Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, and today on this show, Happy Pride Month. Everybody, we are talking about all the ways in which animals and nature shatter cis heteronormativity. I cannot say that word very good. From clownfish to banana Bo's biology and the animal world is far more complex than prudes. What have you think
it is? Joining me today are hosts of the podcast A Field Guide to Gay Animals, a podcast exploring queerness in the natural world.
Laanen Ollen Welcome, Hello, Yes, Happy Pride Mom.
Hi, thanks for having us.
I am super excited about this because I actually get so many listener questions about this, and I've been wanting to do a whole show just kind of diving into this on both a philosophical level and sort of sociological level on the human side, and then the biology of it on the animal side, and then how that all does not have a strict boundary, so to.
Speak, absolutely absolutely so what And that's something that we are also aiming to accomplish with the podcast, especially when talking to scientists who are observing the biology of it, but and are threading that needle but then not taking it a step farther to figure out, like what's the interpretation of this, what is sort of the reflective value of this, Like what do we make of this? What does this mean for our lives?
Yeah? Absolutely, you can do a study and you know it's I mean, this is all exactly what I want to talk about. Because you hear a lot in sort of I guess, like in polarizing arguments like this is what science says, or science says this is right or this is wrong. It's to me saying well science says this, it's like, well, science doesn't say anything. Science is in
terms of like morality, in terms of social goods. Necessarily, science is an interpretation of observable factors and then you know, you take those and you try to use a scientific method to have a picture emerged from that, and so that's what science is. We're the ones who get to say what that means. Right. It always feels a little bit like when you kind of and of course I'm obviously a huge proponent of the scientific method, but if someone just says, like well science says, there's like two
sexes and that's it. It's like, well, it sounds kind of like, first of all, you haven't been exploring this issue very deeply, and second of all that you're hiding behind this concept of science for your own belief, for your own bias. And yeah, I really like to talk about it because I think it is. It's really interesting, and it's also like I think that it goes a lot deeper than sort of just saying like I remember there being this argument a lot where it's like, well, hey,
there's gay penguins, right, so it's okay. It's like, well that's true, but also if there weren't gay penguins, it's still fine, right, Like why do we need to like follow the penguins example, mm hmmm hmm.
Yeah, Yeah, I mean this is something that came up a lot. It's exactly what you're talking about. Where we were looking at and talking to, you know, all different types of people that we interviewed, How these observations were treated over time, Like how things that were seen in the wild or animals held in captivity, what then was done with those findings? You know, It's like that's one thing to see something and observe something and then how
is that perceived and what's done with that information? And that's something that we really tracked in the series.
Yeah, because to your point, science is a practice, and therefore it does reflect the worldview of the practitioners. And one thing we learned is that when we have the benefit of distance, either through time or through the simple fact that we are podcasters and not the scientists, we have the ability to more clearly witness the way that's sort of like the miasma morality is actually impacting people.
I don't think that there is actually a way that we can step completely outside of our human brain and outside of our human context like social context, historical context to talk about these animal behaviors, and so it often gets worked into some sort of social political project at often.
Yeah, absolutely, I mean there is there is no objective point of view. The closest you can get is to sort of be I guess consistent in terms of scientific rigor, right, And so I think that you know that that that is really really true that like science and our own beliefs in sociology form a feedback loop, right, Like there's so much like a basic example is so many studies done on rats, but never done on female rats because it's harder to do it on female rats because they
have a menstrual cycle. But then, hey, you know half of the population might also have that too, maybe, so it's it is, it is complicated, and so I think that given that, you know, I also think that like when there's an appeal to science or an appeal to nature in terms of morality, I get very I think that's a very sort of true territory to get into, because if you're appealing to nature, right, like this is natural or this isn't natural? Well, I mean nature is
not necessarily a great moral guide. Animals frequently eat their own young, eat their parents, eat their partners. You know, there's a lot of stuff that happens in nature that I would not necessarily recommend to people. So I think sometimes this idea of like, well we need to appeal to nature, what is you know, what is natural in order to determine what our society should look like? Is it's just a non starter for me. I mean, we wear underwear and glasses. What what is anyone talking about?
