Same sex marriage

"This is not what happens in Bonobo communities. If you had read even one of the articles on Bonobos you would understand this. They exchange sex for food, and other menial services. It has nothing to do with longterm, or shortterm pairbonding."Actually, in the very article you cited to support this claim from a while back (I searched around and found this):http://www.geocities.com/willc7/bonobos.htmldoesn't say this, and has a completely different interpretation of the sex and food behavior of bonobos."That sex is connected to feeding, and even appears to make food sharing possible, has been observed not only in zoos but also in the wild....One explanation for the sexual activity at feeding time could be that excitement over food translates into sexual arousal. This idea may be partly true. Yet another motivation is probably the real cause: competition. There are two reasons to believe sexual activity is the bonobo's answer to avoiding conflict.
... First, anything, not just food, that arouses the interest of more than one bonobo at a time tends to result in sexual contact. If two bonobos approach a cardboard box thrown into their enclosure, they will briefly mount each other before playing with the box. Such situations lead to squabbles in most other species. But bonobos are quite tolerant, perhaps because they use sex to divert attention and to diffuse tension.
Second, bonobo sex often occurs in aggressive contexts totally unrelated to food. A jealous male might chase another away from a female, after which the two males reunite and engage in scrotal rubbing. Or after a female hits a juvenile, the latter's mother may lunge at the aggressor, an action that is immediately followed by genital rubbing between the two adults."About the only thing that even remotely resembles "prostitution" is an anecdote that actually far more closely resembles "gold-digging" to me, and can easily be seen as another example of easing tension when there is competition for a resource.Drawing moral lessons from other species is always a little suspect, and even when discussing whether an activity is "natural" you have to be pretty darn careful.But to simply state that bonobos "practice prostitution" and point to this article as evidence is a huuuuuge stretch.[This message has been edited by Zhimbo, 08-10-2003]

NOTE: DUE TO SHARED COMPUTER ACCESS AND AUTOMATIC FIELD FILL-INS, THIS POST, ATTRIBUTED TO ZHIMBO, IS IN FACT SCHRAFINATOR.

quote:

---

Would you consider the possibility that it is one aspect in the development of intimacy but is, in itself, intially comprised of base instinct + inculturated mate-recognition responses?

---

Oh, I certainly can accept that sex is far from the only path to intimacy. There are many, many other forms of intimacy that are not sexual at all.I believe there is good evidence that the intimacy-building aspects of sex are a built-in, biological aspect of it, and that you are working against biology if you want to cleanly separate sex from intimacy.However, I am in full realization that humans are not simply a product of their biology; they can and do choose to act differently than their biology would seem to suggest they might act.[This message has been edited by Zhimbo, 08-11-2003]

quote:

---

"what was being addressed is schraf's assertion that sex is only used for reproduction and pair-bonding in primates"

---

Maybe she did that in the past, I don't know, I haven't read the old exchanges. In the current thread, she DEFINITELY hasn't said that.

quote:

---

"exchanges for power or valuables (like food or grooming services) ARE the animal equivalent of prostitution."

---

And I wholeheartedly disagree that this is clear at all. First, I haven't found on the web anything about "exchange for services", and the article you referred to, as I explained to my satisfaction, doesn't show "exchange" at all, but primarily sex as reducer of conflict and facilitating relationships in the face of tension and competition.

quote:

---

" Or equal access to a cardboard box."

---

Riggggghhhht. See, this is the stretch. Read the report again. This is exactly the example that convinced me that it was inappropriate to compare this to prostitution. This is a perfect example where the sex is used as a reducer of tension, so that the two don't mind each other's presence when they both approach the new box. One of the bonobos is not giving a box, currently in posession, to another bonobo, so that sexual pleasure can be bought. It's a social tool to reduce tension, not an exchange. At least, that's the parsimonious explanation devised by the researcher to cover a variety of situations.

quote:

---

" and not for monogamous pair-bonding or procreation."

---

Pair-bonding in the sense of a monogamous, life-long partner? No. Facilitating social tiesand maintaining cohesion? YES! PRECISELY! EXACTLY! That's the theory that the article is arguing for.

quote:

---

"But there are close similarities in the exchanges of sex for gains in power, access to goods, and services."

---

The similarities aren't close at all to the human behavior, at least not in the reference you provided.If you have other references, let me know. I searched the web for a bit and found zip that I could read as supporting your position. Well, I found one site that said "bonobos practice prostitution", but it provided no evidence or citations to back the assertion up.

quote:

---

"Either way, I assume you found nothing to suggest that pleasure has nothing to do with why they do what they do, and that sex is only used for procreation and pair-bonding."

---

And, if you read what schraf has written, you'll see she doesn't claim this, either. You're adding on to what she said. Do you think that she's saying sex is for marriage and making babies, and that's it? I can confirm that she believes neither... You seem to portray sex "in its pure state" as solely about pleasure, and those who have "freed their mind" (yes, your words...) recognize this truth. Which is silly, and insulting. Or maybe you mean something by "its pure state" that I don't understand (what DOES that mean?).Sex did not evolve solely for pleasure - that's a side product. The pleasure aspect has evolved additonal side roles, and has been isolated through various measures, cultural and otherwise. But you seem to characterize reproduction and pair-bonding as the cultural inventions!Reproduction IS what sex is about, primarily, in biology. Pair-bonding IS a demonstrated consequence of sexual intercourse in a wide variety of animals (certainly many mammals, I don't know if birds have been studied). Your characterization of "free minded" people knowing the truth, that "pure" sex is only for pleasure is a purely philosophical standpoint.Now, what does this mean about whether or not Prostitution should be legal?Diddly-squat.