Not really. If we did the dirty deed out in public, I might think so. But generally, PDA is frowned upon, and doesn’t really lead to any social cohesion that I’m aware of. Bonobos, like humans might engage in sex just because it feels good, even if they’re not technically sexually attracted to their partner. At any rate, I don’t think sex plays the same role in human society that it does in bonobo society. If you piss off your neighber, you don’t French kiss her to make up. Or maybe you do…
I don’t know if I’d call that “maintaining social cohesion” in the sense that sex is used by bonobos. The behaviors you describe in humans are more a case of the individual wanting to be accepted by the group, rather than the individual trying to keep the group together-- which is what I think of when I use the term “social cohesion”. Bonobos will engage in sex with pretty much everyone in the group. It’s more like grooming in that sense. Human sex tends to be personal and private. In fact, we purposely don’t engage in public, promiscuous sex because of the negative effect it would have on ourselves and the group.
If you mean religious models in terms of prohibition against same gender sexual acts, I’d agree. If you mean religious models in terms of prohibitions against promiscuity, I’d disagree. Like I said above, if humans behaved sexually like bonobos, we’d be at each others throats. There’s a reason why free love communes tend to fail-- people get jealous real easily.
well, let’s face it. homosexuality is an unnatural act.
if it were a natural act, there’d have to be some form of procreation out of it, right?
with that being said, if you want to dabble in it or immerse yourself in it, have fun. do what you do.
and yeah, i think the stigma of being a dude and wanting more dude is greater than being a babe and wanting more wonderful…smooth…soft…pretty…nice-smelling…
where was i?
…oh yeah. the male stigma is worse than the female one, i’d say. by far.
Why? Eating is “natural”, yet that doesn’t result in procreation. And if you’re only including sexual acts here, are blowjobs unnatural? They don’t result in procreation either.
…
But I do agree with you on that - generally, society is much more tolerant of female homosexuality than male.
Well, let’s face it. Typing is an unnatural act, by any definition. No procreation, and not only that it’s something you have to learn.
Now onto the question. In the '70s there were a great many “political lesbians” who were against m/f relationships, at least for themselves, on account of they would be sleeping with the enemy, losing political ground, being overly influenced by their male lovers (yeah, they were afraid of being seduced into domesticity), and things like that. There may still be some of these types around. I do not have a cite but I remember reading about this in, possibly, Ms. I also saw it IRL among women I went to college with.
But, of the ones I knew, most of them eventually did get seduced into domesticity or some variation of it. And one notable radicalesbian of my acquaintance went hereto, got married twice, had four sons, gave up on sexual relationships entirely for awhile, and then went back to being a lesbian. (This sound pretty radical but consider it was over the course of 30 years.)
[QUOTE=John Mace]
I could be wrong, but it seems like that is a recent phenomenon, wouldn’t you say?
I’m still a teenager - all I can say in my experience is that lesbianism has seemed to be much more acceptable to people than male homosexuality for as long as i’ve been aware of sexuality.
I’m thinking that in the last 5 - 10 years, female same sex relationships seem to have become more accepted than male same sex relationships. Or maybe it’s just that society is more accepting of straight women “dabling” in same sex acts than men. Madonna and Britiney can kiss on stage and then go back to their straight lives, but we don’t see Bono and Justin Timberlake smooching…
Again, I’m not advocating that bonobo sex, or bonobo society, is in sync with that of humans. Rather, that there are some general similarities and common denominators, and we can learn about ourselves by learning about them.
Bonobos have bonobo society to maintain. Humans have human society to maintain. Each species will use different behaviors and techniques to achieve that end, but backing away there are some generalizations that can be made (ie both species benefit from maintaining their individual societies). However, as we know, within the human population, there are huge differences between behaviors of subsections of that population, it is very difficult (if not impossible) to arrive at a single description that applies to all human cultures.
One thing I would be very interested in, is whether or not there are different behaviors in different populations of bonobos, cultural differences, as it were, including differences in sexual behaviors.
With respect to my religious comment, I was referring to both the prohibition of same sex relationships as well as other behavioral prohibitions. Without straying too much farther off on a tangent, my comment applies to the prohibitions against basically anything aside from lifelong monogamy. There’s a lot of behavioral room between “man and wife till death do you part” and public sex with multiple partners, or french kissing your neighbor to mend social cohesion after you accidentally run over their garbage can backing out of your driveway. For some evidence, consider contemporary divorce rates and the persistence of alternative relationship models, like open relationships, the bdsm community, etc.
