Are there any studies of pedophilic behavior in animals other than man? Is there any evidence that any of the great apes have sex with sexually immature members of their species? How common is this behavior?
Oh, come on, now! I’m not falling for this.
(Or, alternatively (if you’re serious), do a Google on “Bonobo”.)
I did a search on Bonobos and while it seems like they have a lot of sex, what I found doesn’t talk about sex with immature members of the species. There was talk about intra-family sex but it doesn’t say if the members were mature or not.
I’ve read on this very board that bonobos will stimulate their youngsters’ genitals by hand to puit them to sleep, but not engage in intercourse. No way I’m Googling that for a cite.
(I’ve also read that if you can imagine it, a bonobo’s done it, so it wouldn’t surprise me.)
Where bonobos are concerned, what we would consider sex happens pretty much between everybody. So, yes: (to be blatant) they do it with the kids, too.
This does not seem to be a problem with any of them (young ones included). In fact, (according to what I’ve heard/read/seen on documentaries that I don’t currently have a link to off the top of my head) they are the only documented species of primate that does not make war against itself.
Even humans haven’t managed to be that civilized. We could learn a thing or two from them, I daresay…if we don’t kill them all first (which seems increasingly likely).
As for other species…I’m not personally aware of others who do “it” for pleasure, although canids are known to mount each other as a show of dominance (not my cuppa, but I’m not a dog).
Upon preview:
In some human cultures (as is my understanding) the same thing is done. Google may be your friend, but Google can also tell on you…
Bonobos do not have the Puritanical objections to sex that we as humans do. They’ll use more than hands. It’s my understanding that (to put it bluntly) everybody fucks everybody. That’s why they get along so well.
I often wish I was a bonobo…except for the feces flinging. That would be gross.
One problem we need to clear up is the term “pedophilia”. It means being primarily or exclusively attracted to sexually immature children. So, you need to seperate “sex with juveniles” from “pedophilia” as they don’t mean the same thing. I don’t know that there is any documented case of a great ape qualifying as a pedophile.
Concerning bonobos, it’s unlcear whether the sex that takes place between adults and juveniles is due to sexual attraction, or whether it serves another purpose altogether. My thinking is that the latter is the case. Sex for bonobos is about cementing social relationships as well as procreation, so it may be better to look at it the way we look at humans hugging each other. A mother (or father) will hug and kiss her (or his) child, but we don’t call that “sex”, even though hugging and kissing are integral parts of sex. In fact, humans of all ages and sexes will hug and kiss each other (if not always on the lips).
Bonobos females, like chimps, advertise their sexual receptiveness with huge gential swellings that, to us, look ridiculous and painful. So, a male having sex with an adult female in heat is probably doing so for a different reason than one having sexual contact with a female not in heat.
Adult bonobos will sexually stimulate their infants the way that we would hug or kiss our children, however, it is never penetrative. In fact, adult males aren’t really interested in having sex with adolescent females, who often have to chase after them. Adult males vastly prefer adult females for sexual intercourse.
Bonobo society is basically free of violence and rape. Male bonobos will never force a female into sex and females are free to ignore the males and go have lesbian orgies if they wish do (and they often do!). Sex is used to solve conflicts. Primatologists noticed that whenever the bonobos encountered food – in the wild or the zoo, they immediately break into a giant orgy. Zookeepers later discovered that it wasn’t just food that caused this, even if they stuck a cardboard box into the environment the bonobos would have orgies. Bonobos do this as a way of avoiding conflict or tension over the sharing of resources. Sex is often traded for food or other materials. As you have probably guessed, bonobos have sex even when they are not in heat.
Chimps also engage in non-procreative sexual behavior including mating while the female is not in heat, but not to the degree that bonobos do. Although homosexual chimps (and bonobos) have been observed, I’ve not read about a case of a chimp that was a pedophile. Chimp mothers will sexually stimulate their infants sons, but this seems to be similar to the behavior of the bonobos – the mother apes are not doing it out of sexual attraction. Male chimps will sometimes kill and eat infants sirred by other chimps.
I’ve not been able to discover as much information about Gorillas as compared to bonobos and chimps, but from what little I can gather, youngsters are sometimes sexually stimulated but it is mostly non-penetrative. Infanticide is very common among Gorillas. An interesting side note – males gorillas seem to be less interested in sex than female gorillas and the females often have to cajole the males into having sex with them.
Among orangutans, I found one source that said males as young as adolescents will engage in penetrative sex.
Really? Can I have a cite for that. Homosexual meaning an individual who is not attracted to the opposite sex, not an individual who will occasionally engage in homosexual acts.
Homosexual meaning an individual who mostly prefers to mate with the same sex. Chimps and bonobos are bisexual in action, but they do have preferences for partners.
I’m still skeptical that there is documented evidence of what biologists would call homosexual chimps or bonobos. What’s your source?
