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monkspider
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banned
Aug 2001
time: 23:26
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Lesbian Japanese monkeys challenge Darwin's assumptions
By David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent, in Denver
(Filed: 19/02/2003)
The promiscuous sex life of lesbian Japanese monkeys is challenging one of the central tenets of Charles Darwin. He argued that females are coy, mate rarely and choose mates to ensure the best genetic inheritance for their offspring, while males are promiscuous and fight among themselves for female partners.
But after studying Japanese macaques in the wild, Dr Paul Vasey, of the University of Lethbridge, Canada, begs to differ. He found that bisexuality is common in females and that they often compete with males for sexual partners.
"In some populations, female Japanese macaques sometimes prefer same-sex partners," he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Denver. "That occurs even when they are presented with sexually motivated, opposite-sex alternatives."
Males are often prompted into sexual intercourse only if they are first mounted by females. Dr Vasey said: "Female-male mounting in Japanese macaques is an adaptation that sexually motivated females employ to prompt sluggish or uninterested males to copulate with them."
He observed that the females gain pleasure from mounting males, often rubbing themselves against a male's back or stimulating themselves with their tails.
Dr Vasey said that once they evolved the capacity to mount males, they could gain the same sexual gratification from mounting females. "I see females competing for males all the time," he said. "I see males ignoring females that are desperate to copulate with them."
Dr Joan Roughgarden, a biologist at Stanford University, said the macaque was just one of many species that did not fit Darwin's theory of sex selection.
Female langur monkeys promiscuously mated with many males, for instance. Homosexuality in animals - at least 300 invertebrates practise it - was also unexplained by Darwin.
Dr Roughgarden said that a more comprehensive theory of sex selection should take into account social as well as sexual selection. Mating could function to build and manage relationships as well as to reproduce. "Female choice, I am pretty sure, has much more to do with managing male power than it does with trying to obtain good genes."
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MRT144
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Seattle Washington
Oct 2002
time: 21:26
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boris, wouldnt you also wager that most creationists are also anti homosexual?
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mindseye
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A Yankee living in Shanghai
Apr 1999
time: 13:26
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I mentioned it before, but there's a great book that carefully catalogs all contemporary evidence of homosexuality among animals. It's a very large book. 
Biological Exuberance, Bruce Bagemihl, PhD, St. Martin's press.
My favorite is the special form of "necking" which male giraffes only do with other male giraffes. Gets them so hot they usually end up "doing it" together.
Turns out a very wide array of mammals - it seems like most - engage in some sort of homosexual behavior, including child-rearing by same-sex couples (e.g. she-grizzlies, male black swans).
Seems like there is a correlation between intelligence and homosexual behavior - the more intelligent the species, the more it gets into homosexual behavior. Examples of mammals who really seem to enjoy it: porpoises, many kinds of whales, elephants, lions, cheetahs, wolves ... and of course, most primates.
Other notorious species include sea lions, american buffalo (many of whom never once mate with a female), and bighorn sheep (female bighorns stometimes must try to pass themselves off as young males in order to get some action).
All data is carefully documented (the author is a straight, married guy with kids). Great drawings and photos! The shot of two male gray whales going at it, only their members visible above the water, is memorable indeed. 
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Jon Miller
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umm
monogamic families exist (And are common) outside of christianity
Jon miller
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21-02-2003 09:35
It's rather intellectually dishonest to quote a story with a rather ridiculous attempt at "discrediting" Darwin and not give us the source (which I would wager is some sort of creationist web site).
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