Lesbian Japanese monkeys challenge Darwin's assumptions

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While reading Mark H's thread about Word Bursts, I also noticed this article in the New Scientist.........

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."

― C J (C J), Wednesday, 19 February 2003 21:12 (twenty-three years ago)

so much like us

― jess (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 19 February 2003 21:15 (twenty-three years ago)

"I see females competing for males all the time," he said. "I see males ignoring females that are desperate to copulate with them."

This sounds like your average Thursday night out at the bar.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 19 February 2003 21:17 (twenty-three years ago)

This makes me nostalgic for the days when I was in college and had to make notes on my observations of lesbian bonobo cunnilingus while on a project.

― No One (SiggyBaby), Wednesday, 19 February 2003 21:18 (twenty-three years ago)

I think you win the "Oddest Campus Bar" competition.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 19 February 2003 21:20 (twenty-three years ago)

I never knew that Lesbian Japanese had a Creationist camp.

Oh wait.

― cprek (cprek), Wednesday, 19 February 2003 21:21 (twenty-three years ago)

Creationist Lesbian Japanese Monkeys that is.

― cprek (cprek), Wednesday, 19 February 2003 21:21 (twenty-three years ago)

But it's against nature!

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 19 February 2003 21:22 (twenty-three years ago)

"Dr Joan Roughgarden"?

― g.cannon (gcannon), Wednesday, 19 February 2003 21:22 (twenty-three years ago)

ok, but this is more detail an old argt ,which is counter darwin's specific obeservations and claims true, but not counter darwinism/evolution: most obviously the argts abt how ALTRUISM and SOCIAL EMPATHY (as opposed to immediate kinship empathy) are easily demonstrated as elements in fucked-for "survival of the fittest" etc etc

bisexuality — of specific types — and promiscuity — of specific types — are both mechanisms of altruism and empathy

(eg you choose to have sex w.monkey whose nice gay brother will look after the kids sometimes and tells brilliant stories and [repeat nice curtains joke])

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 19 February 2003 21:23 (twenty-three years ago)

oops to thread.

― RJG (RJG), Wednesday, 19 February 2003 21:39 (twenty-three years ago)

Preadolescent male bonobos sometimes prefer the company of other preadolescent male bonobos.

― Leee (Leee), Wednesday, 19 February 2003 22:11 (twenty-three years ago)

I want this thread title to be turned into a picture.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 19 February 2003 22:26 (twenty-three years ago)

someone could put lesbian japanese monkeys into a jack chick cartoon.

― cprek (cprek), Wednesday, 19 February 2003 22:39 (twenty-three years ago)

This is nothing. Apparently there's lesbian russian monkeys in the charts.

― SittingPretty (sittingpretty), Thursday, 20 February 2003 09:38 (twenty-three years ago)

Any plans for a film adaptation?

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Thursday, 20 February 2003 09:46 (twenty-three years ago)

there are more than no animals where the females are a bit saucy and the males quiet and submissive. I remember hearing about some monkey species where the females compete to be the dominant one, who then shags all the male monkeys.

part of what is a bit rubbish about Darwinism (or more specifically the kind of gonzoid genetic determinism people like Dawkins peddle) is that genetic advantage can be used to justify any kind of animal behaviour.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Thursday, 20 February 2003 10:24 (twenty-three years ago)

what is the advantage of posting to ilx?

(maybe i can tell my bank manager)

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 20 February 2003 10:26 (twenty-three years ago)

Spiritual harmony? A distraction from the urge to kill?

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Thursday, 20 February 2003 10:27 (twenty-three years ago)

hmm DV, did you mean "explain" rather than "justify"? I don't see how "justify" can be used outside of a human context.

I'm going to see Dawkins talking about his new book at the Oxford Union on Monday!

― MarkH (MarkH), Thursday, 20 February 2003 10:30 (twenty-three years ago)

ask him abt storing piss in mice

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 20 February 2003 10:55 (twenty-three years ago)

items in a Japanese monkey's THINGS TO DO jotter:

1. Wash potatoes in the sea

2. Type complete works of Chikamatsu Monzaemon

3. Store piss in mice

4. LEZ IT UP!

― MarkH (MarkH), Thursday, 20 February 2003 12:01 (twenty-three years ago)

Any plans for a film adaptation?

Submit suggestions for the subtitle.

Lesbian Japanese Monkeys: Let the Games Begin
Lesbian Japanese Monkeys: The truth is out there
Lesbian Japanese Monkeys: Watch out, Lesbian Nuns, we're on to you!

― Skottie, Thursday, 20 February 2003 12:06 (twenty-three years ago)

Are they lipstick monkeys or crunchy monkeys?

― JeremyZag, Friday, 21 February 2003 00:33 (twenty-three years ago)

you mean GRANOLA

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Friday, 21 February 2003 01:05 (twenty-three years ago)

WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER!
LIBERATE YOUR INNER BONOBO

― That Girl (thatgirl), Friday, 21 February 2003 01:11 (twenty-three years ago)

"Lesbian Japanese Monkeys: The truth is out there"

http://images.animfactory.com/animations/creatures/alien/alien_tai_chi_md_wht.gif

― wutchootawkinboutwillis (wutchootawkinboutwillis), Friday, 21 February 2003 05:33 (twenty-three years ago)

Curried Lesbian Japanese Monkeys challenge Darwin's Phallocentric Western Cuisine. An' shit.

― JeremyZag, Friday, 21 February 2003 07:18 (twenty-three years ago)

Lesbian Japanese Monkeys protest uterine branding!

― Skottie, Saturday, 22 February 2003 08:41 (twenty-three years ago)

five years pass...

Mice piss?

― mei, Thursday, 5 June 2008 09:18 (eighteen years ago)

yes they do.

― Mark G, Thursday, 5 June 2008 09:37 (eighteen years ago)

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