Mare Tranquillity
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- Joined
- May 15, 2007
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There is a fairly new book out on the market by Bruce Bagemihl, Ph.D., in which he details the research of hundreds of scientists who have spent tens of thousands of hours studying animal sexuality. It isn't just that they have discovered that animals indulge in almost all the same kinds of sexual practices that people do, such as homosexuality, transvestism, transsexualism, oral sex, anal sex, mutual masturbation, self-masturbation, masturbation with instruments, group sex, and several things for which humans are not physically equipped, but the fact that sex for reproduction is only peripheral when compared to the quantity of sexual activities for recreation, pair-bonding, affection, group-bonding, socializing, and just plain fun.
This represents a paradigm shift away from the "sex for procreation only when they are in heat" view of animals that has prevailed for so many decades. The book runs to more than 700 pages, has copious notes, sources, and references. Of the more than 1500 animals we know engage in homosexual activity, this work only details the research on 450 different animals because the book simply got too big to include more. The variety of sexual behavior patterns is incredibly diverse from elephants and grizzly bears to hummingbirds, dolphins, geese, bighorn sheep, and giraffes. It's an amazing journey through the world of animal behavior in which there are many surprises--such as male homosexual pairs of geese are considerably more successful in raising goslings than heterosexual pairs.
Maybe God gave us a wide variety of sexual opportunities as a way of making our lives more interesting and fun, an examination of the world of animals would suggest that this could be the truth. This should lay to rest once and for all the myth of homosexuality being "unnatural" or that homosexuals cannot reproduce. Our view of sex has been stifled for centuries by religious myths and taboos based on fear and ignorance. This book shines a lot of light into some heretofore very dark corners.
Please do not try to argue the contents of the book with me until you have at least read the overview in the first chapter.
BIOLOGICAL EXUBERANCE: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity by Bruce Bagemihl, Ph.D. from St. Martins Press, New York , ISBN 0-312-19239-8
This represents a paradigm shift away from the "sex for procreation only when they are in heat" view of animals that has prevailed for so many decades. The book runs to more than 700 pages, has copious notes, sources, and references. Of the more than 1500 animals we know engage in homosexual activity, this work only details the research on 450 different animals because the book simply got too big to include more. The variety of sexual behavior patterns is incredibly diverse from elephants and grizzly bears to hummingbirds, dolphins, geese, bighorn sheep, and giraffes. It's an amazing journey through the world of animal behavior in which there are many surprises--such as male homosexual pairs of geese are considerably more successful in raising goslings than heterosexual pairs.
Maybe God gave us a wide variety of sexual opportunities as a way of making our lives more interesting and fun, an examination of the world of animals would suggest that this could be the truth. This should lay to rest once and for all the myth of homosexuality being "unnatural" or that homosexuals cannot reproduce. Our view of sex has been stifled for centuries by religious myths and taboos based on fear and ignorance. This book shines a lot of light into some heretofore very dark corners.
Please do not try to argue the contents of the book with me until you have at least read the overview in the first chapter.
BIOLOGICAL EXUBERANCE: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity by Bruce Bagemihl, Ph.D. from St. Martins Press, New York , ISBN 0-312-19239-8
