Rock me like a hurricane - Or, how to make love like a Bonobo

Some may say: "it's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it." The male stick insect copulates with the female for 10 weeks straight without pause and all the poor lady wants is just a good night's sleep.

After the praying mantis have finished their copulation, the female mantis is likely to bite off the head of her mate.  Evolutionary biologist Olivia Judson dishes up everything you wanted to know about sex in the animal kingdom, in her book,  Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation.

As for mammals, sex isn't always about making babies. Dolphins have a "wuzzle," and the Bonobo rubs his or her private parts together with another Bonobo.

Male and female dolphins both have a genital slit in their dorsal fin; often, one dolphin will insert his or her dorsal fin into that of another Dolphin.

To Dolphins, gender does not matter; they will do this with any Dolphin they like. They will then swim together in a group, connected this way, by their fins, in a kind of sexual orgy zoologists call a wuzzle.

Now the Bonobo is a very interesting primate. The Bonobo is a small ape that was discovered in 1929 in a Belgian museum by a German anatomist. (The original article does not specify further how the Bonobo had been misclassified and then rediscovered in 1929. The natural habitat of the Bonobo is Zaire.)

Since the 1930s, the Bonobo has been oft studied for its unique sexual behavior.  So, what makes the Bonobo so special? The Bonobo is the only primate other than humans to have sex face-to-face, in the missionary position.

Like the Chimpanzee, the Bonobo shares 98 percent of human genetics, making it an excellent primate for zoologists to study when comparing primate and human behavior. 

Though the common name of the Bonobo is the 'pygmy chimpanzee', the Bonobo is actually a small ape, with adult males weighing about 95 pounds, and adult female Bonobo weighing about 73 pounds.

Bonobo society is centered on the female. The female nurses her infant and then carries around her young until that young is about 5 years old.

The Bonobo can be playful. They will engage in 'blind man's bluff'' in which one Bonobo will cover her eyes with her fingers and then stumble around on a climbing frame, never looking, until she loses her balance.

But for the Bonobo, the good stuff is sex. Sex is the center of Bonobo life. In 1983, Frans de Waal  began a study of Bonobo apes in the San Diego Zoo. He spent days in front of the Bonobo enclosure, taking notes and filming feeding behavior.

De Waal has interesting comments in his report, which was originally printed in Scientific American, March 1995. 

As soon as a zookeeper entered the Bonobo enclosure with food, the males developed erections. It appears that the arrival of food was responsible for the Bonobo's sexual arousal.

But the Bonobo became sexually excited even before the zookeeper arrived with food.  The Bonobo apes sat around inviting each other for sex: males invited females, females invited males, and females invited other females.

Unlike other primates, the female Bonobo has a longer cycle in which she is 'in heat'; she is ready most anytime, making the Bonobo similar to humans in this regard, as well as preference for having sex face-to-face.

Apart from mating, the most common sexual practice among the Bonobo is that of genito-genital rubbing among adult females.  This is very common, according to de Waal, and acts as a social lubricant, a way of defusing tension among females in a Bonobo group.

An adult female Bonobo ape will press her genitals against that of another female Bonobo ape and rub, grinning and squealing frequently while doing so.

Research on Macaque monkeys have demonstrated that women are not unique among female primates in achieve orgasm.

Male Bonobo have their own way of enjoying sex that is similar to that of the female Bonobo.

Male Bonobo do what is called 'penis-fencing,' in which two male Bonobo apes hang on a branch, face-to-face, while rubbing their erect penises together.

In Bonobo society, this kind of same-sex behavior is regarded as another form of pleasurable sexual activity; sexual activity among the Bonobo is engaged in both for reproduction and for pleasure.

Still with me? Bonobo apes also French kiss, engage in cunnilingus and fellatio and massage one another's genitals.

De Waal cautions the reader not to get the impression that Bonobo apes are 'oversexed,' and states the Bonobo ape actually engages in sexual activity occasionally, like humans. 

Sounds to this writer that Bonobo apes seek out every minute of pleasure they can -- not unlike humans, by the way.

So, how do you arouse a Bonobo? Simply by being a sexually attractive Bonobo and walking in the door.

You will get plenty of invitations -- and unlike humans, you don't have social mores to answer to. You can have free love; you can have 'friends with benefits' any old time you want.

Not a bad life, I must say.

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A repost by popular demand, as part of my series on animals.