So you know, I think I mean, not me, but to each their own, to each their own. Sometimes I get them mixed up, and I think it's an easy mistake to make. But O, there's not so much.
You know it. Yes, yes, there are definitely like risks and rewards to looking for analogues among the natural world. We're looking to science to sort of like justify and the behavior to your point, like human species has its own code of ethics, but that code of ethics isn't universal to all of us, right, It probably differs between the three of us right now, And certainly when you expand.
Up is it the underwear exactly?
Yes, exactly exactly, and we don't all abide by it, and you know, entirely all of the time. I think that it's beautiful to look for forms of reflection and to help us understand that we are also mammals. Yes, and there are going to be more similarities than we have given ourselves the benefit of observing and witnessing when we start looking for it and start asking those questions. There's been such an abundance of silencing or what we like to say, closeting of queer animals and queer animal
behavior over time. And since we're you know, not scientists, we're podcasters, we're curious people. We get to come at it a little bit more enthusiastically from the other side and be like, let's really highlight and celebrate these things that have been deemed marginal or misclassified or a moral or degenerate, you know, that pathologization that continues to happen.
We get to be like, no, we're going to celebrate that because we're going to see that there is a diversity in nature, which doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to have to go out and start, you know, behaving exactly like a bonobo, right, I mean that would be cool. We're going to talk about before eating.
We're going to talk about bonobos and how chill they are, but sure.
And ways they stay chill, right exactly exactly.
I think that there are things to learn, you know, exactly humans. Humans have always looked to nature for metaphor, whether it's like poetic yes metaphor philosophical metaphor spiritual metaphor. And I like, you want to be guided by rigorous,
data driven scientific inquiry and mythology. I'm sorry methodology, but I'm also influenced by nature mythology and wonder and poetry exactly, and these sort of like intangible meaning making that we can we have the gift of being able to do as human animals.
I think that's extremely well put, because I mean that's
when I talk about animal behavior on the show. I think that the thing that is so lovely to me is to find something in an animal that is really hard to relate to, like a jumping spider, and then you discover something about them where it's like they might dream, Like we see them have random eye movement, and so these little jumping spiders might be sitting there in their little webs having dreams, little spider dreams, and it's just it makes me feel so I don't know, connected, and
you know this this beauty and nature of like sometimes we underestimate animals in terms of their depth, and obviously sometimes we might over anthropomorphize them, but we can also like see them as so alien to us, and sometimes
they're not. Sometimes there are these shared things, and so I think that looking for those things in terms of sex, sexuality and even gender, which is another thing that's like very complicated when it comes to animals, right, but it is something where we can both do it too much but also too little. Like in terms of gender, I would say, like with animals. A lot of animals probably
don't have a concept of gender. Most I would say probably do not if we're going by the sort of biomass like ants, I kind of don't think they do. But there may be some animals that do have a concept of gender. And I would guess that the animals who are highly social and have very sort of distinctive social roles may actually have a concept of gender. It's just something that is extremely difficult to quantify. But just because you can't quantify it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
It just means we haven't learned that animals language, how they communicated, or how they express gender, or what it means to them, But it could still be there. And so you know, basically this is just all to say that biology and behavior, both in humans and animals is super, super complex and interwoven. I think that, like.
It.
Is amazing to see these various examples, but it's also good to be careful about, you know, recognizing that there are definitely both differences in terms of huge human behaviors and human ethics and what we want in our society in terms of like just I mean, for me at least, it's like the idea of all of this kind of investigation about like, well, what causes you know, lgbt qeness
and you know it does it happen in nature? It's like that should it should be more of just an appreciation right of nature and of humanity and less about some kind of like weird investigation in terms of like like is this okay? It's like yes, I mean because it's fine, like chill out, and less of like sort of this idea of we're looking to animals to kind of guide us, and more we're looking to animals because it's freaking cool.
Yes, Yes, it is freaking cool. Yeah, it is freaking cool. Yeah. And I wish we weren't in a position where we had to politically argue for the value of queerness and human animal and then like use the biopolitics of nature. But that but that's where we are. That's where we are.
