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Biological Exuberance
by Bruce Bagemihl
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The discussion of homosexuality and inter-gendered sexual activity covers mostly mammals and birds. A large number of zoological studies are cited to argue that such activity is very common, as revealed in controversially operationalised data. The danger of annthropomorphism is ever present with the use of terms such as 'pleasure', 'courtsthip'. Sexually diverse behaviour in anaimals and humans is seen as driven by biological exuberance, an excess of sexual energy and, when combined with cultural elements, of ingenuity in discharging it. The case is well made that sexual behaviour has been neglected in animal studies, where old binaries and prejudices have prevailed, and that sexual diversity might have played a key role in the development of social and linguistic capacities.
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"It’s called Biological Exuberance . It’s an enormous study of homosexual behaviour amongst every kind of insect and animal. The evidence in this book is overwhelming that there is a huge amount of same-sex behaviour in the natural world. Most of the sexual behaviour amongst giraffes is same-sex, but also amongst dolphins and whales, and especially penguins. The book was introduced to us by Marthinus Basson who worked with us on Tall Horse [a play about a giraffe]. It is not a book that one reads from beginning to end, but it is a book that we refer to when people say about being gay that it’s not natural. We quote from it when the Watchtower people come around. Only indirectly, but since we have always had to think very carefully about human and animal behaviour in our work, it gives us a point of reference, not just to ‘gay’ behaviour, but to how humans and animals interact in any social situation."