CHIMPANZEES AND BONOBOS

There are two species of chimpanzees in today’s natural environment : robust chimpanzees Pan Troglodytes and gracile chimpanzees Pan paniscus. We refer to them respectively as chimpanzees and bonobos. Within these two species multifemale/multimale, the males are patrilocal and the females exogamous, which is very rare for mammals in general but also for monkeys, with another known example, the spider monkeys of South America. Another characteristic of these societites resides in their fusion/fission relationships : individuals join together to maintain social relations – fusion – and separate into sub-groups more or less small to look for food – fission.

Let us begin with bonobos, whose sexual frenzy is so exciting for media, somewhere between nostalgia for hippie communities and the fashionable Houllebecq – Millet – Breillat. These « Kamasutra monkeys » are less prone to sexual activity in search of pleasure than to lessen their level of stress. At first sight, it seems more fun, even more civilized, to engage in sexual relations than to fight; thus « make love, not war ». Thanks to their mores (apparently) sweet and libertarian, the bonobos have replaced the good savages of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the Tahitians of Paul Gaugin and the Samoans of Margaret Mead. Back to, with sexual concerns prevalent, a naive anthropology bounced around by pseudo – ethologues of television zoos and liberated media : tristes tropismes!

Copulation between males and females takes place in different positions, and certainly face to face. As there are conflicts at different ages and between members of the same sex, these appeasement and pleasure games are observed with the young and between individuals of the same sex. There are homoerotic relationships, limited to rubbing genitals parts for females, but also for males. (There are no observations of anal penetration for males). They engage easily in masturbation. Easy – come sexual relations have no preparation, caressing or preliminaries. It is of biblical simplicity and it is evident the bonobos have not read the magnificent Song of Songs. All of these occurrences require prolonged sexual receptivity on the part of females. Sex iis also used as an object of exchange with respect to other advantages, such as food. Inevitably, some have referred to a kind of « natural prostitution », forgetting that female bonobos, being dominant, are not obliged to have recourse to this kind of negotiation.

In fact, nothing is more stressful than the life of the bonobos, not in their search for sex, but in the anguish of appeasement through sex, gotten rid of as they ejaculate, after short copulations lasting a few seconds, before returning to a state of worry. (During the bombing of Berlin by Allied Forces at the end of the Second World War, all the bonobos died of heart attacks. Even if the bombs sent by the Allies had nothing to do with sex, this shows how fragile their hearts are).
Between the sexual stress of the bonobos and the sinister future of elementary particles, there exists other ways to have sex and find pleasure.

Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) have been dethroned as the most libidinous species of monkeys by the bonobos. Yet, with them , games linking sex and power are more subtle. When a female goes into heat, her genital parts become swollen and colored as with the bonobos and the females of other species in multifemale/multimale societies. Dominant males remain tolerant when these females are first in heat but become more difficult, and sometimes menacing, when oestrus reaches its high point. They are even less tolerant as females are of high rank and aged, manifesting a marked preference for both their sexual experience and, more importantly, their capacity to better raise a child.

Females present a period of sexual receptivity of many weeks around oestrus, which permits the developement of many games and intrigues. In general, the dominant male exercises his privilege at the most apparently appropriate time for reproduction. But that takes no account of pleasure. He gives out permission to copulate to other males as a function of friendship and intimacy, before all as a function of the political situation. In some instances male number 1, so-called alpha, has only a formal power and then backed-up by another male, formally male number 2 and beta. The alpha male will negotiate by giving privileges, as that of copulating freely. This has for consequence, one well imagines, some frustration on the part of the alpha male, but also for the beta male if, as is sure to happen, lesser status males also enjoy the females. These can amuse themselves courting females out of pure provocation but, more often, try to not be seen ( or dominant males pretend to not see, preferring to short-circuit a conflict if the other has respected other forms of submission). To avoid bad outcomes, a male and a female will disappear for a few days, for what is called going on safari for chimpanzees (or going away for the week-end, for humans).

Females also do as they please, leaving dominant males to nurse their illusions. (In this respect, the illusions of male ethologues are more naive than that of chimpanzees; female ethologues have outlined troubling observations for « the human male naive and standard ».) Females have preferences for certain partners. If he happens to be a dominant male, no problem, but this is not the most frequent case. If the male(s) preferred are not dominant, things get more complicated. Then, by looks or small gestures, they make a date for a discreet spot. Females use their advantage when they are in heat, not hesitating to lift a piece of food from a male or begging for a pieceof meat from a hunt, even when she had no part in that hunt. (Young adult females use this strategy to migrate from one group to another, thus having more chances of being accepted by the males of the new community). Thus they negotiate their attractiveness and charm in sex for food exchanges, one should add highly prized food, a game in which males readily take part. Finally, sex is also part of political intrigues, females allowing themselves to be seduced and indirectly influencing dominance conflicts between males, by favoring certain partners.

Sexual and friendly touching are numerous with chimpanzees, to re-assure one another, stimulate each other and also in situations of social excitation, such as the discovery of appetizing sources of food. Here we find simulated kisses by approaching lips, but without contact. Kisses on the hand, small slaps on the shoulder or backside, accolades, sometimes simulated copulation.

This coucou’s nest overview of the sexual lives of bonobos and chimpanzees, despite its brevity is enough to illustrate the terrible naivety of many ethologues – without forgetting more or less specialized journalists – who are satisfied with a few observations which they can integrate, without social or specific contexts, into human affairs. An error in thinking well-known and objected to many centuries ago by philosopher David Hume : « the naturalist error ». Yet one does have to possess at least a minimum of naturalist culture, ethological, before falling prey to these small exercises referred in epistemology a « archaic empiricism », which remains, sad to say, the rule in human sciences justifying their « scientific status » and demanding a visceral separation from natural sciences. Chimpanzees and bonobos are what they are and to reconstruct the origins of human sexuality, there is a method. Before that let us recall a few general facts and others more precise regarding the sexuality of monkeys.

Pp 49 – 53

Picq, Pacal and Philippe Brenot, Le Sexe. L’Homme & l’Évolution, Odile Jacob, Paris, 2009.