On the farm where I grew up, we had a holstein heifer that had some kind of hormonal imbalance. She spent her days harrassing and fighting with the other cows, and a lot of time humping them. All attempts to breed her failed, and she ended up being sold off as a steer. She was essentially a female animal that acted male, which is pretty distinct among cows since bulls are highly aggressive and cows are remarkably docile. Technically not a homosexual as I would define it, but maybe to some.
Sounds more like she was a transsexual (seriously!).
A vasectomy doesn’t change the sexual orientation* or drive for a man. I’m doubt that neutering (castrating) a dog or cat would be any different.
*Sorry, no cite.
Nor did their castration remove the sex drive of the castrati.
I went to graduate school in the neuroscience of sexual differentiation. They weren’t pets but I have induced animals to switch sexual behaviors myself. It is a pretty standard technique of that academic area and isn’t considered unusual or novel because it has been done routinely since the 1970’s.
Female rats have a reflex called lordosis that isn’t normally present in males. Lordosis occurs when a male mounts her and stimulates her hindregion. Her back arches into this very distinctive reflex that lasts for a few seconds. During that time, she has a strongly arched back, is unable to move much otherwise, and she sometimes squeals.
Brain are sexually differentiated in stages called critical periods. A critical period is a window that opens up and the nervous system expects to see a certain pattern of hormones so that it can develop as the appropriate sex. The number and timing of critical periods differ between species but they are well studied especially in rats.
Neuroscientists often give rats of one sex, hormones typical of the opposite sex during critical period. This can induce all kinds of behavioral patterns later. Some experiments we did involved giving male rats female typical sex hormones during very early critical periods. The developed so that they not only had the lordosis reflex, they would also attract male mates and dispay female typical sexual behaviors.
This type of research has been done in many animals and an unethical neuroscientist could almost certainly create a “gay” dog for you as a pet if it weren’t for ethical issues.
Very interesting. I wonder which dog/rat would be considered “gay”? The male given hormones (thereby attracting other males) or the unalterd males attracted to them? It sounds like you made transgendered rats rather than gay ones. (Perhaps I’m reading a stronger link between these paragraphs than you intended.)
I wonder if that works for female cats, who’s sex drive (I think) is linked to going into heat. I haven’t noticed any sex drive at all in my female cats.
Now that’s more like the scientific detail I was after.
You’re not the fellow who writes all the Penthouse letters are you?
Mossie, I’m as flattered as a hog at the hairdresser’s! You bestow only the 39th post of your 2-year sojourn at the SDMB on my thread. Are you a secret admirer, or do you make daily searches for threads with ‘homosexuals’ in the title?
I’d like to think females with disconnected or removed bits also retain their sex drive - if not for their own sake then at least out of symmetry. However, such things are not within my ken.
You are very honest. There is much “I’d-like-to-thinkness” implicit in the scientific enterprise. If thus made explicit by the practitioner, the benefits for the growth of knowledge and understanding would be considerable.
A vasectomy only stops the sperm coming out the penis, IIRC. The testes are still connected to the body and happily pumping out androgens. Castration, especially before puberty, has rather more drastic effects on sex drive.
Good point. Pets are typically castrated very young. I can see where removing the glands would reduce sex drive where a vasectomy wouldn’t. (Makes me all the more glad Gomez has been neutered. Imagine what a sex fiend he might be otherwise.)
I wonder if there might be other mechanisms behind these behaviours too. Instinct? Or is instinct just an observation of a common hormonal profile?
Why would you think that? Do you think one has much bearing on the other? They’re entirely different procedures; removal of the gonads has a dramatic effect on the production of sex hormones, and it’s not exactly a secret that it impacts sexual behavior. Castration and vasectomy are radically different and not comparable in the slightest.
:dubious:
I already stand corrected. Please see posts #32 & #33.
I think there must be some other instinctual mechanism at work. I had a male cat, neutered at absolutely the youngest age you can get the procdure done. For 6 or 7 years, he lived happily with my spayed female cat, never once displaying any kind of sexual behavior. Then, we took in a stray female kitten. We had her spayed as soon as we could, but she must have started a first heat before we did, because all of a sudden my laid-back boy kitty became a raging sex maniac. He mounted her so often he bit a raw spot into the back of her neck. Then after we neutered the female, the behavior vanished, never to return.
Was she by any remote chance a twin, and the other twin a male? That case is historically well known to produce sterile heifers, known as freemartins (I’ve no earthly how they got the name, or what connotations it originally had).
Where is Sampiro? He’s got a great gay pet story. (Honestly, is anyone here surprised by that?)
Ok I had to look that up to remember where I heard it before…Brave New World.
However I coudn’t find anything about where the term came from. Hmm…
I wonder why this doesn’t happen with human twins…it doesn’t does it?