You know, we have family add crimes against Nature statutes, and I think that's a symptom of like we as human animals have forgotten that we are animals and like what we do is going to be unique and different and also like intricately connected to all of other things, and like we should just embrace all of that diversity within ourselves and within the larger animal queendom, as we like to say.
And it's also i think in reaction to what has still been largely the response to seeing this in nature by scientists, which is what we heard over and over again in our conversations, which is seeing you know, two male let's say, bonobos, even though that's a common example, or or dolphins another common example, or you know, beatles maybe a less common example, having sex and then saying we have no idea why this is happening, instead of just saying, oh, look, this is happening, because of course
it's happening. Yeah, And like that's that very reaction being this need for us to still kind of feel compelled to, you know, come to this defense or respond this way. That that's been the response. The response has been what's going on here? This is this is so bizarre.
Yeah, there must.
Be some strange reason.
There must be some reason why they're doing this, versus they're doing this because they want.
To, you know, yeah, which is something we rarely like give two animals. You talked about like we don't know how to quantify the perspective of gender and animals, we also have a really difficult understanding of pleasure. Yeah, and therefore we often deny animals pleasure. And so we've seen discourse and record where they're like, these two animals are doing this thing, and like there must be some reason, maybe it's social, maybe it's biological, genetic something, and then
it's like, could be pleasure. And that's like an example of that is the female Japanese macaque. They were like, why do these ladies keep having sex? We're gonna do like rigorous study to figure out, like there's got to be a reason.
Which coincidentally is how scientists in the eighteen hundreds talked about actual human women.
Right exactly right, And some of the earliest like scientists who are like, we're gonna study, you know, sexual and gender deviants among humans were also then simultaneously doing it among animals because they were like already drawing these parallels and being like there is something else strange and aberrant going on, and it's really hard. It took us human animals a long time to get to the point where
it's like, well, pleasure is a big factor of that. Yeah, Like yes, they're social factors, always are, but we can do it because we want to.
This is also animals.
And this is actually something we talk about a lot on the show, where it's like sometimes animals just like to have fun. You can sing the song in your head. I'm not going to do it because I can't sing and I don't own the rights to that song. But animals do like to have fun. Like sometimes crows will just seem to play around like snowboard for no reason. Speaking of pleasure bats, I've seen that.
The ones that are just like they jump off and they just yeah, they just.
Like rise exactly, or they'll jump off.
Feel feels so good.
Yeah, And sometimes they you know, they'll like there's a lot of playful animal behavior that the explanation is probably just I don't know, I think they just are having a cool time.
It's like like that blurs into sexual behavior as well. Some of it is like so playful, but often scientists, especially if it's male male sexual behavior, they're like, it's got to be aggressive. This has to be a dominant despa, which is just like, yeah, possible way that these alphas are having joy, Like that's just not that's not the story we've written.
Can we can we finally make space for alpha joy, Like, is this going to happen? No, I think that's I think that's exactly right. We're gonna take a quick break and then we are gonna bust up the myth of nature being some kind of Noah's arc of of just perfect heteronormativity. So we will be right back. All right, So we are back, And you know, I think that something that's interesting is if you ask people about like, are there gay animals? You know, I think people will say, like, yeah,
you know, I've I've heard of the penguins. The penguins are such a famous example. And the reason I think that penguins are so notable is that there's a bunch of them in captivity and they form monoga as pair bonds, so we can actually observe it really well. But when you look into it, it's when I use this language is going to sound very awkward and like weird, weird sort of science lingle like same sex behavior, which sounds like I'm doing some kind of homophobic psa like in
the nineteen fifties. But this is you know what it's. This is what it's called in the literature with regards to animals. But yeah, same sex behavior has been observed in over one thy five hundred species, uh, from invertebrates, nematodes, fish, amphibians, reptiles, bird mammals. Honestly, my opinion is that any animal that sexually reproduces, there's going to be same sex behavior. Like I don't I would be much more shocked if you didn't find a species in which this were the case. Uh.
