Welcome to my blog! I was inspired to create this blog because of a conversation I had where the topic was basically "is homosexuality natural?" Paraphrasing, my acquaintance said that in nature sex is limited to one male and one female and that only humans have deviated from this path. This remark is fraught with such ignorance that it was not hard to pull it apart in a matter of moments. Here is why:
Pan paniscus, a pygmy chimpanzee better known as the bonobo, is an ape of central West Africa. Bonobos are notorious for their rampant sexual behavior and they have sex so often that their external sexual organs are perpetually swollen. And they do not limit themselves to male/female contact. Males have sex with other males and females have sex with other females and all seem quite happy about the arrangement. In fact, it has been speculated that sex for bonobos is way to keep the peace. They use it as a way to say hello, to say goodbye, and to make amends after an argument.
Cnemidophorus uniparens, is a species of whiptail lizard that is completely unisexual; there are no males, only females. Uniparens uses psuedocopulation in all female “orgies” to induce self fertilization to continue the species. Depending on her ovarian cycle she may engage in male or female copulatory behaviors. Early in her ovarian cycle, uniparens will present female mating behaviors and allow herself to be mounted by another who is late in her ovarian cycle. They will show all usual signs of intercourse, however, neither have penis nor sperm and there is no exchange of reproductive material. They reproduce by fertilizing their own eggs, a process called parthenogenesis, and thus create clones.
Annelids, or worms, are quite often hermaphrodites. For simplification, I will focus on Lumbricus terrestris, the earthworm. These worms have both male and female reproductive organs and when they mate they slide their bodies together in opposite directions so that the male end of one reaches the female of the other and vise versa. Both release sperm and both have their eggs fertilized in one encounter.
Shrimp, some fish, and two species of frogs can change their sex and gender. Females of Hyperolius viridiflavus ommatostictus, a species of African reed frog, has been shown to possess this remarkable ability. When the number of females greatly exceeds the number of males, some females will actually transition to become, behave as, and mate as males. Their transition is so complete that they are indistinguishable from other males and are able to successfully reproduce with females.
The examples I have given are only the tip of the iceberg. There are scientific documents detailing the homosexual activities of hundreds of species of animal. Nature has many ways of having sex. True, it is usually heterosexual and most often results in reproduction, but not always. Sometimes it is done for fun or to relieve stress, sometimes it is done with one's own gender or the gender that one used to be, and sometimes it is even done with oneself! Nature has no boundaries and does not shy away from words such as homosexual, hermaphrodite, or even transsexual. So why should we? Humans are not above the laws of nature and the laws of nature do not serve to appease our whims.
Citations:
Whiptail Lizard - http://www.nerve.com/content/the-science-of-sex-lesbian-lizards
Worms:
Phylum Annelida - http://www.earthlife.net/inverts/annelida.html
Earthworms - http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~rlenet/Earthworms.html
Frogs - http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_n9_v137/ai_8784789/
awesome read and great facts
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