Saturday, January 06, 2007

Sexual Practices in Nature

In one of my article, I contented that homosexuality is natural. Understanding nature helps in understanding humans. It helps us in realizing that this nature has all kinds of sexual practices and that our notion of normal sex is just one of many other possible ‘normal’ practices. Here I list some of the sexual practices in Animal Kingdom which I noted down while watching a show on National Geographic.

No need for male

A type of lizard does not need males for reproduction. It doesn’t need sex with a male at all to lay eggs. The female of this species can give birth without sex. The male has become redundant in this species, but is still around. Now, what’s interesting is that females participate in lesbian sex. Why do they do this? This lesbian sex stimulates the female and helps in releasing the desired hormones necessary for reproduction. In this act of lesbian sex, one female rides another as if it is a male partner and makes movement as if in a copulation. They even rub each other’s genitals in this sexual act. So, the sex in this species is purely for emotional reasons and not for reproduction.

Sexual orgy

A mollusk, Sea Hare, is a hermaphrodite. It is both male and female and it wants to satisfy both the organs. It can take care of its masculine and feminine side at the same time. Two Sea Hares come together and start copulating and soon many others may join them; they all form a chain or a ring to participate in a sexual orgy. Such a sexual marathon can go on for hours resulting in many eggs.

Pregnant Daddy

Male Sea horses take the role of a mother in carrying the baby in its ‘womb’. After sexual copulation, the female deposits the eggs in Male Sea horse’s womb. The male carries the egg in its pregnant womb and it acts as the incubator. It provides the nourishment and gives essential nutrients to the babies. The female moves away and continues its life after she deposits the eggs into the male’s body. The female goes onto have sex with another male. The male assumes the responsibility of giving birth to the babies. Looks like this species is quite OK with the alternative life style.

Changing sex

Nemo can change sex. Yes, the clown fish can completely change its sex. Say, if the female in a group dies, a male can turn into a female and produce eggs. There is a hierarchy in a group, and the sex ratio is maintained in this group by change of sex.

Successful Transvestites

In a snake species (red-sided garter snake?), the female is much larger in size than the males and the population consists of 90% males, very few females and some she-males (or transvestites). At a time, 100 or odd males try to have sex with one female. The female is identified through a scent. So, while the males are all trying to have sex with this one female, the transvestites simulate the female’s scent and mislead some males into having sex with them while these transvestites now try to have sex with the female. The transvestites turn out to be successful because of this diversion tactics.

Incest welcome

There’s a species of mite that shows a bizarre sexual behavior. While inside the womb of the mother, the brother mite has sex with all sister mites and then dies. These baby girl mites burst out thus killing the mother in the process and then continue to make babies. The sex is incestuous, so what about the problems associated with incest? Well, they don’t face any problem because they don’t possess recessive genes.

Monogamy is rare

Looking at the animal world, scientists wonder if monogamy is even possible? Monogamy, which is seems to be highly valued virtue in humans, seems to be very rare in the animal world. The birds, which we believed to be monogamous, turn out to be very unfaithful- in fact 90% of bird species have been found to be unfaithful. Except for few species such as black vultures, a species of mongoose, a species of penguins, a species of owl, hornbill, etc, most animal species are not monogamous. In fact, monogamy seems to be the ‘truly deviant behavior’ amongst animals. Fidelity is a rare commodity and monogamy is ‘the most unusual sexual practice’.

A question

If the god or the nature could have thought of so many sexual behaviors, can it be true that the god or the nature has deemed only certain sexual behavior to be ‘normal’ for human beings?


11 comments:

  1. Good food for thought, Sujai, as usual...

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  2. Nice article. Good work. The lizards that you mentioned are called Komodo dragons

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  3. What an immoral proposition. This will cause the doom of the world. Nature has deemed that sex can only be done between a male and a female.

    Those who do otherwise will goto hell, which happens to have an orangish tint and people there listen to heavy metal music and wear San Francisco jeans.

    While

    The good people who burn the witches actually goto heaven where celtic music is being played and people are only allowed to wear white clothing.

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  4. Alrt,But in process of evolution,Humans have attained a top hierarchy with the decision making and consiousness,so does the sexual behaviour.It cant be revert.

    PS-I'm a learner of this langauge so pardon my grammatical mistakes.

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  5. ok sujail, homosexualism is natural bot so is infanticide, parasitism, cannibalism and what not but we don't want these things do we.

    yes monogamy is almost nonexistent in animal kingdom but so is the capacity to speak a language of hundreds of thousands of words. So where does that leave us? well I guess it's a matter of choice. I don't know...

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  6. The enormous difference between male and female sexual behaviour may be explained, in animals at least, by a tiny organ in the nose rather than by any gender difference in brain circuitry.
    Read more : http://www.drishtikone.com/?q=sex_its_all_in_your_nose

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  7. Here is where this article lacks:
    Justification of homosexual behaviour in humans cannot be done on the basis of unrelated and evolutionarily primitive organisms such as reptiles and molluscs.

    Though I entirely agree with you that homosexuality is natural, the examples you give are irrelevant to mammals. You need to give mammalian and historical human examples, which are also as widely available. Humans are closely related to apes, and examples from apes will be the best for establishing acceptance of homosexuality in humans from a scientific standpoint.

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  8. What Kunal Golani has just said is a perfect example of FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION

    PS: Readers new to this word can google it out :)

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  9. What you are missing out is:
    1. The bodies of all those animals you listed are adapted to their sexual behaviors which ultimately results in a progeny and continuation of its species.
    2. What distinguishes a human from other members of the animal kingdom is the "mind". There is therefore a mind-body connection that is needed for continuation and sustainance of a human species.
    The answer to your question lies in the consideration of these two points.

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  10. very nice research done on the sexual activities of animals and birds Sujai sir.... According to the evolution considered by a Sanatani (the follwer of Sanatana Dharma) the creation is categorised as five depending on the sheath the non living things display just their existence due to Annamaya Kosha while the plant life display both existence as well as breathing due to Annamaya and Pranamaya Kosha. Animal life goes further to display that they do have mind along with existence and breath due to Manomaya kosha in them...we homo sapiens have existence, breath, mind and then the Intellect for we are embodied with Vignanamaya Kosha.

    Yes as you mentioned animals and birds know only SEED (Sleep Eat Enjoy and Defend) there is nothing wrong in adapting the sexual practises from animals and birds but we have this discriminating faculty called intellect which say we need to excel to Anandamaya Kosha Which is merging with the Bliss. Sense gratification has the support of mind for all that we need in the name of pleasure but for me to think about having sex with other man's partner is the act of intellect (Buddhi) which animals and birds lack....Pranam :):):)

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