homosexuality…..?????????

Animal Homosexuality
For centuries, perhaps millenia, homosexuals have been beaten up on, literally and physically, for engaging in sex that is “not natural”. The arrogant assumptions underlying this abuse is that (a) even among the animals, the sole purpose of sex is reproduction, and that (b) all animals are heterosexuals — a few neurotic house pets aside. Therefore, homosexuality could not occur in nature and is an abomination.
The problem is that these homophobic assumptions are blatantly incorrect. Biologists studying a broad range of species, from insect to avian to wildebeest to the king of beasts, report a startling degree of homosexual hanky-panky and other non-reproductive sexual goings-on. And while for decades they have tried to ignore the situation by dismissing animal homosexuality as something else or nothing at all — mistaken identity, dominance rituals, and so on — the sheer volume of data on the subject has at last made this impossible.

In fact, as human beings have spent the last several decades perfecting technologies that could better allow them to spy on unsuspecting animals, both in the wild and in zoos, the uncensored truth has at last begun to get out: animals like getting their freak on as much as you or I, and in some cases more so. Oral sex, anal sex, masturbation, pulling out before ejaculation, sex with partners too old or young to reproduce — it seems they do it all, so much so that many naturalists are already admitting that while some species really are interested only when mating season comes around, others clearly just like making whoopee. Even for animals, having sex just feels good and is often done for its own pleasure, in ways that couldn’t possibly lead to procreation, including with members of the same sex.

What’s more, as cross-species data have become more available through reporting and publication, researchers have begun sorting species onto a gay-straight continuum, noting whether their members

only occasionally dabble in same gender sex,
are very bi-curious but mostly straight,
or are all out bisexual or even simply… queer as folk.
As the tally stands at present, some 450 different kinds of animals have been reported to exhibit some degree of homosexuality among their members (roughly 130 of them birds). This figure is especially significant given that only in the last 2-3 decades have biologists really been able to acquire sufficient evidence and observation to make drastic new conclusions about the vast and complex world of animal mating behaviors. As so much remains to be uncovered about animal sexuality, the actual number of species that exhibit “gay/lesbian” and other alternative behaviors may be far greater than 450. Not only do we not understand the full role and scope of “gay sex” in the animal kingdom, we are more ignorant than most people realize about heterosexual mating practices as well: there are many species whose heterosexual mating practices have yet to be observed!
Surprising as this revelation may seem at first, it really makes sense when you consider that whenever humans come barging into their midst, most wild animals make their exit. And even among those who do not, the sound of approaching humans is enough to spoil the mood. After all, it’s hard to observe potential enemies when you’re humping away, and even harder to flee when your genitals are merged with someone else’s genitals — or whatever. Of course, not all animal mating behavior consists of humping or merging. Rituals of courting and bonding comprise a significant portion of gay and straight mating behavior. But the principle remains the same — humans generate fear and uneasiness, neither of which is an aphrodisiac.

As a result, human knowledge of animal sex has previously relied heavily on our observations of domesticated animals, creatures whose sexual behavior has been grossly altered (by selective breeding, castration, and the culling of males) to accommodate the farmer’s goal of carefully managed reproduction. And even when animal sexual behavior, wild or domestic, has deviated from the anticipated norm (again: sex is for reproduction and all animals are innately heterosexuals), human bias has simply filtered it out. That is, even if could be seen to exist, we simply didn’t hear about it.

So it comes as quite a surprise to most people to learn just how much gaiety and sexual frivolity actually exist in the animal kingdom. Laying aside the issue of numbers of species observed in the behavior, we are stunned by the sheer depth and complexity of same-gender sex in the animal kingdom. It comes as quite a revelation to learn that some of the queerest creatures are those we thought we already knew so much about — those of us with Animal Planet anyway.

A quick survey of the bisexual/queer as folk category in fact reveals some surprising names: american bison, bighorn sheep, giraffes, African buffalo, Thomson’s gazelles, kob antelope, black swans, greylag geese, various gulls and sandpipers, lyre birds, cock-of-the-rock, assorted parrots, walruses, harbor seals, elephant seals, manatees, orca whales, gray whales, bottlenose and spinner dolphins, gorillas, various macaque apes and langur monkeys, and pygmy (or bonobo) chimpanzees.

Bison, those large, rugged symbols of the American West, are among the species which not only engage in homosexual activities with great frequency (for example, among males roughly three years and younger at least 55% of mounting is male on male), but practice mounting that does not support the old-fashioned notion that the purpose of mounting is simply to carve out hierarchies of dominance. While the stereotyped image is of the biggest, toughest males merely rearing up on the flanks of wimpier males, just to show them who’s boss, in reality there’s a good deal of hot juicy sex going on.

And bison are certainly not unique. Male bighorn sheep, for example, also actively strive to accommodate their male lovers. The ram being mounted arches his back in a posture known as lordosis to aide the mounter in penetrating him. The mounting male meanwhile displays all the passion and apparent orgasmic finish associated with vaginal copulation. It is also worth noting here that Big Horn males engage in various other sexual behaviors, including group sex interactions in which three to ten individuals “cluster together in a circle, rubbing, nuzzling, licking, horning, and mounting each other” (Bagemihl, Biological Diversity, 1999). In a parody of every homophobe’s Deliverance nightmare, such a group will even sometimes focus on a single male and take turns mounting him, sometimes working together to keep him from running away.

Anal sex … animals…. nature….. therefore natural

Natural is nature, animals have anal, sex animals are nature ergo anal sex is not un-natural.
The “aticle” says animals and lots of them carry out homosexual relationships (sex) not just mounting each other but with full and apparently concentual penetration.
Oh and humans are animals.. we are mammals.. the fact that were self aware doesn’t mean we can set ourselves aside from or removed from the animal kingdom

Homo Sapiens :wink: