All You Need Is Bonobo Monkey Love
By Kate Holzmueller
The Northern Iowa
So I’m reading the newspaper the other morning, desperately trying to find a topic for this week’s column (yay for a test or paper being due in every class this week!), when I stumble across an article on the bonobo, aka the “hippie chimp.”
It was an interesting piece, but a little sad; the article discussed the rate of poaching for bonobos and how they’ll soon be brought to extinction. And so I decided to write a nice little column about the bonobo – an animal many people might not even know exists.
Bonobos (that’s beh-NO-BOz) are found in the Congo, in the heart of Africa. They’re known for – and I’m not making this up – greeting rival groups with genital handshakes and sensual body rubs. Their fights and tiffs are often quickly settled – with some French kissing and a quick round of sex.
They’re the horniest apes on earth. They have sex all the time – around three or four times a day – girls with girls, girls with guys, guys with guys. … According to one article I read, “Such loving passion, such sexual dexterity, such clever, horny playfulness is found nowhere on Earth except among certain humans.”
Bonobos not only love having sex, they use it for a variety of reasons. Sexual encounters take place to ease social tensions, to maintain friendly relationships, and as a form of commercial exchange.
Imagine if humans were like that! We’d walk around saying things like, “Hey, you’re looking cute this afternoon. Allow me to give you a hand job.” Or, “Hey, that piece of chocolate cake you’re eating sure does look yummy! I’ll go down on you if I can have a piece.”
Because bonobos engage in sex all the time, they’re not very hostile creatures. As Dr. Susan Block, a bonobo researcher, so eloquently noted, “You can’t very well fight a war while you’re having an orgasm.” Researchers have yet to find evidence of a bonobo deliberately killing a member of its own species. All of their arguments are solved with some form of good old-fashioned luvin’.
Not only are bonobos wonderfully liberated creatures, the girls have just as much power as the boys; females use their bonding to ward off any potentially threatening males. Female bonobos also initiate sex more often than any other form of great ape (including humans).
However, as was mentioned earlier, the bonobos are extremely endangered. They’re often hunted for their meat, which Congolese people find to be quite tasty. And their habitat is dying out – war, the logging industry and environmental problems are making it so they don’t really have any place to live.
Those who are interested in researching the bonobos can look online, as there is a vast array of Web sites devoted to this wonderful creature. Those who wish to help aid in the plight of the bonobo can also find ways in which to do so via the Internet.
And those who merely wish to start applying the principles of bonobo life (pleasure eases pain, good sex diffuses tension and love lessens violence) can do so as well!
After all, vacation is just around the corner. And I, for one, can’t think of anything more similar to a group of sex-loving bonobos than a group of drunk, horny college students on spring break.
The Northern Iowa
So I’m reading the newspaper the other morning, desperately trying to find a topic for this week’s column (yay for a test or paper being due in every class this week!), when I stumble across an article on the bonobo, aka the “hippie chimp.”
It was an interesting piece, but a little sad; the article discussed the rate of poaching for bonobos and how they’ll soon be brought to extinction. And so I decided to write a nice little column about the bonobo – an animal many people might not even know exists.
Bonobos (that’s beh-NO-BOz) are found in the Congo, in the heart of Africa. They’re known for – and I’m not making this up – greeting rival groups with genital handshakes and sensual body rubs. Their fights and tiffs are often quickly settled – with some French kissing and a quick round of sex.
They’re the horniest apes on earth. They have sex all the time – around three or four times a day – girls with girls, girls with guys, guys with guys. … According to one article I read, “Such loving passion, such sexual dexterity, such clever, horny playfulness is found nowhere on Earth except among certain humans.”
Bonobos not only love having sex, they use it for a variety of reasons. Sexual encounters take place to ease social tensions, to maintain friendly relationships, and as a form of commercial exchange.
Imagine if humans were like that! We’d walk around saying things like, “Hey, you’re looking cute this afternoon. Allow me to give you a hand job.” Or, “Hey, that piece of chocolate cake you’re eating sure does look yummy! I’ll go down on you if I can have a piece.”
Because bonobos engage in sex all the time, they’re not very hostile creatures. As Dr. Susan Block, a bonobo researcher, so eloquently noted, “You can’t very well fight a war while you’re having an orgasm.” Researchers have yet to find evidence of a bonobo deliberately killing a member of its own species. All of their arguments are solved with some form of good old-fashioned luvin’.
Not only are bonobos wonderfully liberated creatures, the girls have just as much power as the boys; females use their bonding to ward off any potentially threatening males. Female bonobos also initiate sex more often than any other form of great ape (including humans).
However, as was mentioned earlier, the bonobos are extremely endangered. They’re often hunted for their meat, which Congolese people find to be quite tasty. And their habitat is dying out – war, the logging industry and environmental problems are making it so they don’t really have any place to live.
Those who are interested in researching the bonobos can look online, as there is a vast array of Web sites devoted to this wonderful creature. Those who wish to help aid in the plight of the bonobo can also find ways in which to do so via the Internet.
And those who merely wish to start applying the principles of bonobo life (pleasure eases pain, good sex diffuses tension and love lessens violence) can do so as well!
After all, vacation is just around the corner. And I, for one, can’t think of anything more similar to a group of sex-loving bonobos than a group of drunk, horny college students on spring break.