Nature shows the way

[asterroc]

Not only is homosexuality entirely natural, as evidenced by penguins, wolves, seagulls, and more, but so is divorce as evidenced by supposedly ever-faithful swans.

Comments

[erin-trying.livejournal.com]

Don't forget masturbation! That's natural too! My mom hates it when I bring that up.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Oh right, bonobos! How could I forget them in a discussion of animal sexuality?

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

And parrots.

Or so I've been told. Ahem.

I can't remember if I posted it, but there was a really awesome thing on wtf_nature a while back, about sexual "perversions" in the non-human world. And #1 on the list was monogamy, for its rarity (especially if you think of it in terms of "life-long, only one partner EVER" monogamy).

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

True, I've had a cockatiel do so. And is it bestiality if a non-human tries to mate with a human? Or if one non-human species tries to mate with a different one?

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

One of the funniest things I ever read via Savage Love was about this topic. It wasn't a regular column, but a HUGE and I mean VAST list of examples he'd collected over the years and posted online. There was one story about a budgie that made me just about fall out of my chair laughing.

I think it's only bestiality when it's person on non-human; all the rest of it is, I don't know, interspecies sex? (We don't need a fancy term for it since it isn't us doing it.)

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

And only if the instigator is the human, I presume, since I wouldn't call a bird humping my foot or a dog humping my leg bestiality.