Prime Mates: The Useful Promiscuity of Bonobo Apes

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with partners of all ages. In addition to the usual heterosexual matings, bonobos also have
same-sex fun. Males grab each other's penises and mouth each

The behavior of females is so unusual that behaviorists have given it a special name: the
"genital-genital rub" or "G-G rub." Two females place their pelvises together, either face-to-face
or rear-to-rear, and rub each other rapidly with yelps of delight. Sometimes, this movement is so
coordinated that the female on top lifts the other female off the ground as they rhythmically slap
their genitals together. Females seem to like the full frontal position best, probably because the
clitoris is swollen along with their labia into a pink balloon-like protrusion; a face-to-face
position enables maximal clitoral rubbing.

Comments ( 7 )

This is an interesting thoughts, an important one . . . but I'd be more impressed if a social anthropologist were to find, study and write explicitly about a human social group that successfully practices sexual promiscuity as part of a successful cultural matrix. What social structures would such a society have that would allow it to perform all the basic functions necessary for a cultural group to reproduce itself through time? Then, the big question: Could we evolve towards such a psycho/sexual social structure and still maintain all the other features - high finance, high technology, highly developed social infrastructure - which seem to form the sine qua non of modern world development? I, for one, would certainly like to read more about such topics - very stimulating for me.

RS commented on Oct 14 97 at 12:00 pm

I find hope in Bonobos too and see them as embodying a kind of human potential for pure, natural, unguilty, by the hand of God(s) type sex. However, I find it very believable that the humans of today could have evolved from both Chimp type pasts AND Bonobo type pasts. (to say nothing of what Chimps and Bonobos might have evolved from). Some may have the fidelity gene and some may not. When I look around at my country I see a place run mostly by Chimp opinion, and find Bonobos sheepishly quite. One of the reasons I find Hooksexup. so refreshing.

RA commented on Oct 25 99 at 12:00 pm

I find hope in Bonobos too and see them as embodying a kind of human potential for pure, natural, unguilty, by the hand of God(s) type sex. However, I find it very believable that the humans of today could have evolved from both Chimp type pasts AND Bonobo type pasts. (to say nothing of what Chimps and Bonobos might have evolved from). Some may have the fidelity gene and some may not. When I look around at my country I see a place run mostly by Chimp opinion, and find Bonobos sheepishly quite. One of the reasons I find Hooksexup. so refreshing.

RA commented on Oct 25 99 at 12:00 pm

I find hope in Bonobos too and see them as embodying a kind of human potential for pure, natural, unguilty, by the hand of God(s) type sex. However, I find it very believable that the humans of today could have evolved from both Chimp type pasts AND Bonobo type pasts. (to say nothing of what Chimps and Bonobos might have evolved from). Some may have the fidelity gene and some may not. When I look around at my country I see a place run mostly by Chimp opinion, and find Bonobos sheepishly quite. One of the reasons I find Hooksexup. so refreshing.

RA commented on Oct 25 99 at 12:00 pm

I loved it.....that is why my husbands calls me bonoba...

commented on Jul 15 00 at 11:19 am

Cool article! I had Meredith Small as a professor in college. One of the most fascinating classes I've ever had.

dcx commented on May 03 02 at 5:02 pm

I first heard of these primates while watching animal planet. It is strange and yet it seems to almost explain what all the fighting in the world is about (primarily speaking of the Middle Eastern wars where "western" religion stems). Most religions frown upon promiscuous females (even tho Jesus Christ himself loved one who was). To this day, they're still fighting over that minor detail of the "Savior" whether he was human or divine or both... whatever. What matters is peace on Earth, not where you go when you die. The Bonobos seem to have found that by engaging in probably the most basic of all needs (physical pleasure).

