From Pederasty to Butch-Femme: Uniquely Human?

One of the most significant results to emerge from the study of human homosexuality over the past few decades is the enormous variety of forms that this activity takes. From pederasty or “boy love” in ancient Greece, to ritualized homosexual initiation in New Guinea, to butch-femme lesbian relationships, to situational homosexuality in prisons, to contemporary North American gay couples—homosexuality has assumed many guises across history, cultures, and social situations. Thus, while homosexual desires and activities are probably ubiquitous, the specific forms that they assume are intimately shaped by particular sociohistorical contexts. Instead of talking about homosexuality, we should really speak in terms of homosexualities, plural, for there are many variations on the theme of same-sex relations.²

Animal homosexuality puts a new twist on this observation, since nearly every type of same-sex activity found among humans has its counterpart in the animal kingdom. Comparisons between animal and human homosexuality are inevitably muddled, however, by the lack of an adequate understanding and classification of different types of homosexuality. The confusion surrounding this subject is readily apparent: activities as different as pair-bonding between female Kangaroos and same-sex mounting in male Bighorn Sheep and Bottlenose Dolphins, for example, have all been compared to the sort of homosexual activity that occurs among human beings in prisons.³ The problem with analogies like this—which are inevitably imperfect and inaccurate—is that something like “prison homosexuality” is itself actually a conflation of many different behavioral variables and diverse patterns of same-sex activity, as are the “corresponding” animal behaviors.⁴ In addition to the actual form of the homosexual activity involved (pair-bonding, sexual behavior, etc.), many other factors must be considered, such as consensuality, age, gender presentation of partners, and so on. Thus, a particular example of homosexual activity—whether animal or human—is in reality a unique amalgamation or “blend” of multiple factors, any one of which may be shared with other forms of homosexual activity without necessarily conferring identity between the overall patterns they represent. Comparisons of homosexuality in animals and humans that fail to recognize such complexities are simply misleading.

It is helpful in this regard to think of homosexuality in terms of a number of independent axes, each of which is a continuum joining two “opposite” ends of a particular category (as suggested by researchers Stephen Donaldson and Wayne Dynes, who have developed a typology for human homosexuality based on this framework). ⁵ For example, one axis might represent the degree to which the homosexual interaction is gendered or role-based (ranging from the heavily role-oriented homosexuality of Native American two-spirits or Euro-American butch-femme lesbians, to the nongendered homosexuality of the South African San peoples or some gay couples in contemporary Euro-American culture). Another axis would represent the age relationship of the partners involved (ranging from no age difference to a clearly age-differentiated interaction); another represents sexual orientation of participants (homosexual ↔ bisexual ↔ heterosexual); another consensuality (forced or nonconsensual ↔ freely chosen or consensual); another genetic relatedness of partners (incestuous ↔ unrelated); another social status or position of same-sex activity (socially sanctioned ↔ socially condemned); and so on.

The utility of such a system is that homosexuality in any given context (or species) can be seen as the intersection at various points on a number of such axes, thereby allowing comparisons to be made across multiple factors. In this chapter a number of these typological axes will be explored in greater detail to show that both animal and human homosexuality exhibit a comparable variability when examined from virtually every angle.⁶ Ultimately, we will see that the plurality of homosexualities in both animals and people suggests a blurring of the seemingly opposite categories of nature and culture, or biology and society. On the one hand, it is no longer possible to attribute the diversity of human (homo)sexual expression solely to the influence of culture or history, since such diversity may in fact be part of our biological endowment, an inherent capacity for “sexual plasticity” that is shared with many other species. On the other hand, it is equally meaningful to speak of the “culture” of homosexuality in animals, since the extent and range of variation that is found (between individuals or populations or species) exceeds that provided by genetic programming and begins to enter the realm of individual habits, learned behaviors, and even community-wide “traditions.”

Comparisons between animals and people almost inevitably focus on behaviors that are supposed to be uniquely human. As biologist James Weinrich points out, nearly every behavior that was at one time believed to be practiced only by people has been found to have an analogue among animals—including homosexuality:

There is a long and sordid history of statements of human uniqueness. Over the years, I have read that humans are the only creatures that laugh, that kill other members of their own species, that kill without need for food, that have continuous female receptivity, that lie, that exhibit female orgasm, or that kill their own young. Every one of these never-never-land statements is now known to be false. To this list must now be added the statement that humans are the only species that exhibit “true” homosexuality. Does anyone ever state that we alone exhibit true heterosexuality?⁷

While many scientists now accept that animals engage in homosexuality, claims about human uniqueness continue to be made regarding the specifics of homosexual interactions: people, but not animals, engage in exclusive homosexuality, for example; people, but not animals, exhibit greater variety or “genuine” sexual motivation in their homosexuality; people, but not animals, react with hostility toward homosexuality and live in groups segregated by sexual orientation; and so on.

As we come to understand more and more about animal behavior, premature blanket statements like these have generally proven to be naive, if not incorrect—and this is especially true where homosexuality is concerned, since so much still remains to be learned regarding such activities in animals. In this section we’ll address a number of these claims and explore some broader issues surrounding each (this theme will also be taken up in subsequent chapters with regard to the other typological “axes”). While there is some truth to these statements of human uniqueness, none is an absolute line of demarcation between human and nonhuman animals. As always, animal sexuality and social life are far more complex and nuanced than previously imagined: perhaps the only true difference in behavior between the species is that people, but not animals, are prone to make simplistic generalizations.