So that's that's my opinion. And so you know, uh, this is it's such a thing and kind of like what you're saying earlier, where it's like it is so prevalent that researchers are like, well, is there an evolutionary
advantage to this? And you know, it's something where I think it's really important to understand that when we talk about evolutionary advantage, it sounds really good, like this thing where it's like we should be looking for, like we should be striving for evolutionary advantages because that's the good thing. It's like evolution doesn't care about our happiness, it really doesn't.
It would be fine if we lived like five days of misery and then explode into a bunch of eggs that make a bunch of more miserable offspring, Like evolution wouldn't care about that, that it would just the most like efficient right exactly, And yet that's not the world that we live in.
No, we don't want you don't.
Want, yeah, exactly, like you don't want. Like there's a lot of stuff in evolution that is messed up that we would not want to endure just to be evolutionarily advantageous like we that's kind of what's cool when you are a more social, chill species like humans. There are other species too, who I think have this kind of autonomy where you get to be like, actually, I kind
of want to enjoy life like that's nice. So but still like it is extremely prevalent to the point where it's like when they're when you're asked like, well, are there are there gay animals, it's like, well, are there not any species that aren't don't have gay animals? I don't think so yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yea yeah. I mean I think we should circle back and like talk about those penguins a little bit, because there's so much to sort of unpack there about the mythology like mythology of penguins. What we know, what we don't know, the history of the story of gay penguins, yes, or the history of the story of the monogamous penguins.
Yeah. I mean there are multiple penguin species, right, and they all have their own behaviors, and they are it's pretty common among seabirds to be monogamous at least for one breeding.
Yes. Yeah. That's the thing about the that I like to call it the monogamouth is that often what we're seeing is not like lifelong monogamy, but seasonal pair bonding. Right, And recently there have been genetic studies of the DNA of like offspring that actually have revealed that even within pair bonded penguins, sometimes the offspring, the chicks are not genetically linked to the pair bonded father.
This isn't but.
We're just but we're still raised because there's such a there's so much going on. Yeah, the penguin environments that often eggs are being swapped, one of the two will
not return. And so even if there is an advantage to being bonded and to cope parenting, which I think is really what we're talking about here, like the advantage of co parenting, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are solely raising their own genetic offspring, and there's also female female pair bonds happening among penguins, male male pair bonds, and so much more, so much more.
Penguin Jerry Springer is absolute chaos. It's just a sea of black and white angry fluff.
Yes, yes, but that's something that Owen and I love to say, which is that penguins just have like amazing pr Like they have an incredible pr team because they have this like palatable for some reason, some of which we're saying here, they have this like palatable, you know, gay story that people can digest and can kind of fold into their version of something that like is palatable in human society.
Right, you know, it's gay penguins who got married before having sex and adopted an egg together legally and raising.
The egg right respectability.
Very respectable penguins.
Yeah, no, I mean, which is interesting because then you see like Roy and Silo, the famous gay penguins at the Central Park Zoo, which is a place that Lene and I visited. They're no longer there, but their story became a center point for both the Christian right the focus on the family, as well as the marriage equality movement because both were, like we can project this idea
of family values on these penguins. Meanwhile, the penguins are just like doing whatever and are ultimately bisexual and are going to be having all kinds of different sex. And yeah, when we have too rigid of an idea of how we want to relate to interpret and define any animal behavior, of course it's going to come back at us and
be like difficult. But if we start looking at like, oh, all of these things are way more complex than we afford them to be, then it becomes really beautiful, and then we give ourselves permission to be more complex.
Also, have you looked in a penguin's mouth. Those guys are little freaks, they are. It is a sarlac pit in there. And don't tell me they do not ever use that for sexual purposes.
I mean masturbation. Yes, when sexual solicitation all sorts of things, all sorts of things that you don't see represented in March of the Penguin.
Right, it is not PC. It is not a PC situation.
