The Future of Love. was Re: [extropy-chat] Gay marriage in Spain, a world of change, biology, last post, post, etc.

[The Avantguardian]

--- Damien Sullivan <phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:

> I think both Damien would completely agree;
> certainly I do.  That doesn't stop
> us from wondering, as amateur biologists, what's
> behind the persistence of
> homosexuality.

Well I am in the process of reading "The Third
Chimpanzee" by Jared Diamond. It is interesting book
where he compares humans to our nearest ancestors, the
chimpanzee and the pygmy chimpanzee or bonobo. He
brings up a very important point and that is that we
are 98% related to chimpanzees and bonobos. The 2%
difference is about twice as much as there is between
chimps and bonobos who are 99% identical genetically.
And chimps and bonobos are about 4% different than
gorillas and orangatang. Long story short, for all
intents and purposes, we are more like a sub-species
of chimpanzee than our own genus.
     Thus, IMHO the key to the biological
understanding of homosexuality is studying the bonobos
who are almost all bi-sexual trading sexual favors
with members of the same sex as often as with the
opposite. For the bonobos, sex is a social lubricant
that prevents violent dominance squabbles.
      My suggestion is that homosexuality evolved in
the common ancestor of humans, bonobos, and chimps. In
chimps it went away completely. Chimps have many
fights over dominance even amongst family members. In
bonobos, homosexuality became the rule, with every
member of bonobo society being homosexual (yet still
having enough heterosexual sex to reproduce). In
humans it appears that homexuality persisted in some
individuals yet went away in most. What that
percentage is, I am not certain. If the university's
gay and lesbian fellowship is to be believed, it is
about 10%. It may STILL act as a social lubricant
allowing for men to "sleep their way to top" with
other men. At least that's how it seems to work in
Hollywood. ;)

     

The Avantguardian 
is 
Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that they haven't attempted to contact us." 
-Bill Watterson


		
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