What does nature tell us about homosexuality?

Question

There is NO evidence that homosexuality is practiced by non-human animals outside of labratories where their environment is deliberately corrupted (overcrouding and starvation) and in these instances it has been noted that these action were ABBERATIONS.
in several, male dominated primate societies, there seems to be some homosexual activity, however close examination has ALWAYS shown that this activity is not sexual in nature, but it is an attempt to subjagate a lower ranking member.
Monitor izard rake their claws over the scales ov a defeated rival for the same reason, but they rake their claws over a female to show her how strong he is so she should mate with him.
These instances of a male treating another male like a female is to humiliate and to maintain social order Female lead groups (hayenas for example) never have this behavior
Why would the human animal be the only one that has this difference?

no religious context here, just natural examples.

to Peter Pan:
Saying it does not make it true, back it up!
To the others that are anti homosexuality, this question is not for you
For the religious responses, I have posted other questions dealing from that side. THIS question is to be COMPLETELY unreligious!

The earthworm example is false even on it's face. they still mate female organ to male organ, depending on which worm chooses whch.

quironzazer:
HOMO=same
look it up!

Again Peter, you are killing your own arguement in citing bovine, as it is a signal for heterosexual activity and not a homosexual act in and of itself, the following heterosexual act will be.
"In other cases, same-sex affairs may help reproduction indirectly, by promoting the general fitness of a group or individual."
This is just blatant speculation and you even state it in very unsure terms 'MAY HELP"
it is therefore not o the stage of conflicting proof

how about links from unbiased, straight sources that back up the animal, gay thing. everything cited so far has it's roots in a gay person involved in the researchand through bias could have(unintentionally even) affected the conclusions due to seeking a desired outcome

OK Petey......

mY FAILURE TO CITE SOURCES IS only BECAUSE WHEN i READ, WATCHED OR HEARD THE INFORMATION I CITE, i DID NOT KNOW WHAT THE FUTURE WOULD HOLD AND THEREFORE i NEVER KEPT REFERENCES TO ANY OF IT.
I dare say that most if not all of you do the same, see a documentary, read an article and absorb the info without making a cataloguefor future reference.
and I would like to point one final (I hope) thing:
the male/male behavior documented never culminates it penetration! therefore it is not sexual in nature and MUST serve another purpose

Answer 1

Nature tells us that homosexuality exists. Are humans animals? Are there homosexual humans? Ergo...?

The fact that you have not quoted sources is of no consequence to me -- I am willing to take at face value that perhaps the cattle and lizards were setting domination patterns. I am curious as to how the motives of the lizards were determined to be "to humilate"?

ty kinney, of course, makes terrfic sense about the differences beetween humans and other animals and would worth be re-reading.

Of course, without any applicable citation, which would seem to be fairly easy to find, your insistence on the behavior of cattle weakens the argument, particularly when you assert such detail as "the male/male behavior documented never culminates it penetration! therefore it is not sexual in nature." From your reaction to other posts, I assume you're after some sort of penetration?

I must point out that an insistence on male/male penetration omits other non-dominance behaviors practiced by other animal species, such as courtship.

TREE SWALLOWS: Full cloacal contact has been observed by Wilson and Bull in male Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor), complete with the “ticking” vocalizations which are apparently reserved for heterosexual copulations in Tree Swallows. They also note that dominance behaior among Tree Swallows is very different.

LIZARD: A. carolinensis engage in both homosexual courtship and copulation -- with one male exhibiting the male behavior in courting being the mounter and the male exhibiting the female courtship behavior being mounted. Previous studies (Noble and Bradley in 1937) dismissed this as hierarchical behavior, but more recent observations (Cooper, 1977, and Sigmund, 1987) show a more thorough understanding of A. carolinensis society, including polygamy and consistent homosexual behavior in the absence of dominant males.

BISON: Courtship, mounting, and full anal penetration between bulls is common among American bison. My Lakota brothers and sisters call them pte winkte —pte =bison and winkte is the word for two-spirit, their description of the transgendered in their Nation.

