For the past few decades the African apes called bonobos have been the favorite animal of the social liberals. The reason is that bonobos are regarded as peace-loving, love-making animals. At the Bonobo Conservation Institute they describe bonobos as "hippie" chimps who "make love, not war." Supposedly bonobos are bisexual apes who engage in incessant and indiscriminate sexual activity as an alternative to power struggles and male wars of domination. I'm surprised the Democratic Party hasn't changed its symbol from the donkey to the bonobo.
Well, maybe the liberals should put their bonobsession on hold for a while...
The July 30 issue of the New Yorker has a fascinating article on the work of the German anthropologist Gottfried Hohmann, who is considered the world's leading authority on bonobos in the wild. The key term here is "in the wild." Most of the research on bonobos to date has been done by the Dutch anthropologist Frans de Waal. Studying bonobos in cages, de Waal discovered that bonobos seem to have sex a lot: oral sex, anal sex, all kinds of sex. In de Waal's famous portrait, the bonobo emerges as a creature much more interested in sex than in work or power or anything else. In other words, de Waal's bonobos bore a startling similarity to the Dutch.
Hohmann's work shows that de Waal got it mostly wrong. Yes, bonobos act a bit weird in captivity, but what would you do if you were stuck in a cage? What else is there to do except look for unoccupied orifices? Just as people in prisons engage in all kinds of strange behavior, so too bonobos that are locked up behave in unnatural ways. "Unnatural" here means anti-Darwinian. Hohman's suspicions about de Waal's work were aroused by his recognition that the peace-loving promiscuous bonobo would not make sense under Darwin's theory of evolution. Darwin posits a struggle for existence and throughout nature this means a struggle for survival, reproduction and power. So how could bonobos be different?
Turns out they aren't. Observe bonobos in the wild for long periods of time, and they don't act much different from other kinds of apes. De Waal's famous contrast between the bonobo and the chimpanzee turns out to be largely illusory. Bonobos too have power struggles. There is patriarchy among bonobos, just as with other apes. "It was so easy for Frans to charm everyone," Hohmann says. "He had the big stories. We don't have the big stories." What Hohmann is leaving out here is the human tendency to distort evidence to suit our prejudices. Libertines and other social liberals loved Margaret Mead's now-discredited accounts of promiscuity in Samoa because they made the Samoans into libertines. Once the Samoans were shown not to conform to the liberal expectation, bonobos were fashioned into the new Samoans.
Now the liberals have to look for another mascot. Who will it be: the Andalusian ant? The New Zealand platypus? Perhaps these fellows should stick with the donkey.
Reader Comments ( Page 2 of 5)
16. I fail to see where this writer is making such strange connections. I'm a Progressive and frankly could care less about the sex life of an ape.
Exactly what point is this idiot trying to make?
Sarah Apaliski at 11:31AM on Aug 3rd 2007
17. I'n with the other self-described libverals here. Dinesh and all the other nutters need to get their own sex lives going and stop worryiung about everyone elses, not to mention the bonobos.
And as for his muddle-headed conservative defenders on this board lamenting how the "free love" bobobos were trumpted in newspapers and news mags, I've got subscriptiojns to The New York times and The New Republic and I've never heard of this animal. And why would I? Why should I care about the Bonobos sexual activity? I'm not the one with some backward ideological agenda that requires me to hyperventilate over other people's (or animals) sex lives.
Daddydudu at 11:53AM on Aug 3rd 2007
18.
Yep it's the liberals at it again ! Right Dinesh - don't forget to look for them under the bed before you go to sleep tonight. Better check the closet and the basement too. Had a vacation lately Dinesh ? Maybe it's time for you to also check out the closest mental health facility in your neighborhood while you're at it. Just make sure none of those damn liberals work there.
max at 11:57AM on Aug 3rd 2007
19. Suggestion for the [usual probing] "Nothing Better to Do Sex Obsessed German/Dutch antros" LEAVE the peace loving BONOBOS alone!
