Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity [Hardcover]

Bruce Bagemihl (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0312192398 | ISBN-13: 978-0312192396 | Edition: 1st

A Publishers Weekly Best Book
One of the New York Public Library's "25 Books to Remember" for 1999

Homosexuality in its myriad forms has been scientifically documented in more than 450 species of mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, and other animals worldwide. Biological Exuberance is the first comprehensive account of the subject, bringing together accurate, accessible, and nonsensationalized information. Drawing upon a rich body of zoological research spanning more than two centuries, Bruce Bagemihl shows that animals engage in all types of nonreproductive sexual behavior. Sexual and gender expression in the animal world displays exuberant variety, including same-sex courtship, pair-bonding, sex, and co-parenting—even instances of lifelong homosexual bonding in species that do not have lifelong heterosexual bonding.

Part 1, "A Polysexual, Polygendered World," begins with a survey of homosexuality, transgender, and nonreproductive heterosexuality in animals and then delves into the broader implications of these findings, including a valuable perspective on human diversity. Bagemihl also examines the hidden assumptions behind the way biologists look at natural systems and suggests a fresh perspective based on the synthesis of contemporary scientific insights with traditional knowledge from indigenous cultures.

Part 2, "A Wondrous Bestiary," profiles more than 190 species in which scientific observers have noted homosexual or transgender behavior. Each profile is a verbal and visual "snapshot" of one or more closely related bird or mammal species, containing all the documentation required to support the author's often controversial conclusions.

Lavishly illustrated and meticulously researched, filled with fascinating facts and astonishing descriptions of animal behavior, Biological Exuberance is a landmark book that will change forever how we look at nature.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Bruce Bagemihl writes that Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity was a "labor of love." And indeed it must have been, since most scientists have thus far studiously avoided the topic of widespread homosexual behavior in the animal kingdom--sometimes in the face of undeniable evidence. Bagemihl begins with an overview of same-sex activity in animals, carefully defining courtship patterns, affectionate behaviors, sexual techniques, mating and pair-bonding, and same-sex parenting. He firmly dispels the prevailing notion that homosexuality is uniquely human and only occurs in "unnatural" circumstances. As far as the nature-versus-nurture argument--it's obviously both, he concludes. An overview of biologists' discomfort with their own observations of animal homosexuality over 200 years would be truly hilarious if it didn't reflect a tendency of humans (and only humans) to respond with aggression and hostility to same-sex behavior in our own species. In fact, Bagemihl reports, scientists have sometimes been afraid to report their observations for fear of recrimination from a hidebound (and homophobic) academia. Scientists' use of anthropomorphizing vocabulary such as insulting, unfortunate, and inappropriate to describe same-sex matings shows a decided lack of objectivity on the part of naturalists.

Astounding as it sounds, a number of scientists have actually argued that when a female Bonobo wraps her legs around another female ... while emitting screams of enjoyment, this is actually "greeting" behavior, or "appeasement" behavior ... almost anything, it seems, besides pleasurable sexual behavior.

Throw this book into the middle of a crowd of wildlife biologists and watch them scatter. But Bagemihl doesn't let the scientific community's discomfort deny him the opportunity to show "the love that dare not bark its name" in all its feathery, furry, toothy diversity. The second half of this hefty tome is filled with an exhaustive array of species that exhibit homosexuality, complete with photos and detailed scientific illustrations of the behaviors described. Biological Exuberance is a well-researched, thoroughly scientific, and erudite look at a purposefully neglected frontier of zoology. --Therese Littleton

