Re: Male Monkeys That Pay for Sex


"Steven L." <sdlitvin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:13o9uil94255pd5@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Monday, Jan. 07, 2008
Do Monkeys Pay for Sex?
By Krista Mahr

It turns out that one of humanity's oldest professions may be even older
than we thought: In a recent study of macaque monkeys in Indonesia,
researchers found that male primates "paid" for sexual access to females
? and that the going rate for such access dwindled as the number of
available females went up.

According to the paper, "Payment for Sex in a Macaque Mating Market,"
published in the December issue of Animal Behavior, males in a group of
about 50 long-tailed macaques in Kalimantan Tengah, Indonesia, traded
grooming services for sex with females; researchers, who studied the
monkeys for some 20 months, found that males offered their payment
up-front, as a kind of pre-sex ritual. It worked. After the females were
groomed by male partners, female sexual activity more than doubled, from
an average of 1.5 times an hour to 3.5 times. The study also showed that
the number of minutes that males spent grooming hinged on the number of
females available at the time: The better a male's odds of getting
lucky, the less nit-picking time the females received. Though primates
have been observed trading grooming for food sharing or infant care,
this is the first time this kind of exchange has been observed between
male and female primates in a sexual context, says lead researcher
Michael Gumert of Singapore's Nanyang Technological University,
demonstrating that the amount of time a male macaque "will invest in
[its] partner" depends largely on how many options it has around.

We, more evolved primates, may be tempted to take a cynical view of
these findings, but the study's author suggests a more favorable
interpretation: The macaques' exchange of services simply illustrates a
nifty system of cooperation that allows for successful mating. The basic
premise, says Gumert, is called biological market theory, which follows
the elementary principles of supply versus demand. When applied to the
voluntary sex life of long-tailed macaques, it means that the price that
one group is willing to pay for a commodity that the other group has
depends on the scarcity or abundance of that commodity on the market.
Scientists think female macaques may use grooming, too, to try to
maintain social relationships within the group to benefit their
offspring, or as a way to distract or appease males from getting
aggressive after a sexual encounter. In fact, when female macaques
groomed males, their services decreased sexual activity in males.

It's easy to draw parallels between the monkeys' mating dance and our
own, but Gumert warns against reading too much into primate studies like
this one. The paper draws no conclusions about what these observations
in monkeys mean for the human world. In fact, whether and how scientists
should extrapolate from primate behavior is a fairly "big debate," says
Gumert. Certainly, our biology underpins much of what we do, but so does
our culture and environment. Gumert asks, "Where do we draw the line?"

That inquiry is at the heart of primate studies like Gumert's. While
science would do well to understand more about the long-tailed macaques'
social world ? especially as the animals are increasingly losing their
natural habitat in Asia ? Gumert says figuring out how this market
concept can be applied to the social settings of other animals,
including humans, will be its long-term value. In the meantime, it can
at least make for some thought-provoking pillow talk.

* Find this article at:
* http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1700821,00.html

[
Prostitution in hominids probably began around the same time that
semi-permanent male-female pairing began, replacing the instinctive
mating of the dominant male with all the females in the troupe as is the
case with apes. Prostitution, mistresses, and marriage are just three
points on a continuum of male-female pairing; the big difference is the
duration of the transaction.

That almost certainly began with hominids before Homo Sapiens, but of
course there is no way to know just when.
]


Unless my memory fails completely, I seem distinctly to remember having seen
plenty of tv documentaries on animal behaviour, especially with birds. All
kinds of male behaviour is employed in order to gain access to a female like
dancing, offering food et cetera. So what's special about hominids?


--
Steven L.
Email: sdlitvin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.



.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Male Monkeys That Pay for Sex
    ... Do Monkeys Pay for Sex? ... researchers found that male primates "paid" for sexual access to females ... available females went up. ... about 50 long-tailed macaques in Kalimantan Tengah, Indonesia, traded ...
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  • Male Monkeys That Pay for Sex
    ... Do Monkeys Pay for Sex? ... It turns out that one of humanity's oldest professions may be even older than we thought: In a recent study of macaque monkeys in Indonesia, researchers found that male primates "paid" for sexual access to females — and that the going rate for such access dwindled as the number of available females went up. ... According to the paper, "Payment for Sex in a Macaque Mating Market," published in the December issue of Animal Behavior, males in a group of about 50 long-tailed macaques in Kalimantan Tengah, Indonesia, traded grooming services for sex with females; researchers, who studied the monkeys for some 20 months, found that males offered their payment up-front, as a kind of pre-sex ritual. ... We, more evolved primates, may be tempted to take a cynical view of these findings, but the study's author suggests a more favorable interpretation: The macaques' exchange of services simply illustrates a nifty system of cooperation that allows for successful mating. ...
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    ... researchers found that male primates "paid" for sexual access to females ... available females went up. ... about 50 long-tailed macaques in Kalimantan Tengah, Indonesia, traded ... Picking nits doesn't actually cost the male monkey any ...
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  • Re: Male Monkeys That Pay for Sex
    ... Do Monkeys Pay for Sex? ... researchers found that male primates "paid" for sexual access to females ... available females went up. ... about 50 long-tailed macaques in Kalimantan Tengah, Indonesia, traded ...
    (talk.origins)