I was wondering if there are any good websites out there that compare human/animal behavior. I guess that my first question would be, what do you call it? A few theories that I’m interested in:
Rural China - Decrease in available females=increase in male homosexuality.
Andrea Yates - Stressed animals sometimes kill their young.
Anyway, I hope that I didn’t offend anyone. I was just wondering if there were any correlations. I do remember reading an article a while back that discussed a slight increase in male homosexuality in rural China that was correlated with a decrease in females due to infantcide.
I think that before we can discuss the question of “Chinese farm boys turn to each other, due to shortage of farm girls”, I’d like a little more to go on, other than “I read in an article somewhere…”
Also, I’d have to question your basic assumption that Andrea Yates killed her children because she was [air quotes] “stressed”. Female domestic rabbits reportedly sometimes get [air quotes] “stressed” and cannibalize their young. However, IMO Andrea Yates was [air quotes] “crazy”, and I think it’s questionable whether animals ever “go crazy” and kill their own young, at least, not wild animals living in normal conditions, as opposed to domestic animals like dogs and cats who live in abnormal (non-wild) conditions.
So, I don’t see a talking point there, either.
But I did find references to female rabbits killing their young, FWIW.
But I don’t see any parallel with human behavior here, unless you want to correlate the “nutritional deficiency” explanation with, say, Bible stories of parents eating their own children during sieges. And the “nutritional deficiency” explanation for why rabbits sometimes kill and eat their own young seems to be only one theory among many, not an established fact.
I read a book, back just before Russia’s invasion, about Afgahanstan. It was written by the wife of a U.S. diplomat. She stated that the Afghan men would walk around holding hands and it was her theory that they did so because women were not allowed out in public. This may tie into your theory concerning China, but I do not see how this would relate to the animal world.
There is also the fact that when one male lion is defeated by another and has to leave the pride, the new male kills all of the cubs of the disposed male. I don’t know of any such human practice.
First off, you are making the mistake of assuming that humans are not part of the animal kingdom. We are animals. But, that does not mean that you can necessarily take a particular animal’s behavior and apply it to another animal (human or otherwise). Lions have their behavior patterns. So do humans. I see no problems looking for similarities between non-human animal behavior and human animal behavior, so long as you don’t try to take the similarities any further than you would when comparing the behavior of two different non-human animals.
That’s just a cultural difference, and is not just limited to Afghanistan. When two men hold hands in many Muslim cultures it signifies that they are friends with no homosexual overtones. I saw a videotape of Qaddafi and some other famous Muslim leader walking around holding hands at some photo op once and the American commentator explained this so people wouldn’t get the wrong impression.
Sorry for not having any cites. I found one cite on Chinese homosexuality, but it wasn’t what I was looking for exactly. I think that its obvious that I don’t know much about animal behavior. That is why I asked my previous question. I have an interest in it and would like to learn more. I do believe that stressors such as overcrowding, having five kids, etc plays a huge role on human/animal behavior and that we could stand to learn quite a bit from ourselves by observing other animals. Following is my cite.
Title
Changing sexual attitudes and behaviour in China: implications for the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted
diseases.
Source
AIDS Care. 11(5):581-9, 1999 Oct.
Abstract
In Imperial China sexual behaviour was regarded as an indispensable activity to reach harmony with the universe,
through the unity of the interaction of two opposing forces: yin and yang. Sexual intercourse was accepted when linked
to procreation within a family context, while an individual’s sexuality was not considered important. Homosexuality was
tolerated although not advocated, while masturbation was denounced. Since the One Child Family and Open Door
policies in the 1970s and the economic reforms of the 1980s, attitudes towards sexuality in China have changed.
Premarital sex has become widely accepted among young people and people in China are now more tolerant toward
extramarital sex. Nowadays young people consider that love should dominate marriage and the quality of an individual’s
sex life is currently more valued than it used to be. Attitudes towards masturbation have become more tolerant and
though homosexuality has been hidden by society for a long time, in recent years it has begun to be considered as a
legitimate lifestyle choice. Attitudes towards sex and sexual behaviour have become recognized as an individuals’
responsibility as long as no offence occurs against society or the interests of other individuals, resulting in the recognition
of diversity of sexual behaviour. As part of the changing attitudes to sex and sexual behaviour, heterosexual transmission
is becoming the most important route of HIV transmission in China. This is complicated by the internal migration of an
estimated 120 million labourers moving from the countryside to the cities as the result of economic reforms, most of
whom are sexually active young men. Unless addressed directly, these factors may add to the estimated 300,000
HIV-infected Chinese, further fuelling an already rapidly spreading epidemic. The ramifications of the Chinese HIV
epidemic will not only be felt within China, but also within the surrounding Asian countries thereby fuelling the HIV
pandemic.