Homosexuality in the Home and on the Farm: Pets and Domesticated Animals

Nowhere are questions of interpretation more vividly illustrated than with the animals we often consider to be the most “human”—our pets. Here it is not genetic similarity (as with primates) but our emotional and physical proximity that establishes the animal-human connection, whether it is with the creatures we keep as companions or domesticated animals on farms and ranches. Same-sex activity is readily familiar to pet owners and animal trainers/handlers, many of whom can give examples of homosexual mounting, pair-bonding, or other same-sex (or bisexual) activities in their own animals or those of friends. These anecdotal reports have been confirmed by scientific studies of domesticated animals.⁸² Same-sex pair-bonding as well as homosexual mounting (including ejaculation during interactions between males) has been documented in Dogs, including breeds such Beagles, Basenjis, Cocker Spaniels, and Weimaraners. Examples of both female and male homosexual behavior in Cats have also been confirmed, including mutual genital stimulation and mounting between females, and mounting leading to orgasm among males. Homosexuality has also been verified in other animals kept as pets, including same-sex courtship and mounting in Guinea Pigs; homosexual mounting in female domesticated Rabbits and Hamsters; and same-sex pair-bonding, courtship, and mounting among caged birds such as Zebra Finches, Bengalese Finches, and Budgerigars. Many common aquarium fish also exhibit homosexuality or transsexuality.

Homosexual behavior has been studied in a wide variety of domesticated and farm animals as well: Cattle, Sheep, Goats, Pigs, and Horses of both sexes participate in homosexual mounting, while same-sex pair-bonds have also been reported for Pigs, Sheep, and Goats. In fact, homosexual activity is so routine among domesticated hoofed mammals that farmers and animal breeders have coined special terms for such behavior: mounting among male Cattle is referred to as the buller syndrome (steers who are mounted are called bullers, the males who mount them are riders), female sows who mount each other are described as “going boaring,” mares who do so are said to “horse,” while cows are said to “bull.” Same-sex activity is often utilized, paradoxically, in breeding programs. In some species homosexual mounting among females is used as a reliable indicator of when they are in heat, while young bulls or steers (known as teasers) are often presented to mature bulls to arouse them and allow their semen to be collected (for later use in artificial insemination).⁸³

For each domesticated species that exhibits homosexual behavior, there are one or more wild “relatives” in which homosexuality has also been observed: Lions and other wild Cats, Wolves and other wild Dogs, Cavies (the wild ancestors of Guinea Pigs), American Bison and other wild Buffalo, Bighorn Sheep and other wild Sheep and Goat species, Zebra and other wild Horses, and so on. In some cases, the same-sex activities observed in domesticated species and their wild ancestors exhibit striking similarities: the group sexual interactions or “huddles” of Goats and Sheep (both wild and domesticated), the frequency of same-sex mounting in domestic Cattle and wild Buffalo, female Cats and Lions placing themselves underneath a female partner to invite mounting, or the same-sex courtship displays by female Turkeys and wild Sage Grouse. In other cases, there are equally striking dissimilarities: pair-bonding and mounting among domesticated boars, for instance, contrasted with the virtual absence of same-sex activity in male wild Pigs; or fairly extensive homosexual courtship activities in female Cheetahs, contrasted with little, if any, such courtship activities in domestic Cats.

Although scientifically verified, homosexuality in pets and other domesticated animals continues to evoke many meanings for the people who simply live or work with such creatures, independent of the “facts.” As with all human observations of the animal world, people tend to see only what they are prepared to accept. This is illustrated quite clearly in two contrasting views of homosexual behavior in farm animals, symbolizing the contradictory interpretations of same-sex activity that are applied to both people and animals. Anita Bryant, in a particularly brilliant turn of logic, once asserted that “even barnyard animals don’t do what homosexuals do.” When informed that barnyard animals and many wild species actually do “stoop” to the level of human homosexuals, she retorted, “That still doesn’t make it right.”⁸⁴ Not surprisingly, noted lesbian author and historian Lillian Faderman offers a markedly different view:

It’s ridiculous for people not to recognize it [homosexuality] in nature. My partner once had a ranch, and I was just fascinated with the way the female animals would often mount other female animals as well as be mounted …. Mammals are simply sexual.⁸⁵

Each of these women has strong opinions about animal homosexuality, and each woman’s viewpoint is informed by her feelings about homosexuality in people. Of the two, however, Lillian Faderman’s perspective is closer to the scientific reality of homosexuality in the animal kingdom. The next chapter explores in more detail the way that people have interpreted animal homosexuality throughout the history of science. Unfortunately, biologists themselves have often espoused views that have more in common with Anita Bryant’s than Lillian Faderman’s.

Chapter 3