J Scott Hill's List: Gender and Sexuality

• Do bonobos have more sex than chimpanzees?

• Historically, it was believed that only humans and a small number of other species performed sexual acts other than for reproduction, and that animals' sexuality was instinctive and a simple "stimulus-response" behaviour. A range of species masturbate and may use objects as tools to help them do so.
• Social monogamy is relatively rare in the animal kingdom. The actual incidence of social monogamy varies greatly across different branches of the evolutionary tree. Over 90% of avian species are socially monogamous.^[10][16] This stands in contrast to mammals. Only 3% of mammalian species are socially monogamous, although up to 15% of primate species are.^[10][16] Social monogamy has also been observed in reptiles, fish, and insects.
• Sexual monogamy is also rare among animals. Many socially monogamous species engage in extra-pair copulations, making them sexually non-monogamous.
• Social monogamy is relatively rare in the animal kingdom. The actual incidence of social monogamy varies greatly across different branches of the evolutionary tree. Over 90 percent of avian species are socially monogamous.^[13][20]
• 3 percent of mammalian species are socially monogamous, although up to 15 percent of primate species are socially monogamous.^[13][20]
• For example, while over 90% of birds are socially monogamous, "on average, 30 percent or more of the baby birds in any nest [are] sired by someone other than the resident male."^[21] Patricia Adair Gowaty has estimated that, out of 180 different species of socially monogamous songbirds, only 10% are sexually monogamous.^[22]
• See also Evolution of monogamy.

• Interpretation bias

   

  The field of study of sexuality in non-human species has been a long standing taboo,^[1] with researchers either failing to observe or mis-categorizing and mis-describing sexual behaviour which does not meet their preconceptions.
• Many researchers have described homosexuality as something altogether different from sex. They must realise that animals can have sex with who they will, when they will and without consideration to a researcher's ethical principles.
• giraffe

• Sex for pleasure

   

  It is a common myth that animals do not (as a rule) have sex for pleasure, or alternatively that humans, pigs (and perhaps dolphins and one or two species of primate) are the only species which do. This is sometimes formulated "animals mate only for reproduction".
• When nine out of ten pairings occur between males, "[e]very male that sniffed a female was reported as sex, while anal intercourse with orgasm between males was only [categorized as] 'revolving around' dominance, competition or greetings."

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