Ep 1: Bonobos (or BONE-OBOS, am I right?)

We've started! We're here! We've launched! We exist!

We get started by introducing the premise of the podcast, and then diving deep into bonobo sexuality.

I, Aym, want to apologise if I refer to the glorious lesbian bonobos as monkies - I have been informed that they are apes!

Em's References:

Fruth, B., & Hohmann, G. (2006). Social grease for females? Same-sex genital contacts in wild bonobos. In V. Sommer, & P. L. Vasey, Homosexual behaviour in animals: An evolutionary perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press.

A really interesting section, in an even more interesting book! Highly recommend giving the whole piece a look over. This section informed our discussion on how genito-genital rubbing in female bonobos has been viewed as a 'right of passage' between younger and more dominant females.

Beauna, D., & Douglad, P. (2018). Daily Differences in Bonobo Activities: More Sex in the Morning? Anthropology, 6(1), 2-3.

Wins good title award in this ep, in my opinion. Informed our discussion about how homosexual sex in more frequent and more often in bonobos.

Hohmann, G., & Fruth, B. (2000). Use and function of genital contacts among female bonobos. Animal Behaviour, 107-120.

Possibly one of the frontier papers in acknowledging that female genital contact actually constitutes sex (!) and not just a dominance or anti-aggression tactic.

Hare, B., Melia, A., Woods, V., Hastings, S., & Wrangham, R. (2007). Tolerance Allows Bonobos to Outperform Chimpanzees on a Cooperative Task. Current Biolgou, 17, 619-623.

Cool study on how bonobos are a more cooperative primate than Chimps, I think I may have incorrectly referred to them as Orang-u-tans in the podcast. My mistake, sorry!

Jeffery, A., Shackelford, T., Zeigler-Hill, V., Vonk, J., & McDonald, M. (2019). The Evolution of Human Female Sexual Orientation. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 5, 71-86.

I reference this paper when we talked about language in academic papers about human homosexuality. And is genuinely a nice review of the literature on female homosexuality.

Moscovice, L., Surbeck, M., Fruth, B., Hohmann, G., Jaeggi, A., & Deschner, T. (2019). The cooperative sex: Sexual interactions among female bonobos are linkedto increases in oxytocin, proximity and coalitions. Hormones and Behaviour, 116, 1-9.

More female-female sex, the happier the individual!

Pfau, D., Jordan, C., & Breedlove, M. (2019). The De-Scent of Sexuality: Did Loss of a Pheromone Signaling Protein Permit the Evolution of Same-Sex Sexual Behavior in Primates? Archives of Sexual Behavior, 1-10.

Olfactory communication (or, scent communication) is something that I think about almost daily. In my science, but also in my daily life. So, I am excited to break this paper down at a later date! Stay tuned! Worth the read in the meantime though.