From Publishers Weekly

A brilliant and important exercise in exposing the limitations of received opinion, this book presents to the lay reader and specialist alike an exhaustively argued case that animals have multiple shades of sexual orientation. The book is broken into two sections, the second containing species "portraits" detailing recorded homosexual/transgendered behaviors. The main portion of the book sets out to reveal and, indeed, revel in the documented evidence to date that some 450 species engage in both sustained and occasional "gay," "lesbian" and transgendered pairing, parenting and play. Animals (both heterosexual and homosexual) also rape and divorce, commit "child" abuse and infidelity and can be lifelong celibates. Human claims to uniqueness in this arena are shown to be increasingly difficult to maintain. The overall effect is to detonate the myth that animals are solely driven by heterosexual reproductive urges, as Bagemihl, a biologist, amasses evidence with case study after case study of species ranging from whiptail lizards to bottlenose dolphins, flamingoes, vampire bats and giraffes. But his book offers more than a zoological laundry list. Biologists who have long classified these behaviors as taking place only in "abnormal" conditions or as "pseudo-copulation," "mistakes," "practicing" and domineering sexual bullying are frequently shown to be willfully ignoring behavior that does not reflect their own worldview or accepted scientific thought. What might so easily have turned into a tub-thumping activist tract hitched to the need for acceptance of homosexuality among humans is instead elevated to a hugely inclusive, celebratory biological interpretation of the world. Bagemihl convincingly overturns previous inviolable "truths" that scarcity and functionality are the prime agents of biological change, and advances instead the idea that abundance and extravagance?"biological exuberance"?are just as crucial to the mosaic of life. Numerous illustrations by John Megahan.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 768 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (January 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312192398
• ISBN-13: 978-0312192396
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #855,803 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

117 of 126 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating account of animal homosexuality February 20, 1999

By Duane Williams

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

The first part of the book is an independent 262 page exposition of homosexual, bisexual and transgendered animal sexuality. If you want to know what the birds and the bees are doing when Jerry Falwell isn't looking, this is the place to find out. Don't expect to find traditional family values in these pages. What you will discover instead is that animals aren't doing it for Darwin, they are doing it for fun. There are amazingly detailed descriptions, pictures and illustrations here of animals having all kinds of sex (that will amaze you), and most of it isn't for procreation.

More interesting to me, though, is the speculation on the sexual origins of language and culture in chapter 2 and the devastating examination in chapter 3 of bigotry in the biological sciences in over two hundred years of observations of animal homosexuality. Bagemihl shows, for example, that in science as in society, there's a presumption of heterosexuality. Field researchers have commonly assumed, with no independent verification, that whenever they see a pair of animals engaging in what appears to be sexual behavior they are observing a male-female pair. Conversely, whenever they observe a known same-sex pair engaging in behavior that would be classified as sexual between a male and female, they classify it in some other way. This protocol largely precludes the gathering of data about animal homosexuality even when it's being observed. In some cases, though, it resulted in published studies being repudiated as much as 20 years later when it was discovered that what was presumed to be heterosexual behavior in a population was really entirely homosexual. (It's an interesting fact that in some species heterosexuality has never been observed by scientists even when they go to great lengths to observe it over periods of many years.) Also, a lot of animal homosexuality that has been recognized as such has simply been excluded from the published reports. As a result, there is still widespread belief among scientists and the public that animal homosexuality is rare or nonexistent. People will believe otherwise after reading this book.

Chapter 4 looks at the attempts to explain away animal homosexuality and chapter 5 considers arguments on the other side that try to attach evolutionary value to homosexuality. Bagemihl rejects all the proposals on both sides, demonstrating the weakness of all the explanations and typically showing that they are plainly inconsistent with the evidence of animal behavior. Finally, he arrives at the question that the reader has been waiting for for almost 200 pages: "Why does same-sex activity persist--reappearing in species after species, generation after generation, individual after individual--when it is not 'useful'?" His answer is not to show that it is useful, but rather to treat the plain existence of homosexuality as a reductio ad absurdum argument against the biologists' assumption that only traits that contribute to reproduction will survive (i.e. are useful). In pursuing this line of thought Begemihl offers interesting descriptions of animals that are nonbreeders, animals that suppress reproduction, animals that segregate the sexes so that reproduction can't happen, animals that engage in birth control, and animals that engage in other nonreproductive behaviors. He also shows that a lot of the sex that actually occurs is not for reproduction, but apparently for pleasure. All of this he believes calls for a new conception of the natural biological world.

The last chapter describes some ideas for a new paradigm, which he calls Biological Exuberance and I must say that it is much less convincing than the rest of the book. It is interesting nonetheless. Much of the last chapter is a description of the myths about animals of native North Americans, the tribes of New Guinea, and indigenous Siberian people. When I started reading this chapter I began to wonder if I had accidentally picked up a different book, but in the end he makes a connection between the myths and biological reality. In fact, he shows that some of these myths contain more facts about animals than you can find in any scientific text. Some of the most bizarre of the myths turn out to be true.

