Loading ...It was a rough week to be a celebrity. The Grim Reaper, an avid reader of “People” magazine, clearly went off the reservation and started collecting famous souls with unbridled fandom. It made my weekly search for humorous topics in the blogosphere a bit thin. Fearing a missed deadline, I visited my editor.
“I’d love to do something topical,” I started “but I’m not sure where to start this week.”
He nodded thoughtfully, stroking at his phantom beard that he claimed to have lost in the war. “In times like this, people need to laugh more than ever.” He stood and turned his gaze toward the distant horizon, which from his cubicle was a view of the wall on the west side of the building. “We can help the healing begin.”
“But how can I be funny now?” My voice cracked and wavered. “What comfort can I offer in a world where no more moonwalking or Mighty Putty infomercials exist?”
“We will bring them the greatest comedic panacea of all.” He scooped up one of the many rubber chickens from his desk and stared deeply into its beady eyes, as if to channel the comedy gods. “We will give them…monkeys doin’ it.”
I was awestruck. “I love you…” I whispered.
His words were not only comforting, but prophetic. It turns out biological science has been doing little lately but banging out sex studies. (”Banging” out. Get it? Mmmmm….your groans are like little spoonfuls of heaven to me.) Read on – if not for the healing, then for the perfectly veiled way to mask your bestiality fetish.
Single-Celled Sexcapades
Despite sex’s ubiquity in the animal world (to say nothing of the internet), there is actually some controversy about why it would exist at all. Binary fission, one bacterium duplicating itself, is pretty efficient. Since no partner is required, the bacterium need not invest resources in a gym membership or buy a decent car.
Every clone can produce offspring with the same minimal effort it takes guys to impregnate a wad of tissue paper. Their numbers would rise much faster than sexual recombination would allow and consume resources at a disproportionate rate. This would create a tremendous pressure against cells that sexually reproduced. Most importantly, cloning didn’t need smut to get in the mood (which is fortunate because its pornography sucks).
Oh yeah…oh yeah…c’mon baby, split it off HARD…
Still, for all the reasons sex shouldn’t exist, it does. Recent findings have demonstrated that early bacteria that bumped uglies started to come on top (get it?! get it?!) courtesy of the insertion and spread of mitochondrial DNA. That’s pretty technical stuff so think of it this way: Early bacteria were sluts that would pretty much take DNA anyway they could get it. It could be through standard plasmid missionary position or swallowing it whole via random mitochondrial encounters. It’s like bukakke at the cellular level.
This resulted in a genome diverse enough to protect against parasitism, environment changes and the like. If these theories are correct, we could very well owe our very existence to the diehard efforts of primordial sluts. This explains the unusual sense of gratitude I’ve always felt for Paris Hilton. In my pants.
Your countless sacrifices for mankind will not go uncelebrated (in my pants)
The Undisclosed Origins Of The Pink Panther
Regardless of where your morality steers you on the topic of homosexuality, the behavior does seem decidedly un-Darwinian. I mean that strictly in the sense of his theories toward procreation, since his sexual attitudes have been well documented by photoshop historians:
There are hundreds of species that engage in homosexual behaviors, though the reasons for it aren’t evident. It’s increased incidence for animals in captivity indicates that it may have something to do with limited access to partners or a method of stress relief. This may not legitimize homosexuality as a purely natural phenomenon, but it proves that prison sex is.
Birds of a feather, right?
General promiscuity seems to be a legitimate factor as well. it has been estimated that 50% of all sexual encounters between bonobos (a close relative of chimpanzees) are same-sex. Female bonobos indulge in this so commonly there are some who contend their outward facing genitalia may have evolved courtesy of sexual selection. Frankly, I don’t buy it. If genitalia were capable of driving primate evolution, then why is it my lab has consistently failed to produce a four-vagina’d chimpanzee?
…which I need for science. Important science.
In reality, using the term “homosexuality” in animals is unfair. Very few species show same-sex exclusivity, meaning their actions are better defined as bisexuality. And since many of the occurrences of this seem to be part of an adaptive strategy, it’s even more succinctly defined as “experimental 2nd year of liberal arts undergraduate bisexuality”.
All that said, there are definite arguments for same-sex partnerships enhancing the survival of a species. For example, same-sex pair bonds are often formed to care after young that would otherwise go neglected when male-female pairings aren’t possible. Conservative animal groups counter this does not adhere to Darwinian theory since it won’t perpetuate one’s own genes, which is to say nothing of just how downright sinful they find it.
Ian Cheesman hopes no gay monkeys were offended by the content of this article. For further intolerance and/or monkey sex, please visit my website.
