Some interesting observations on bonobo social orders in
this morning's New York Times. It discusses the use of sex as a means of conflict resolution, and how matriarchal bonobo clans appear to be in stark contrast with chimpanzees.
Quote:
Bonobos are famed for their hypersexuality and the way they use sex as an all-purpose problem solver in every possible situation, permutation and combination. When bonobos come upon a great patch of fruit, for example, and tensions rise over feeding priority, the bonobos will decompress with a quick round of genito-genital rubbing and similar acts: males with females, males with males, females with females, juveniles with adults.
Female bonobos in Congo’s LuiKotale forest use specialized gestures and pantomime to convey their desire for a bit of girl-on-girl frottage, according to a report last year by Pamela Douglas and Liza Moscovice of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany. The soliciting female will point backward with a foot toward her sexual swelling and then shimmy her hips in imitation of a rub, at which display the second bonobo will embrace her for the real thing.
Bonobos tongue-kiss, practice oral sex, have intercourse face-to-face, and make sex toys. Frances White, a biological anthropologist at the University of Oregon, once watched a female bonobo turn a stick into a kind of knobby “French tickler,” with which she then stimulated herself. “They’re not always family friendly,” Dr. White said.
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