MVJ commented on May 04 10 at 7:36 pm

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Maiko and Lana are having sex. Maiko is on top, and Lana's arms and legs are wrapped tightly around his waist. Lina, a friend of Lana's, approaches from the right and taps Maiko on the back, nudging him to finish. As he moves away, the two
females embrace, press their genitals together and move their pelvic areas rapidly left and right. Both females grin and call out in pleasure. Although this scene was recorded on video, you won't find it in the back of your local video store. Lana, Maiko and Lina are bonobos, a lesser known species of chimpanzee first studied in the 1970s in the remote tropical forests of the Republic of Congo, Central Africa. Their heightened sexuality has received public attention since the publication this summer of primatologist Frans de Waal's book Bonobos: The Forgotten Ape (University of California Press, 1997), which has been featured
on dozens of television and magazine segments in recent months, culminating in de Waal's appearance on Good Morning America in late July. Bonobos, as de Waal describes them, lead peaceful, egalitarian and sex-filled lives quite unlike their cousins, common chimpanzees, who are known for violence, male domination and sexual efficiency. While much has been made lately of the promise the peaceable bonobos hold for human passivism, less has been said about what the sexually promiscuous bonobos might teach us about the human inclinations towards sexual experimentation and infidelity. Why should we Homo sapiens take so personally the behavior of these apes? Because we share about 98% of our genetic make-up with both varieties of chimp. Chimpanzees, in fact, are more closely related to humans than they are to gorillas. Eight million years ago humans, gorillas and chimps shared a common ancestor. In the next million years, the gorilla line split from the common human-chimp ancestor; two million years after that, humans and chimpanzees split into distinct species. Much later, about 1.5 million years ago, bonobos and common chimpanzees separated into two species. Bonobos (originally called pygmy chimpanzees) are latecomers to the ape registry because they live in the most remote rain forests of Africa, penned in by rivers they cannot cross (the Zaire River in the north and east and numerous smaller rivers in the south and west). They were first identified, on the basis of skeletal material, in the late 1920s, but it took another fifty years for a scientist -- Japanese primatologist Takayoski Kano -- to observe them in the wild. At first glance, bonobos look much like common chimps: they have the characteristic long arms, short legs and muscular, compact bodies covered with black fur. But on second glance,
subtle differences mark bonobos as distinct. Bonobos weigh about the same as the other chimps but they are built lighter, with smaller heads and more slender arms and legs. Bonobos have dark,
pigmented, flat faces with bright red lips and a distinct hairdo, as if each morning they pulled out a comb and parted the hair on their heads down the middle, nattily dressed for a day in the forest. Bonobos behave in many ways like common chimpanzees. They live in what primatologists call "fission-fusion" groups: large communities that stick together for hours or days, disperse for a time, and then re-group later. Also, females in both species leave their home area when they reach sexual maturity, and males remain. As a result of this dispersal pattern, adult male chimpanzees in a group tend to be genetically related, even brothers, while adult females are virtual strangers until they form social bonds and become friends. Infants are highly dependent and stay with their mothers for years, and to accommodate this dependency, mothers give birth only every fours years or so and nurse their infants for at least that long. But beyond these similarities, common chimpanzees and bonobos are as different as the most dissimilar human cultures. While chimp society is noted for aggression among males and by males toward females -- aggression that sometimes culminates in sexual assault and infanticide -- bonobos are comparatively peaceful and egalitarian. In fact, in many bonobo communities, females appear to play a dominant role. Even more striking is bonobo sexual behavior. As Frans de Waal describes them, bonobos, not humans, are surely the most sexual primates on earth. Like humans, they have sex outside the proscribed period of fertility for females, but unlike most humans, they are constantly having sex of every variety

other's genitals. Females regularly have sex with each other, and sometimes appear to prefer their female companions. Juvenile male bonobos suck on each other penises and allow adult males to fondle them, and these youngsters also participate whenever adults have sex by poking fingers and toes into moving parts or jumping on board. Bonobos engage in all of this sex-play with unabashed enjoyment, grinning widely in their copulatory sways.

In many ways, bonobo sex bears a remarkable resemblance to human sex. When males and females copulate, they sometimes do so in the typical mammalian back-to-front position with the male entering the female from behind, but they also enjoy the face-to-face position. In fact, females frequently invite males to copulate by lying on their backs. This position, in which the animals can easily gaze into each other's eyes, denotes to some an emotional intimacy seen hitherto only in humans. Although each copulatory bout is rather brief compared to human sexual play, bonobos make up in frequency what they lose in duration. Bonobos also manually stimulate themselves and each other, both for pleasure and as a preamble to social interaction. A female might fondle the genitals of an infant, or touch the genitals of the mother if she wants a closer look at an infant. Males frequently take the erect penis of a younger male and make "caressing" up and down movements. (So far no one has observed this kind of genital manipulation leading to ejaculation.) This is what makes bonobo sexuality so intriguing for animal behaviorists: they use sex not just for reproduction, as we expect nonhuman animals to do, but for a variety of nonsexual purposes. They bestow "sexual favors" (as we humans say) for appeasement, to gain food, to show affection and connection or to reduce stress. In captivity, when food is delivered by the keepers, the excitement usually triggers a round of sexual behavior that calms the group down. Sex functions as a social balm. This contrasts sharply with how other primates connect socially. Monkeys use grooming and sitting close to reinforce their social connections, and common chimpanzees have a variety of inter-personal gestures and behaviors that establish and repair relationships. For example, after a fight a monkey might smack its lips in submission and groom the victor, a common chimpanzee might hold out a placating hand for reassurance, but a bonobo would probably roll over and spread its legs. For females, sex is also the passport which allows transfer into new groups. In the wild, a female bonobo will enter a new group rather tentatively, then seek out the highest-ranking females and approach them one by one to initiate a genital-genital rub; with this physical interaction, she signals her friendliness, and the residents' responses signal her acceptance into the group. In addition to providing hope that our species may have more peaceable roots than previously supposed, bonobos call into question assumptions about the evolution of human
sexual behavior. Researchers have previously thought early bipeds lived in male dominated groups where aggression and violence were the rule, and where female sexuality was useful primarily as a tool
to manipulate males. In the traditional scenario, the genital swellings that signaled fertility in pre-human females were lost over evolutionary time because it enabled them to look less sexual and make peace among the males. At the same time, this theory presumed, ancestral females became continuously sexually receptive, willing to mate during nonfertile periods, in an effort to keep one male close to home. But bonobos suggest another possibility. Bonobo males and females live peaceful, egalitarian lives, and they use sex as an integral part of their calmer social order. Perhaps our common ancestor was more like bonobos in this regard than common chimps. Perhaps ancestral human females "lost" their swellings and became continuously willing to have sex not to manipulate males into monogamy, but to facilitate a more promiscuous lifestyle. Bonobos suggest that our idealization of private, monogamous sexual behavior might be a relatively recent deviation from our evolutionary heritage. Indeed, our ancient ancestors, like bonobos, may have used heterosexual and homosexual sex on a daily basis to make alliances, trade goods and favors, establish friendships and keep the peace. If so, the breadth of human sexual behavior today needs no special explanation.

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