Lifeline

They say knowledge is power, but what if this knowledge is total nonsense? When you fall on your tailbone, you won’t get blind and when you get a jellyfish sting, please don’t pee on it. You will be surprised how many biological misconceptions are rooted in your mind and that of others. In our rubric ‘Marit’s Mythbusters’, I will debunk common myths that many of you believe to be true. 

Sex is the ultimate goal. That is, at least, if you are to believe many biologists. After all, only humans have sex because it’s nice! Fortunately, animals do not only do the dirty to produce some offspring, but like to get funky once in a while as well. But why did non-reproductive sex, as biologists call it, evolve? Doesn’t evolution have BaBiEs as its main goal?

Not only does the belief that the only goal of sex is reproduction completely disregards queer animals; it is simply not true. All around us in the animal kingdom, animals have sex for way more reasons than passing on genes. In social settings, for example, sex can be used to strengthen a bond between two (or more!) individuals. What’s the best way of illustrating this? Providing some nice examples of course!

The first horny animal would be the king of the jungle (although they live at savannas mostly), the lion. Lions live in prides. The females in a pride have been part of the social group since birth, but the males have entered the pride at a later point. This entry is not without aggression; new males have to fight the current male off. Of course, you can imagine that the take-over is more successful when you have a few helping hands. These so-called coalitions are strong bonds between males that will help them take over a pride together. During their journey, the males often have gay sex to strengthen their bond!

A very familiar example perhaps, is the bonobo. Females have sex to ensure bonding with dominant males, so the males will share some food. These very polygamous apes also participate in lesbian sex when new females enter the group, to avoid conflict and promote integration into the group. Interestingly, young females become sterile for a short period of time in their adolescence, during which they go wild like a human teenager would. Most of the time, this is heterosexual sex, which due to the sterility does not lead to pregnancy. Man, the world of biology is cool.

Especially the adolescence sterility phenomenon in bonobos illustrates that sex doesn’t have to lead to pregnancy and offspring, even though that’s what is being taught in high school biology classes. Reproduction may be nice so a species won’t go extinct, but the observation that many animals (the lion and bonobo are just the tip of the iceberg!) participate in homosexual, polygamous sex and use it to solve conflicts and strengthen bonds, shows that sex has a way bigger importance than just providing us with babies. 

Masturbation, anal sex, homosexual sex, oral sex, and even interspecific sex. It has all been observed in non-human animals as well. We can thus safely say that the ultimate goal of sex is not reproduction and that it can be very important to form stable societies, as it helps, among others,  with bond formation and conflict solving. Let’s also emphasise this in high school biology!