What my perspective basically boils down to is that by considering a sliding scale of sexual behavior, a myriad of factors that influence that scale, and the possibility that we can gain insights to our own behavior by looking at our primate bretheren…you get a pretty granular, comprehensive, and accurate lense with which to view humans. The view through that particular lens makes more sense to me than any other view I’ve been shown so far. I’m not going to stop looking for tweaks or improvements for an even better view, however. I’m always willing to at least try to look from different perspectives, and I’m also willing incorporate another filter or two into my personal spectacles.
Honeydewgirl: I can’t find anything to disagree with in that last post, but it seems like you’re addressing different topics than you were earlier. Anyway, you really should check out that book I recommended. He addresses exactly the points you raise-- not only by comparing humans and bonobos, but by comparing humans and chimps and chimps and bonobos. With the three species as subjects, some very interesting conclusions can be drawn.
Lesbianism stayed under the radar for most of Western civilization. Lillian Faderman’s history Surpassing the Love of Men and literary anthology Chloe Plus Olivia tell of the rich scope for love between women within a patriarchal structure that allowed women little freedom — except to share affection with one another in what was called “romantic friendships.” That was thought harmless, as it did not threaten male sexual hegemony over women, and was pretty well ignored.
Lesbianism didn’t even get that name until the 1920s. Before that, capital-L Lesbian had been a geographical term. In Lyra Graeca by J.M. Edmonds, published in 1922, he talks of “Sappho the Lesbian poet,” but he was only referring to the island of Lesbos. If anyone did talk about woman-on-woman sex, they had to use circumlocutions. That suggests how ignored the phenomenon was in the old days—no one had even thought of a name for it!
It was only in the 20th century, when women first began to live independently, that the sex police suddenly noticed here are women who don’t need a man any more than a guppy needs a Schwinn. Now it became a problem!
Johanna, you forgot the “Boston Marriages” of about 100 years ago.
John Mace, I’m going to disagree with you that tolerance of female homosexuality is a fairly recent development. As I recall, mainstream porn such as Playboy and Penthouse had pictorials showing two women back in the 1970’s, but never two men.
As for me, look, I’m a completely straight woman. I’ve female friends who are bisexual and homosexual who’ve let me know they’re willing if I am, but I don’t respond the same way to them that I do to men. I even have to watch myself because I’ve noticed I’m likely to hug a man longer than I am a woman, even when I’m equally fond of both of them. It’s not just my own sexual conservatism; I just have a certain visceral response to men that I don’t to women.
I won’t speak for women as a whole; I tend to be outside the norm far too often to do that. Speaking strictly for myself, I couldn’t become lesbian by choice. That’s one reason I do support homosexuals as much as I do. If I’m not capable of being attracted to a woman, it seems unreasonable to condemn a man who’s also not capable of being attracted to one.
On the other hand, why do I feel the need to apologize for being completely straight around here?
well, just because something doesn’t result in a baby doesn’t make it unnatural. al i was saying is that homosexual sex doesn’t keep the species going, that’s all. and if nature were designed to do that, humans would cease to be.
and yes, if you want to keep going, eating pretzels is unnatural too.
so is shampooing my dog.
…not being a smartass, i just wanted to play the “let’s name something that doesn’t end with a baby” game
Don’t sweat it, Siege, you’re cool. We’re not all hetero-haters, you know. Separatism was always a minority position, I think. I get the impression that separatism is less popular now than it used to be. We’re all just human beings.
Maybe the tension felt in adjusting to being in a different sort of space comes from a marginalized group beginning to assert themselves and make their own kind of space. Someone visiting from the dominant culture may feel a sense of displacement since the tables are now turned. But hang out and get used to us, and you may feel perfectly comfortable. I mean, these are Dopers here. We’re a civilized haven of the internet. At least outside the Pit. Anyone gets on my wrong side and I will be chewing the raw meat off their bones in the Pit, cavewoman style. But mostly I’m pretty mellow, you know me by now. I like you. I hope you’ll stick around and get to feel comfortable. It can enrich a person’s life to reach out to people who are different.
“Boston marriages” (late 19th c.) is a good example of a circumlocution used in the absence of a word that covers the semantic extent we now think of as “lesbianism.” See Lillian Faderman, Surpassing the Love of Men, p. 190-203.
Huh? Sorry, Malacandra, but I’m afraid I don’t understand your reply at all.
The reason I felt vaguely apologetic is the number of people in this thread insisting that almost everyone’s a little bi-sexual. I’m not. On the other hand, I figure after 5 years of hanging around here and very vocally defending homosexuality, anyone who tries to accuse me of being anti-gay is going to wind up doing a lot of backtracking very quickly.
