Pride in Nature - animals are gay too
- Susan Elaine Jones
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
About time I restarted writing my blog, as wix charge a couple of arms for it.
The past few years I have been doing some very enjoyable LGBTQIA+ tours for the University of Cambridge Museums. Starting at Zoology, and now expanding to the Whipple (History of Science). This covers: lesbian animals, gay animals, bisexual animals, transexual animals, cross-dressing animals, intersex animals, changing sex animals, asexual animals - and sometimes their need to have sex still. I do cover a lot of sex.
What I really enjoy is that I can describe and mime utter filth in a museum, to a highly fun and engaged audience, with the blessing of museum staff. A quick note of the highlights:
Lesbian Laysan Albatrosses and how they may save the species from climate change. This includes getting a line up of tour guests to do the birdie dance whilst I judge which of them appears to be my perfect dancing partner.
Gay Giraffes. Really gay giraffes. Like, 95% of male giraffe sex is with another male giraffe. And boy do I enjoy mimicing the necking, the carassing, the nuzzling of the genitals, the mounting, the thrusting, the orgasmic glassy-eyed stare and the dismount. And the contrast with establishing dominance with just a stance, a stare, a movement into my chosen victim's personal space - much faster and more efficient than sex.
Penguin Partner Parents - Roy and Silo - and Tango makes Three. How about 20% of penguins seem to form same sex couples, and are just loving! Yet when it was first discovered by George Levick, it was unpublished and hidden from mainstream science because of the possible scandal!
Cross dressing cuttlefish. Smaller males hanging out in a larger male's territory, whilst showing body colouration of females - or is that just neutral "I don't want to fight" signaling? But the wonderful example where one cuttlefish does a half-and-half show - neutral feminine colouring to the large male, and sexy stripes towards the female.
And so many others - gender identity in sheep, how male ostriches dance for other males, gay lions that have been hidden in plain sight, and lionesses with manes too, dirty dragonflies, slutty slugs, the blistering sex lives of bisexual bonobos, and the judgemental language of historic zoologists, including the "apparent lowering of moral standards in lepidoptera" - yes that is degenerate (gay) butterflies - of the 1920s no less! Also gay flamingoes (who would have guessed?), the flirtatious games of macaques, the requirement for humping in asexual reproducing whiptail lizards - when you've got rid of the male sex, but not having sex! And so many more stories!! 1500 species documented so far - and now it is socially acceptable to tell the truth about animal sexuality, this number is growing at an exponential
But sometimes I'm asked about the clitoris, mammal clitorises, the penis bone (or baculum), or many penis bones (bacula) and which mammal groups have a penis bones (handy mnemonic PRICC - Primates, Rodents, Insectivores, Carnivores, Chiroptera - the bats - which means I can just about get away with saying Draculas' bacula!)
It has meant a lot of research, a lot of eye-opening reading, and so many fun chats with people. But I am just starting getting back into blog writing - I mustn't make it too long or onerous, especially as I know I am now so enthusiastic, I can talk about this subject for hours (and hours more - and have done, on tours, at work, in the hairdressers, at social occasions...)
How to book a tour - with me or someone else at the Zoology Museum
Or if you are too far away, more information on what you are missing here.
And here's a starter course which has some nice photos. Though I would argue on some of the language, for example, the video of "male lions mating" should probably be labelled "male lions having sex".
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