FEMALE CATTLE: Mounting of female cattle in heat by other cows is common among domesticated cattle. (Obviously, since no marital aids have been documented, no actual penetration occured.) The same has not been observed among wild cattle in a study by Queensland College in Australia. Although stress was cited by the observers, they also admitted the possibility of domestication as a factor -- so perhaps civilization figures into it.

BONOBOS: Barbara Fruth and Gottfried Hohmann observed same-sex genital contacts in wild female bonobos. They have already been mentioned here, I just thought I would give the citation, even though no penetration happened.

ZOO ANIMALS: The penguins, koalas, rabbits and others that have been documented as exhibiting homosexual behaviors have most often come from zoos or domesticated situations. This does not necessarily indicate a corrupted or aberrant social system, but (Occam's Razor) they can be more easily observed.

HYENAS: Actually, Ploss and Bartels have seen hyenas licking each other's genitals. Hyenas are of particular interest in this discussion because, according the Bestiary of Barnabus, hyenas were believed to have predominantly homosexual sex, and were associated with homosexuals. This view was strongly held in the time of Augustine, who was a zealot advocate of conversion.

Answer 2

The human animal is the only one that drives cars, flies planes, talks on phones, gets married, believes in gods, buys and sells things, makes governments, enforces justice,... the number of things the human animal does that no other species of animal does is endless.

The sexuality of animals is one of the few things where humans aren't much different than animals. Even if NO other animal exhibits true homosexual/bisexual behavior it doesn't make a bit of difference. People who think that homosexual humans shouldn't exist will use any means necessary to reinforce their belief. It doesn't have to be based in fact or even be rational.

This question is a good example.

Julia: you are telling lies again. I'm glad you left God out of your lies this time. I know you are aware that the statistics you use for average life span are disingenuous and fake. There is NO way to get a statistic like you quote when the number of gay people who exist is unknown. The numbers you quote and are corrected on time and time again are numbers that were collected from the KNOWN homosexuals. Without the ages of the closeted gay people, an average cannot be taken. Your statistic doesn't take into account the gay people from generations gone by who NEVER came out and died very old people. Your statistic also leaves out the average age range of lesbians at death... that is nearly half of all the homosexuals in the world. When you leave out that many people while trying to figure an average, you only end up with the numbers you WANT and that is to prove somehow gay people will die young. I used to think you were just ignorant and repeating things you were told, but now I know it is more sinister in nature.

You are a willful liar and should be ashamed of yourself.
All liars shall have their part in the lake of fire. Got your asbestos wedding dress, oh future bride of satan?

Answer 3

Sorry but I'm not seeing the relevance of your statement/question.

I mean basically what I'm hearing is: just because non-humans don't do it (btw, I have heard the opposite but that's irrelevant) then humans shouldn't?

Or maybe.. because non-humans don't do it at the primal level then why would homosexuals say they are born that way therefore be that way by 'nature'?

Maybe the second one is what you are asking??

I still don't see any relevance?? I mean like since non-humans don't 'think and reason' then why should we then?

And btw, I personally don't care if it is a homosexual's choice. A person should have the right to choose his/her mate in life as long as it stays within the confinements of the law. And the last I heard, homosexuality was not against the law.

So once again, what is your argument exactly?

Answer 4

Well, there is also no evidence that non-human animals build houses, roads, or space shuttles, but that doesn't make us inherently evil for doing those "non-natural" things.

I think most reasonable people will agree that there is something special about us humans that makes us different than all other animals. That's not wrong, it's just true.

Also, your animal examples are a bit off. Bonobos chimpanzees for example, use sexual activity in all sorts of different social contexts; it's a real stretch to say that every case is about domination. Also, there are many cases where it's female/female homosexuality. seems to put some holes in your argument.

Answer 5

Actually some animals DO practice bisexuality.

Do your research!

...and by the way, if it's so WRONG, God may want to consider redesigning worms.

Just for you athorgarak:

Many domestic and wild animals engage in sexual activity with members of both the same and the opposite sex; a smaller number have eyes only for their own sex....

For the most part, homosexual behaviors in domestic animals are considered normal and helpful for the development of reproduction. "This is not always the case," animal behaviorist Anne Perkins of Carroll College in Helena, Mont., and James A. Fitzgerald of Oregon State University in Corvallis assert in Sexual Orientation (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, in press). Perkins' research on sheep supports this argument.

