Read more in The sex lives of animals: A rough guide
GLANCING around at the images surrounding me 鈥� a deer threesome, a pair of West Indian manatees in a 鈥�69鈥� position 鈥� I can鈥檛 help but feel like a bit of a pervert. Then I see flamingos that prefer to have sex while others are watching, a panda watching porn and a homosexual, necrophiliac mallard, and I think, these are the perverts. Only they鈥檙e not really, because whatever sexual activities these animals engage in are, by definition, natural. at the Museum of Sex in New York City makes clear that 鈥渘atural鈥� doesn鈥檛 rule out very much.
The Sex Lives of Animals is not a peep show, but a serious science exhibit whose advisory board boasts an impressive roster of scientists including Niles Eldredge, a curator at New York鈥檚 American Museum of Natural History, and biologist Marlene Zuk of the University of California, Riverside.
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With a mission to shatter preconceived ideas about sexuality and defy gender stereotypes, the museum鈥檚 curator Sarah Jacobs teamed up with transgendered Stanford biologist Joan Roughgarden and . In addition to photos, videos and text, the exhibition features Olsen鈥檚 life-sized sculptures of canoodling animals (pictured). They are built from simple materials like newspaper and tape, but gaze at visitors with human-like glass eyes 鈥� 鈥渁 political statement that we are all animals,鈥� Olsen says.
The exhibition fulfils its promise to overturn common myths about animal sexuality. First, there鈥檚 the idea that animals engage in sex strictly for procreation. In fact, they participate in kissing, hugging, oral sex, masturbation and 鈥渆very kind of penetrative intercourse imaginable鈥�. Lionesses perform oral sex on lions, male grey-headed flying foxes perform oral sex on females, and Livingston鈥檚 fruit bats and male kangaroos perform fellatio on themselves. Spinner dolphins emit cries that vibrate the surrounding water and, in turn, one another鈥檚 genitals 鈥� a practice known as 鈥渂uzzing鈥�.
Then there is the notion that heterosexuality rules the animal world. This is not true: homosexuality has been documented in lions, giraffes, African elephants and American bison, to name a few. Male Amazon river dolphins engage in anal, genital and blowhole penetration, and a graphic photo shows two male grey whales engaged in an activity known as 鈥減enis fencing鈥�.
鈥淒olphins engage in anal and blowhole penetration鈥�
Another myth shattered is the idea that organisms are either male or female. In as many as half of all animal species, individuals can be both at the same or different times during their lives. Take the blue-banded goby, a fish that lives in harems with one male to every four to six females. If the male leaves or dies, the highest-ranking female develops male gonads and genitalia to take his place.
Many other species blur the lines between male and female. In woolly monkeys and spider monkeys the clitoris is as big, or bigger, than the penis, while male Malaysian and Bornean fruit bats have milk-producing mammary glands. Male sea horses, pipefish and sea dragons give birth to their young. And in the African jacana, a wading bird, male and female roles are reversed, with the males taking responsibility for the eggs.
The Sex Lives of Animals is both a celebration of sexual diversity and a rallying cry for biologists to recognise the social aspects of sexual behaviour. Roughgarden is critical of Darwin鈥檚 theory of sexual selection, which portrays the animal kingdom as comprised of males competing for fussy females and, in her opinion, leaves little room for the range of sexual behaviour evident in nature. Instead, she promotes the theory of 鈥渟ocial selection鈥�, in which sexual behaviour serves to strengthen social bonds, be it sex for pleasure, including same-sex encounters, or procreation.
The exhibition is sure to stir up healthy debate among both biologists and those reluctant to accept the full spectrum of sexual practices in our own species.