So where does it end? In mystery. "Our final resting spot--the concept of Biological Exuberance--lies somewhere along the trajectory defined by these three points (chaos, biodiversity, evolution), although its exact location remains strangely imprecise." "Nothing, in the end, has really been 'explained'--and rightly so, for it was 'sensible explanations' that ran aground in the first place."

That's not a very satisfactory answer to my mind, but the book is nonetheless a source of many interesting phenomena and ideas. I enjoyed it greatly. I expect most people who read this long book will do as I have done--read part one completely and then selectively read about some particular animals in part two. The second part is an encyclopedia of the queer sexuality of approximately 300 species of mammals and birds. An appendix contains a long list of reptiles, amphibians, fishes, insects, spiders and domesticated animals in which homosexuality has been observed.

51 of 60 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Excellent summary of Data, but some questionable analysis September 29, 2003

By Henry C. Astley

Format:Paperback

It was a very comprehensive listing and explanation of the various form of homosexuality, transgender, etc found in nature, though it entirely concentrated on birds and mammals. it also deals very, very well with biases, both intentional and unintentional in biological analysis and data gathering on the subject.

however, in one section, the author deals with all the many proposed 'causes' of homosexuality in nature, refuting them with examples of individual discrepancies, but then asserting that all are thus totally flawed, and there is no reason. Surely he should have realized that you cannot expect a single universal purpose across even the modest diversity of birds and mammals. I analogize it to expecting a single purpose of forelimbs. We see many applications and variations (hands, flippers, wings) and even total limblessnes, yet we do not assert them to be purposeless because one purpose cannot cover them all. It would have been far more logical to posit that homsexuality, or sexual plasticity, evolved at some point, and nature has since altered it in every species it is incorporated into, so that it's purpose in one species might be opposite that of another, or it might have no current purpose, simply tagging along as a neutral trait that offers neither benefit nor penalty until the species reaches a point where selection acts on it. I also feel that further investigation into homosexuality etc in "lower" organisms which are more instinct-driven would have added some valuable insight into this, and cannot help but wonder at their ommission.

the last section, however, was thoroughly disappointing. incorporating myths of anciet tribes as a source of knowledge (when we know they're wrong more often than not), extoling the virtues of these tribes in natural resource management (when we know they're responsible for the death of much of the pleistocene megafauna, and can watch species disappear in the fossil record the moment human fossils appear in a location), adding in Gaia theory (which can be falsified with even cursory examination of paleoecology), and an obscure philosophy about exuberance (which offers no qunatative analysis to support it), he concocts an awkward theoretical explanation which seems to be mostly a hasty addition in the need for some sort of conclusion.

29 of 33 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Prediction: This book will outlive us all. May 11, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

Anthropology, geology, and even most all religions have all "updated" their views on the way the world works, based on our ever-unfolding knowledge and new discoveries. It's time that zoology has done the same! In Biological Exuberance, Bruce Bagemihl exposes the data that cries out for a new acceptance and understanding of animal behavior.

In the first part of the text, he systematically builds a case for "updating" our views. He explains why we can no longer continue believing that the very core of animal nature is based on scarcity and reproduction. By compiling the reports written by hundreds of scientists all over the world who have been "into the field to peek under the rocks," Bagemihl demonstrates without question that we must awaken to a new set of theories about wildlife, if we are to remain honest with the facts. A most interesting portion of this work is his uncovering of several reasons why these reports have been misused, overlooked, edited for content, or simply "tucked away" over the course of history. The last section of this part of his book is a dance into "the possible," in which he eloquently proposes some modifications we ought to consider to the traditional evolutionary theory. He has titled the book after these revolutionary ideas, and declares them merely a starting point for a dialogue he hopes he has initiated.

Seemingly unending descriptions of individual animals compose the second part of the book. Bagmihl has created the world's first sourcebook for future reference on the subject. (Try asking any librarian for a book on animal sexuality! This one's the only one you'll find!)

This book has been reviewed in dozens of mainstream city newspapers, in TIME Magazine, and has been featured in many radio programs across the U.S. All that I've seen are outstanding reviews. This book has become a gift from my heart to many of my friends and relatives. But sadly, I have a deep suspicion that Bagemihl's work might only become truly popular--first in the academic fields--long after we have all passed on.