Scientists have studied the sex drive and sexual orientation of domesticated and wild rams. A heterosexual ram with a strong sex drive will mount either other males or ewes. However, a significant proportion of domesticated males -- up to 16 percent -- never mate with females during a breeding season, Perkins says....

http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/sn_arc97/1_4_97/bob1.htm

athorgarak, you've got to keep reading. I don't kill my arguement, I anticipate the debaters retort and knock it down. Did you even get to the last paragraph or visit the site? ...and for the record, sciencenews.org is not a "gay" site!

BTW, it's Peter Pan to you Mr. "anti-homosexual agenda".

Next time post your question under science!

Answer 6

The average life span of an American gay man is 39 if he dies of AIDS, and 41 if he dies of something else.

This means that whether a gay man acquires AIDS or not, the result is the same -- his sexual lifestyle is incredibly dangerous. It's more deadly than being a heavy smoker, in fact.

I'm not a big fan of political commentator Pat Buchanan, but something he wrote back in the 80s -- shortly after AIDS gained prominence in the news -- was exactly true:

"The poor homosexuals. They have declared war against nature, and now nature is exacting an awful retribution."

Answer 7

If you're going to reject everything you see, why ask in the first place and waste your points? Just to verify the authenticity of your opinion? No one is an expert here in such matters, as far as I know, and it's ignorant to assume them to be.

Humans do a lot of things that no other animals do, or that very few animals do besides us, from mating face-to-face, to having sex for reasons other than procreation, to murder and religion.

Nature doesn't always back up what humans feel.

Have a pleasant day.

Answer 8

I once had a rancher tell me that there will sometimes be a bull that other bulls will mount. I have read that homosexuality is common in many species of birds. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1/2000 humans are born with ambiguous gender. That is that there genitals are ambiguous, and/or their chromosomes do not match their genitals. The number may be much higher because not everyone ever has their chromosomes checked.

Answer 9

At the outset, I would suggest that YOU supply sources for your statement that non-humans do not engage in same-sex sex sans controlled studies.

Let me clue you in on just one scientific observation of animal same-sex sex: the bonobo chimp. There are dozens of other (in the wild) documented observations that support same-sex sex in the animal kingdom. Additionally, there are documented instances of mammals developing same-sex pairings. (Clue: penguins. I'm not providing more hints since you obviously need practice in research.)

Clearly your question is a thinly veiled attempt to espouse your own ill-informed belief(s). Dare I say bigoted beliefs? Yeah. I dare.
At any rate, it also seems as though you're attempting to develop a forum here on 'Answers', which is against Community Standards.

In short: DO YOUR RESEARCH AND PONY UP SOME STATS BEFORE YOU MAKE THESE UNFOUNDED STATEMENTS, BOY!

Edit: As an afterthought, if you were really searching for an answer to your question, you would be better served to post your query in the Scientific category. Given that you chose this category and your subsequent responses to the answers you received, it would be easy to construe your query as an attempt to "incite" in addition to trying to develop a forum.

Hmmmm......

Answer 10

Please read this research on homosexuality in the animal kingdom:

http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2006/06/the_gay_animal_kingdom.php?page=1

Read this article on Central Park Zoo's gay penguins:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/02/07/MNG3N4RAV41.DTL

Apparently, gayness is fairly common in penguins:

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1284769.html

Homosexuality has been discovered in hundreds of vertebrate species. It is VERY common and--at least in some cases--serves as a social bonding mechanism. Bonobo chimps are the best examples of this, as homosexual and lebian encounters happen many times per day, and they exhibit many of the same sexual proclivities as humans. Thus, your claim that homosexuality is never found among animals is false. I suggest you reasearch the topic more thoroughly before believing everything your pastor tells you.

Answer 11

Here's the deal, mother nature will prevail, There's WAY too many humans and we keep producing cure for the deadly viruses so.... what's the natural answer? Infertility........ okay, we just pay someone to have kids then......... what's the answer? Homosexuality

This is NOT meant in any religious/spiritual way, I meant this in a evolutionary way


Did I make sense or am I just typing random words? LOL