While studying the behavior of mountain gorillas in Rwanda, Associate Professor Cyril Grueter noticed homosexual behavior in a number of females.
His research indicates that female gorilla derive pleasure from their sexual experiences with other females; the first officially documented example of same-sex sexual relationships in female mountain gorillas, as Pink News reports.
Grueter reveals that 18 of the 22 gorillas participated in gay sexual activities, include “courtship displays” and frottage.
He compares female gorillas to human women, saying “they can shift from homosexual to heterosexual sex.”
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He says, “Given that all these observations come from wild groups, not gorillas held in captivity, it is obvious that homosexual activity is part of the gorillas’ natural behavior.”
44 sexual acts were recorded in all and “females of all reproductive states were found to show homosexual behavior”.
Apparently, some of these sexual encounters with interrupted by aggressive males, while other males seems totally unphased by the Sapphic copulations.
Grueter suggests some of the gay sex is the result of females growing weary of male rejection.
He also thinks females might participate in homosexual activities to decrease the overall motivation of other females to have heterosexual sex, thus reducing other women’s “reproductive success.” Shady.
