In some cases, conflicting verbal assessments of the prevalence of homosexual activity are offered by the same investigators, when the actual quantitative data show a relatively high occurrence. Homosexual courtship/copulation in Pukeko, for example, is described as being both “common” and “relatively rare”—the actual rate of 7 percent of all sexual activity is in fact fairly high compared to other species (and the same-sex courtship rates are even higher). Likewise, a report on Black-headed Gulls states, “Homosexual pairs were also rare,” then a few pages later counterasserts that “male-male bonds occurred rather commonly”—and at approximately 16 percent of all pairs observed, the actual rates support the latter interpretation more than the former.56 Not only are these assessments inconsistent and unfair with regard to the observed rates of homosexuality, they also run counter to a standard cross-species measure of heterosexual frequency. Although there is no absolute or universal criterion for what is “rare” or “common,” biologists do recognize a “threshold” of 5 percent as being significant where at least one heterosexual behavior is concerned—polygamy. When this mating system is exhibited by only a minority of the population (as is true in many birds, for example), it is nevertheless considered to be a “regular” feature of the species’ behavioral repertoire when its incidence reaches 5 percent. This is certainly far less than the rate of homosexuality in many species where same-sex behavior is regarded as “uncommon” or “exceptional.”57
In a vivid example of the marginalization that often surrounds discussion of animal homosexuality, scientists sometimes find their own descriptions of same-sex activity published with “amendments,” “asides,” or “explanations” inserted by journal or reprint editors who are uncomfortable with the content or appellation. For example, one ornithologist’s description of homosexual activity in House Sparrows and Brown-headed Cowbirds was embellished with a note from the editor of the journal where it appeared, offering several implausible “reinterpretations” of the behavior that eliminated any sexual motivation. Likewise, when descriptions of homosexual activity in Baboons from the 1920s were reprinted nearly half a century later, a scientist who penned the introduction to the new edition felt compelled to annotate the offending passages with the “modern” viewpoint that such activity is not really homosexual. And editors of the journal British Birds scrambled to try to “explain” a case of homosexual pairing in male Kestrels as actually involving a “male-plumaged female” (i.e., a female bird that looked exactly like a male). They added in their published postscript to the article that this putative plumage variation was, in their opinion, “of much more interest than the copulation or attempted one between the two males” that was the primary focus of the author’s report.58
In a similar vein, one scientist who observed a pair of female Chaffinches hedged his bets by saying only that “female-plumaged” birds were involved, leaving open the possibility that one might still have been a male (and consequently part of a heterosexual pair)—even though there was absolutely no evidence that either bird could have been a male. He finally had to concede that the birds “were surely females.” Sometimes this strategy backfires, as in the case of an early description of courtship display in Regent Bowerbirds (mentioned previously), in which the presumed “female-plumaged” birds both turned out to be males—and therefore still participants in homosexual activities.59 These cases show that scientists are sometimes reluctant even to commit to the sex of the animals they are observing if it seems that homosexuality might be involved—in stark contrast to the haste with which they usually judge (or assume) participants to be opposite-sexed on the scantiest of evidence.
The Love That Dare Not Bark Its Name
Although the first reports of homosexual behavior among primates were published >75 years ago, virtually every major introductory text in primatology fails to even mention its existence.
—primatologist PAUL L. VASEY, 199560
In the 1890s, Oscar Wilde’s lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, characterized homosexuality as “the Love that dare not speak its name,” referring to the silence and stigma surrounding disclosure of homosexual interests and discussion of same-sex activities. 61 An analogue to this silencing and stigmatization exists in the pages of zoology journals, monographs, and textbooks, and in the wider scientific discourse. Discussion of homosexual activity in animals has frequently been stifled or eliminated, and a number of examples can only be considered active suppression of information on the subject. When several comprehensive reference works devoted to every conceivable aspect of an animal’s biology and behavior are published, including chapters by scientists who originally observed homosexuality in the species, and yet consistently no mention is made of that homosexual behavior, one has to wonder about the “objectivity” of these scientific endeavors.
At one extreme, there are cases of apparently deliberate removal of information. In 1979, a report on Killer Whale behavior was issued by the Moclips Cetological Society, a nonprofit scientific organization devoted to whale study. Sexual activity between males—classified explicitly as “homosexuality” in the report—was discussed at some length, concluding with the statement, “Homosexual behavior has been observed in many animals including cetaceans, canids, and primates, and, in some cases, it has significance for social order.” A year later, when this report was published as a government document for the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission, all mention of homosexuality was eliminated even though the remainder of the report was intact.62 At the other extreme are cases where homosexuality is discussed but is buried in unpublished dissertations, obscure technical reports, foreign-language journals, or in articles whose titles give no clue as to their content. For example, the earliest reports of same-sex courtship and mounting in wild Musk-oxen appeared in an unpublished master’s thesis at the University of Alaska and a (published) report for the Canadian Wildlife Service. Consequently, a study on homosexual activity in captive Musk-oxen conducted more than 20 years after the initial discovery fails to mention any occurrence of this behavior in the wild. Similarly, the first reports of Walrus homosexual activity, complete with photographs, were published in an article with the rather opaque title of “Walrus Ethology I: The Social Role of Tusks and Applications of Multidimensional Scaling,” while all records of homosexual behavior in Harbor Seals are contained in unpublished reports and conference proceedings that are only available at a handful of libraries in the world. This perhaps explains why virtually every subsequent discussion of homosexuality in animals omits any mention of these two species.63
Between these extremes are numerous examples where homosexuality is “overlooked” or fails to gain mention. Describing itself as “the culmination of years of intensive research and writing by more than 70 authors”—all experts on the species—the massive book White-tailed Deer: Ecology and Management (1984) presents in minute detail every imaginable aspect of this animal’s biology and behavior, no matter how obscure or rare. There’s even room in the book’s nearly 900 pages for lengthy discussion of “abnormal” and pathological phenomena (a category in which homosexual activity is often placed). Although the chapter on behavior was coauthored by the scientist who originally described homosexual mounting in White-tailed Deer, there is no mention anywhere in the book of this particular behavior. Nor is there discussion of the transgendered deer found in Texas, even though a whole chapter is devoted to this regional population. A decade later, the same scenario was repeated when another volume of the same scope and on the same species was put out by the same publishers. Similarly, a standard scientific source book, The Gray Whale, Eschrichtius robustus (1984), omits any reference to homosexuality in this species even though it includes a chapter by the first biologist to record same-sex activity in Gray Whales.64 Several comprehensive reference volumes on woodpeckers fail to mention homosexual copulations in Black-rumped Flamebacks, even though no other (hetero)sexual behavior has ever been observed in this species. This omission cannot be due to the putative rarity or “insignificance” of such behavior, since one book does mention another behavior that has only ever been observed once in wild woodpeckers—bathing.65 Other in-depth surveys of individual species follow suit, eliminating any mention of homosexuality even when they make direct use of other information from the very sources that describe same-sex activity.66