested, the other men (and rival gangs) have a huge gang war to try to take over from him. This results in lots of deaths.
Humans mainly avoid conflict using their words. The best resolution of a dispute is to talk about it, and shake hands (physical contact) to show the other person that violence isn't needed and will not ensue. Of course, this doesn't always work too well as war shows :)
Notice that the first step to ending a war is to bring the warring parties together and make them talk to each other (diplomacy). The main problem with war is that your enemy is distant and you've never met them - thereby meaning you've never had to opportunity to talk face to face and use your language ability to bring about a resolution.
Bonobos don't have language, however. So they use a third tactic - they resolve tension and conflict by sexually pleasuring each other. This is made easier by the fact that the females are almost always sexually available and have genitals that stick out, making "GG Rubbing" (genital-genital rubbing) easier from a physical point of view. It's thought that they have actually evolved this way so as to facilitate it. The sex/masturbation tactic has no taboos - gay, lesbian, incest, pedophilia all exist. One notable point that goes some way to explaining this is that because they don't form monogamous relationships with each other, there's no jealousy or territoriality. Bonobos are therefore like free-lovin' hippies, who were a social grouping that also freely practiced sex, primarily through avoiding monogamous relationships. Once monogamy comes into it, some partners don't like to share - and jealousy, with its attendant conflict, is sure to ensue.
What's odd is that bonobos don't seem to be continuously pregnant as a result of all this sex - a female only gives birth about once every five years. Also very fascinating to me was that they usually have sex face to face, and there is tongue kissing. I certainly don't think I've ever heard of any other animal doing this. Their lips must be erogenous like ours.
Of course, humans do use intimacy and sex to resolve conflict or release tension to a certain degree, too. Friends "kiss and make up" after a fight. Couples sometimes make love after an argument ("make-up sex"). However, these are exceptions and you can't expect Yassar Arafat and Ehud Barak to engage in gay sex to show each other that they want Israelis and Palestinians to get along.
So could humans do this? There are many barriers. We form monogamous relationships which rule out casual sex with strangers, we have far closer bonds with our children which prohibits any kind of interference from others, we wear clothes and have recessed genitalia making sex more difficult, and we have linguistic ability which offers us an alternative. So no bonobo-style free-lovin', then.
There's one question I gotta ask, though. Nightline on ABC, was it really necessary to censor this shit for TV? Really?