• Question: can animals be gay or lesbian?

    Asked by evie1210 to Charlotte, Jo, Kevin, Louise, Valeria on 11 Jun 2012. This question was also asked by jennifernaisbett, ebonyjayneduffy, rowed09, qwerty1234.
    • Photo: Valeria Senigaglia

      Valeria Senigaglia answered on 11 Jun 2012:

      Many animals groom and pet individuals of the same sex to show affiliation and friendship. Sometimes they also perform some sexual act on an individual of the same sex to show dominance. Reproduction is only among female and male but affection can be between two males or two females as well.

    • Photo: Kevin Mahon

      Kevin Mahon answered on 11 Jun 2012:

      If we define gay or lesbian as same sex animals exhibitinig behaviors such as sex, courtship, affection, pair bonding, and parenting then most definately yes. There have been observations of these kinds of behaviours in around 1500 species (500 of which we have documented well). What is quite astonishing is the range of animals that can show these behaviours – primates (monkeys and apes) exhibit them but less sophisticated animals like the Acanthocephala (gut worms) also show signs of same sex behaviours.

      Bonobos are a very interesting species of chimp as they are, to our knowledge anyway, fully bisexual! That is, males and females engage in both homo and heterosexual behaviour.

      Richard Dawkins did some very interersting work on same sex animals grouping together as a mating strategy.

      One of the most important things to bear in mind however is the use of the term ‘homosexual’ to define animal behaviour – as the word technically applies to humans and animal sexuality and sexual motivation are still relatively poorly understood.

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