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"Can Animals Be Gay?" article on the New York Times Magazine

jpccusa

jpccusa

Happy with this new hobby
This is the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/magazine/04animals-t.html?ref=magazine

Here is my question: Have you ever owned a homosexual animal/pet? I have always lived in big cities. The norm was to have just one pet at the time, so I never had the chance to witness something like that, but I am sure a lot of people in here own a lot of animals, many live in farms, so the probabilities of encountering gay animals would be higher. Let us hear your stories/opinions.
 
I know for a fact that we have a pair of vultures/eagles in one of our saffaris here in Israel who are gay- two males, interacting sexually as a couple and even nesting(naturally they never laid an egg).
Allot of studies were conducted on them.
 
Hey, I read that yesterday! A lot of the article was about albatrosses.

Today I found an interesting article in NYT I was going to post later about animals having, OMG...personalities!!!
 
I actually have had a same-sex pair of pigeons. My daughter had this pretty Indian Fantail, Jip. So we were at a pigeon show, and wanted to buy a mate for Jip. For company, not breeding. We found a gorgeous white and brown pied Indian Fantail. The seller assured us she was a female- he could tell by her deep brown eye color. (Male pigeons typically have red or pink or orange eyes). So we bring her home and she bonds instantly with Jip. They are all lovey-dovey as only pigeons can be. Then I acquired a whole flock of pigeons from a guy at work who was tired of them and said he was going to "pop their heads off" if I didn't take all 25 of them. Fine. Among them was a pair of Giant Homers- a beautiful pair. The male, Big Red, was the brother of a National Champion. The female was a near-perfect specimen. So the flock settles out in the new coop. Big Red and Razzle commence pigeon breeding. For some reason we decided Jip and Lily should move out there, too. Lily instantly abandoned Jip and stole Razzle away from Big Red and it became quite obvious that Lily was, in fact, a male...(His love was unrequited, though, because I didn't want a bunch of mutt pigeons running around).
 
Nanci said:
Hey, I read that yesterday! A lot of the article was about albatrosses.

Today I found an interesting article in NYT I was going to post later about animals having, OMG...personalities!!!
Click to expand...

Next they're going ot try to tell us that animals feel pain too, yeesh! </sarcasm>


that's a really interesting article, thanks for posting!
 
Nanci said:
I actually have had a same-sex pair of pigeons. My daughter had this pretty Indian Fantail, Jip. So we were at a pigeon show, and wanted to buy a mate for Jip. For company, not breeding. We found a gorgeous white and brown pied Indian Fantail. The seller assured us she was a female- he could tell by her deep brown eye color. (Male pigeons typically have red or pink or orange eyes). So we bring her home and she bonds instantly with Jip. They are all lovey-dovey as only pigeons can be. Then I acquired a whole flock of pigeons from a guy at work who was tired of them and said he was going to "pop their heads off" if I didn't take all 25 of them. Fine. Among them was a pair of Giant Homers- a beautiful pair. The male, Big Red, was the brother of a National Champion. The female was a near-perfect specimen. So the flock settles out in the new coop. Big Red and Razzle commence pigeon breeding. For some reason we decided Jip and Lily should move out there, too. Lily instantly abandoned Jip and stole Razzle away from Big Red and it became quite obvious that Lily was, in fact, a male...(His love was unrequited, though, because I didn't want a bunch of mutt pigeons running around).
Click to expand...

Cool story Nanci. I knew that you would be one of the people that probably had a story to share.
It is interesting to see that most cases of same-sex pairing occur with our feathered friends.
 
Bonobo's...exist in a social group, generally led by an alpha male. A lot of the bonobo's social sexual behavior is with same-sex partners (they use various forms of sex as bonding, greeting, peace making/conflict resolution, etc...)
 
I've seen steers do it multiple times, expessially at livestock shows where heifers in heat are with in smelling distance, hogs also when boars are kept from sows. It's more of asign of dominance though and not sexual release.
 
I'll tell you how my cats and Rosie horrified my boys. The cats both came into season before their spaying date and were writhing and calling as only a frustrated cat can do. Then I heard 'Help, Mum!' calls from my boys because Rosie is humping away on the cats. If it was another bitch I'd have said it was dominance, but I think the cats made her all sexy in the general hormonal rush of them being in season:shrugs:
(edited to add........I just got a PM so I thought I'd make it clear, when using the term 'bitch' I'm referring to my female dog, Rosie. I've seen 2 female dogs (bitches) mount each other in dominance. The reason I thought this wasn't the case was because she was mounting my then un-spayed female cats (queens) The cats were actively seeking her out, they were having their first season and probably full of hormones, so I'd guess their intent was sexual, even if Rosie's wasn't. After the girls were spayed, hence no more seasons, I've never seen a repeat of the behaviour, which also suggests to me that it was purely hormone-driven rather than a dominance display)
 
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Butch said:
It's more of asign of dominance though and not sexual release.
Click to expand...

Not always. People seem to assume that mounting is a sign of dominance all the time, but it can be done for a number of reasons, including sexual release. My dog is very submissive during play, but mounts other dogs to initiate chase. He has learned that if he mounts other dogs they will chase him, so that's his standard for initiating play now.

Emily, I used to have that book, it's great! So much information, so many studies I'd never seen! I wish I knew what happened to my copy.
 
ceduke said:
Emily, I used to have that book, it's great! So much information, so many studies I'd never seen! I wish I knew what happened to my copy.
Click to expand...

I want to read it! I'm sooo curious and I've heard good things. I'm glad to hear you liked it.
 
I used to race pigeons. I had several hundred. I had a pair of hens pair up and go through all the courting rituals and even take turns mounting each other. They both laid eggs and sat them. They eggs of course were infertile but they tried their best.
 
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