The bonobos are a favorite, but not quite everybody's, Joan. Here's a couple links to the usual suspect source. First, a review of a couple books, the first goes into some apparently suspect sociobiology type analysis that we best ignore, then onto mostly everybody's favorite:
'You Scratch My Back, I'll Scratch Yours' nytimes.com
There is plenty of room, however, to accept Mr. Ridley's style of evolutionary theorizing without embracing his political philosophy. One difficulty with his argument is illustrated by the bonobos, the so-called pygmy chimpanzees that live south of the Congo River. The recent history of this species shows that we can't simply jump from claims about our evolutionary history to conclusions about our current character. The bonobos probably separated from the other chimpanzees only about 1.5 million years ago. Yet their character and social organization are now strikingly different.
The bonobos are best known as the sexy chimpanzees. Their most striking idiosyncrasy is their readiness to use sex as a social lubricant. Any tension within a bonobo group is normally resolved by a quick orgy, in which they all have sex with one another, in all positions and combinations. Yet, as Frans de Waal explains in the elegant photo-essay 'Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape,' this is just one way in which they diverge markedly from the other chimpanzees.
First chapter of that book is online at the NYT, but not linkable. There was another article on 4/22/97, by Natalie Angier, based on the same book, not available through the NYT site but I found a wire service version locally. Quoted in full, don't tell anybody.
Nature's raucous bestiary rarely serves up good role models for human behavior, unless you happen to work on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange. But there is one creature that stands out from the chest-thumping masses as an example of amicability, sensitivity and, well, humaneness: a little-known ape called the bonobo, or, less accurately, the pygmy chimpanzee.
Before bonobos can be fully appreciated, however, two human prejudices must be overcome. The first is, fellows, the female bonobo is the dominant sex, though the dominance is so mild and unobnoxious that some researchers view bonobo society as a matter of "co-dominance," or equality between the sexes. Fancy that.
The second hurdle is human squeamishness about what in the 1980s were called PDAs, or public displays of affection in this case very graphic ones. Bonobos lubricate the gears of social harmony with sex, in all possible permutations and combinations: males with females, males with males, females with females, and even infants with adults. The sexual acts include intercourse, genital-to-genital rubbing, oral sex, mutual masturbation and even a practice that people once thought they had a patent on: French kissing.
Bonobos use sex to appease, to bond, to make up after a fight, to ease tensions, to cement alliances. Humans generally wait until after a nice meal to make love; bonobos do it beforehand, to alleviate the stress and competitiveness often seen among animals when they encounter a source of food.
Lest this all sound like a non-stop Caligulean orgy, Frans de Waal, a primatologist at Emory University in Atlanta who is the author of "Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape," emphasizes otherwise. "Sex is there, it's pervasive, it's critical, and bonobo society would collapse without it," he said. "But it's not what people think it is. It's not driven by orgasm
or seeking release. Nor is it often reproductively driven. Sex for a bonobo is casual, it's quick and once you're used to watching it, it begins to look like any other social interaction."
Today there are only about 100 in zoos around the country, including Milwaukee's, where extensive research has been conducted. A family of nine bonobos resides in the Apes of Africa building at the Milwaukee County Zoo, says Bruce Beehler, a deputy director responsible for animal management and health.
He described the frequent sexual acts between family members as "a free-for-all." Though parents of children are not warned in advance, signs at the exhibit describe the bonobos' sexual behavior.
Bonobos have lived in the building since it opened in 1992 and no one has complained, Beehler said. "I think our visitors understand the social behaviors of animals can be different than they are in people," he said.
Bonobos are closely related to chimpanzees, but they have a more graceful and slender build. Far more dramatic than their physical differences are their behavioral distinctions. Bonobos are much less aggressive and hot-tempered than are chimpanzees, and are not nearly as prone to physical violence. They are less obsessed with power and status than are their chimpanzee cousins, and more consumed with Eros.
As de Waal puts it in his book, "The chimpanzee resolves sexual issues with power; the bonobo resolves power issues with sex." Or more coyly, chimpanzees are from Mars, bonobos are from Venus.
All of which has relevance for understanding the roots of human nature. De Waal seeks to correct the image of humanity's ancestors as invariably chimpanzee-like, driven by aggression, hierarchical machinations, hunting, warfare and male dominance. He points out that bonobos are as genetically close to humans as are chimpanzees, and that
both are astonishingly similar to humans, sharing at least 98% of humans' DNA.
Indeed, humans appear to possess at least some bonobo-like characteristics, particularly the extracurricular use of sex beyond that needed for reproduction, and perhaps a more robust capacity for cooperation than some die-hard social Darwinists might care to admit.
One unusual aspect of bonobo society is the ability of females to form strong alliances with other unrelated females. In most primates, the males leave their birthplaces on reaching maturity as a means of avoiding incest, and so the females that form the social core are knit together by kinship. Among bonobos, females disperse at adolescence, and have to insinuate themselves into a group of strangers. They make friends with sexual overtures, and are particularly solicitous of the resident females.
The constructed sisterhood appears to give females a slight edge over resident males, who, though they may be related to one another, do not tend to act as an organized alliance. For example, the females usually have priority when it comes to eating, and they will stick up for one another should the bigger and more muscular male try to act aggressively.
De Waal said that many men grow indignant when they learn of the bonobos' social structure. "After one of my talks, a famous German professor jumped up and said, `What is wrong with these males?' " he recalled. Yet de Waal said the bonobo males might not have reason to rebel. "They seem to be in a perfectly good situation," he said. "The females have sex with them all the time, and they don't have to fight over it so much among themselves. I'm not sure they've lost anything, except for their dominance."
Ok, the bonobos aren't quite everybody's favorite.
Cheers, Dan. |