Not to get into the middle of a disagreement that I’m not a part of, but I think the question of “homosexual” vs. “sometimes engaging in what appear to be homosexual acts” is probably similar to the question of whether bonobos are pedophiles, or simply sometimes engage in what appear to be pedophilic acts.
The thing that I observe in humans is that there is no distinction to most people: having sexual contact with a child (or, frequently, a legal minor…or sometimes even just someone younger than you) constitutes “being a pedophile,” which it really doesn’t, technically. Most people don’t concern themselves with that technicality, however (although they should, IMO).
So the question of whether bonobos engage in pedophilic behavior kind of depends on how broadly (or narrowly) you define it. Do they engage in sexual behavior with their children? Yes, they do. Does that make them pedophiles (or constitute “pedophilic behavior”)? Depends on your definition, I guess.
What I cannot help wondering is if our (as humans) outrage over all types of sex/child conduct might contribute to the damage that it does. Bonobo children don’t seem to suffer, and ours do. We condemn it unilaterally, and they don’t. Whether there’s a connection bears looking at.
I think you’re probably right about this, but what bothers me about the prejudice against sexual contact with children in humans is that this mentality is not considered. I think it’s equally possible that people may have the same motivations as the ones you’ve noted for bonobos, but society has decreed that it is a pathology, and punishes it (which harms the children involved and thus garners my disapproval).
Good points, but let’s not forget that humans are not bonobos. Bonobos, as part of their nature, use sexual acts (I purposely didn’t say “sex”) to ease social tensions and keep the group cohesive. Humans don’t. A bonobo child needs to learn how to this is done in order to be part of a bonobo group. Humans don’t. Humans have a different way (or different ways) of easing social tensions, and human children need to learn that.
What different way or ways? I don’t know about you, but participating in sexual acts can certainly relieve some tension in me. 
Different kind of tension, bro.
If your boss berates you, and then wants to reconcile, you don’t do so by rubbing your penises together, do you? No. We may hug, or tell a joke, or offer some food, or some other jesture.
Bruce Bagemihl - Biological Exuberance
Page 273
I think 90% is enough to classify a female bonobo as lesbian, but I suppose it depends where you think where lesbianism ends and bisexuality begins. When I was reading his book for this cite, I discovered that infant males will sometimes have penetrative sex with adult female bonobos.
As for chimps:
278
I’m familiar with Bagemihl, and I think you’re misinterpretting his writings (although he doesn bring his own biases to the table).
Better to reference someone like Frans de Waal, the world’s leading experts on bonobos. Read his section on “Sex” in Our Inner Ape. He states, for instance, that he has never observed two bonobo males ejaculate when they engaged in penis rubbing or scrtotum rubbing, and he states categorically that there has never been a documented case of a strictly homosexual bonobo. I think this is key, since sexual acts that never come to climax must be viewed as different in nature than those which do. (Note that we’re not talking about acts that usually don’t come to climax, but acts that never do.)
As for “lesbian bonobos”, I’ll believe it when you show me a female bonobo that eschews hetersexual sex during estrus, when she has balloon-like swellings of her genital area. Keep in mind that there is something fundametally different about the sexual nature of an animal that comes into heat, and one (like humans) which does not.
That section of de Waal’s book is quite good, and you’ll find that he adresses the same issues we’re addressing here, and that he strongly warns about using human terms for sexuality when describing non-human animals, even our closest relatives.
No but you go to a strip club or get a bunch of hookers. I think that counts 
If that’s how you define the term “homosexual”, then your definition is invalid or at least inadequately justified. A being is homosexual if the preponderance of its sexual acts are homosexual, not all of its sexual acts. I am a homosexual and not a bisexual even though I have engaged in a non-trivial number of heterosexual acts and am at times rather erotically stimulated by women.
And let me quote a review of Bagemihl’s work:
I agree that a strict dichotomy isn’t a good representation of reality. People probably fall on a continuum between strict homo- and strict hetero-sexuality. Further, I suspect that where you fall on that continuum can change over your life, and can depend on the social circumstances you find yourself in.
That still doesn’t make any chimps or bonobos “homosexual”, in the human sense of the term.
I don’t know how much we are allowed to quote here, but you can read the book yourself if you think I am misinterpretting it.
Here’s more from that first chapter I quoted.
From the chimp section
I just lent that book to my brother, so I can not double-check your statements, but you have said misleading things about that book in another thread. Both of the examples in Bruce’s books are about female bonobos/chimps. They come to climax during lesbian sex and they ignore males, even when they are in heat.
I do not remember that, in fact, I remember that he called bonobos “pansexual” which is a distinctly human term. I looked through my other books for references and I found a statement of his on pedophila. He is quote by Meredith Small in a 1992 Discover article saying
In the article, Meredith Small describes two female bonobos who turn down a male’s request for sex and sneak off to have sex with each other behind a tree. Futher on in the article, she talks about how a female, despite being in heat, ignores a male’s request for sex. I don’t think that a female bonobo in heat is as different as we might like to think.