No, And I mean I think this is this is the whole kind of thing with like I remember so much, this idea of like where it felt like there was this attempt to make, you know, especially when it was like in the fight back against homophobia, it was like, but look at the cute penguins, they're also gay, And it's like, on one level, I get that, right, but on the other I think it's like short sighted because you know, first while we don't need penguins to tell
us what to do, they're like a foot tall at most, Like, why is the penguin telling me what to do what's right or what's not right? But also but also it's just like you said, it's a reduction of the complexity
of it. And it's also like we should be cool with each other other humans in terms of our identities and in terms of you know, our sexuality, not because you know, we see penguins doing it too, but because we should have the emotional intelligence to be like, Okay, these people are doing something that they're okay, look they're happy and cool, great, chill out. I don't know, like maybe we should just like chill out about each other.
And so by doing this kind of like projecting on them, like well, but they're the penguins are getting married and you know, saying penguin vows to each other about giving them each other fish for the rest of their life and sickness and health. Well, I mean, but they're Noture's more complex than that. Uh. And you know, I'm joking, jokingly calling them little freaks, but the idea of something being weird, you're affectionately calling them little affectionately. But again,
like for the penguins, it's not taboo. And it's also like in terms of penguins, like you know, it's it's kind of funny because I think at first researchers would try to kind of explain away. It's like, oh, they just they're they're confused and they see this penguin and they think that's a female penguin. They get confused and they have sex. It's like no, they're like taking turns and there's like they're engaging in group gay sex where
they're taking turns. I think they like it. I think they're having fun.
Like strategy, you see virtuosity, you see all of these things that would indicate among many species that this is not the product of the funnel men. No, not no, just sort of like whoopsie, Daisy, your way into participating in like multiple origin.
He slipped down the.
Yeah. I think that you know, like that is sort of tied into like gay panic. Also, I don't want to undervalue like how meaningful it can be to be affirmed by seeing something in nature. It is a sad reality of our human animal circumstance that we as where people have been told so many times that we are aberrant, that we are not part of the design, that evolution is something that exists that we don't follow, that we can't participate in it, and therefore, like nature is not
designed for us. And so I understand and in fact him called by that impulse to see myself reflected in nature. And that's you know, in large part why we're late and I are making this podcast because we both do we appreciate the value of that. But then it's like on the flip side, how do we how do we
get move move past that? How do we like create a space where we can move past that, we where we no longer need to be making these like arguments for our humanity by holding all animals right, But that would be wonderful.
Nice if you didn't have to spend so much time to justifying your existence right.
Right, and we could just be pronghorned sheep, you know, home home, Homo on the range just like doing their thing right. And because they're not, they're not arguing about it. It's the scientists who are observing them who are, like, what will happen if people know they're queer? They'll project stigma and shame on these animals and therefore not care about these animals and like that is because that's what we do to each other. Yeah, and so let's try to not do that to animals.
Yeah.
And that's and that's like a line that we really are trying to tone the series too, which is not have the whole thing be like see like they're just like it's like see, but that that that it's really it really is this back and forth of like the beauty of being able to see like ourselves in them. What can we learn from you know, that kinship and what what what kind of beauty can be like uh like elicited from that? And also the fact that like
that's not what this is all about. You know, there's not some sort of there's not some sort of agenda in that.
Ye, it's also really cool. It's just like can we tell it's I get frustrated so much, especially when I mean on Twitter, which I guess I'm doing this to myself. But I see people like oversimplifying biology or it's like, oh, biology, so there's like two sexes and it's like, oh my god, biology is way more cool than that, it's way more interesting.
You're painting such a boring picture of biology. It's like, yes, I obviously care very much about the ridiculous sort of culture war bs that you're espousing, but all so secondly, I'm offended on behalf of natural science because it's like so cool and there's so many interesting things, and when you project this kind of like rigid you know, I guess philosophy onto nature, then you miss so much depth and rich to the natural world in terms of animal behavior.
And it's you know, that is also really terrible, like you're making things more boring. Why are you doing that?