Mo at 12:03PM on Aug 3rd 2007
20. I have to say that politicizing animal behavior is really silly. Perhaps we should now study whether donkeys or elephants really do reflect the personality of the party they represent. Maybe bull moose really favored Teddy Roosevelt. Anthropomorphising animal behavior to make a political point is what got sharks in trouble after jaws. Let's leave bonobos alone and concentrate on our own really whacky behavior.
eric at 12:45PM on Aug 3rd 2007
21. A caged bonobos out of boredom searching for orifices to probe is very similar the some of the white middle class, out of their boredom..searching for some strange orifice to probe!!
scott at 1:13PM on Aug 3rd 2007
22. For a non-liberal, Dinesh certainly is quite interested in all of the kinky details of simian sex life.
And since he claims that bonobos are in fact patriarchal and war-like, perhaps they should be made the symbol of the Republican Party.
Except that would be an insult to the intelligence of apes.
emelpe at 1:14PM on Aug 3rd 2007
23. for those that like dinesh's work..one may find this site quite interesting...
google mensnewsdaily.com!!
scott at 1:19PM on Aug 3rd 2007
24. Dinesh you do realize that everyone on both sides thinks no knows that you are an imbecile. I assure you even conservatives are laughing at you. Colbert ate you for breakfast.
T at 2:03PM on Aug 3rd 2007
25. A reiteration:
I'm a little confused about the direction of the barb. Haven't the last few sex scandals involved Republicans? Newt cheated on his wife, Foley tried humping a former male intern, Jeff Gannon, a gay male escort in the White House press corps. Karl Rove? Ooops! he's still not out of the closet. Seems Republicans are the ones, lately at least, who act like bonobos witha all the random sex, oral sex, and anal sex
T at 2:03PM on Aug 3rd 2007
26. Oh, good grief. You just cannot help yourself. As a moderate who is also a former primate keeper, any idiot knows that apes in cages are drastically different from animals in the wild. I resent the implication that liberals are all cheap sluts. Congrats, Dinesh, you little ho. You sold yourself cheap once again.
web jones at 2:05PM on Aug 3rd 2007
27. Does he seriously think that all liberally minded people are promiscuous? I'm definitely liberally minded in most areas. If people want to do it and it's not hurting or involving me or involving another person without their consent, they can have at it. That definitely doesn't mean I'll be involved, because I won't if it has anything to do with promiscuity!
But I would rather people around me honest about who and what they are, that way I know where they stand. I don't like people to hide themselves and pretend to be like me, I hate that!!
Quit lumping people together!
Amanda at 8:11PM on Aug 3rd 2007
28. "For the past few decades the African apes called bonobos have been the favorite animal of the social liberals."
I'm not quite sure what is more bizarre: the above sentence itself or the fact that the author of the above sentence is actually considered by some to be a person of any seriousness whatsoever.
In any event, this is further proof that the reason right-wingers have no talent for comedy is that they ARE comedy.
Richter at 2:34PM on Aug 3rd 2007
29. The implication here being of course liberals are insatiable in their sex and promiscuous. I wish I got it as much as Dinesh thinks I did.
I have known quite a few conservative friends over the years who have been far more promiscuous than this liberal. Plenty who have preached one thing and went out and did another..you know, like that Senator David Vitter???
David S. at 3:11PM on Aug 3rd 2007
30. emelpe writes: "For a non-liberal, Dinesh certainly is quite interested in all of the kinky details of simian sex life."
Actually, emelpe, this latest expectoration from the Ayatollah D'Souza is not really about "simian sex life" at all. Instead, it is merely the latest manifestation of Dinesh's obsessive fascination with men who have sex with men. If you read his blog regularly, you know that most of his posts are devoted to either pimping for his books or wrestling with his sexuality in a manner so public and obvious one could almost feel sorry for him -- were it not for the fact that his denial expresses itself in ways that are harmful to other gay men.
Richter at 3:19PM on Aug 3rd 2007