Right? A science education could be so incredible, And I think a lot of why we get into this mess it's not because the science isn't happening, because like you say, there is a lot of beautifully nuanced science occurring, but
it's how it's being taught. And I think that like, once it filters down into how we as like late people are interacting with it, then it becomes really reduced so that you know, we can understand it, and then it ends up falling into these, like you said, Noah's ark narratives that there is some sort of two by two binary and that's like the easiest, simplest way, when in fact, when you start scratching at the surface, you're like, oh, there's all kinds of studies talking about all kinds of
species that experience sex, gender behavior, pair bonding, family structures, social structures in like an impressive amount of way, right, And there's also so much that we can be that we don't understand, Like you were talking about the about the spiders and like they're incredible capacities to do things
that we can't do. I think there's so much to recognizing the differences that's that's a practice of embracing difference that I think like we as humans really need when we start looking at animals and being like, a, there are similarities, that's cool, but be there's remarkable differences and I want to celebrate that, and I want to do that to my other like human animals, and want to
do that to all other animals as well. Exactly bring that in to not be like I can only talk about animals if they fit some sort of you know, narrative that is convenient or useful, often convenient and useful for like a reprocentric ideology right right, or a heteronormative ideology.
And then also what happens a lot, which we talk to people about, is that like scientists will not want to not know. There isn't that space for kind of wonder and awe and the kind of space in between of not knowing. So then they fill in the gaps with kind of their own biases, which is what creates these assumptions and putting into binaries, putting into these societal kind of you know, these these things of saying, well, this animal is like X, Y, and Z, which only
happens because like we don't actually know. But then they're saying, well, I think I know, and it's based off my own assumptions and my own biases, And that's what ends up happening, like with all of these things where a real answer is we don't know, and there's just a lot of discomfort being able to say that in science.
Yeah, and it doesn't publish published. Well, I already I've told this joke or a joke before about like where in science, like you never published no results. So but you have to publish. Yeah, you have to publish.
You have to Yeah, you.
Have to publish something.
Yeah, and ideally you're publishing something that will result in more funding to continue to research and to continue to publish. And so if you're going to go out on a limb and start publishing your like copious amounts of gay animal sex that you're witnessing in you know, among dolphins, like, that's a risk.
Yeahs so you want yeah, and so you want like a result, also a result that's like interesting and or respectable because there are so many researchers I think who have the same that same idea of like I think they might just be having fun, and I think that they might be it's deeper than this. But then it is really hard for these kinds of like that more
I guess nuanced discussion to bubble to the surface. It's a lot easier for a headline to hit the papers where it's like gay gene found in fruit flies rather than fruit flies seem to really enjoy bisexual congo lines. Yes, you know, so, I think it's it is. It is
a shame but we are. We did mention earlier Bonobos, which I do want to talk about because I think they are sort of I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like they are kind of like the poster ape for being chill and like hippies, and which is honestly well deserved. But in a way I think that I don't know, I think it's I really appreciate them, and I think it's a really really interesting example of how like this this inter play between like, oh, is
this behavior advantageous or is this behavior for fun? And sometimes the answer to that is like yes, like yeah, both yes and yeah, and so yeah. Bonobos are great ape native to Congolese forests. They're very closely related to us. They're you know, our cousins. They are also very closely related to chimpanzees. But they they look a little bit like a chimpanzee, but just kind of like squeeze it
in a little bit. They're less Yeah, they're a little smaller, they're more slender, they're not they're not as buff, and
they are generally less aggressive. They have a higher proportion of peaceful interactions within their troop and with other troops, with other groups and they are also pretty equitable when it comes to sex, meaning like male and female banobos kind of have pretty equal standing in society, in their society, and I think, like, you know, that's a whole other thing too, like in terms of talking about like like gender equality and anarchical yeah versus patriarchal society, and it
can be really complicated. Like I think people have this idea of lions where it's like you have the lion, the male line, who's like the king than all the females who are his like subordinate harem, and it's like that's not really actually the case, Like the females kind of form a central core to lion society and the males come and go and yeah, the male right exactly so, and also like the idea that male elephants just are aimless drifters who just come in and mate and don't
actually participate in society, and it's like no, they also have a complex sort of social life as well. So it's just yeah, so things can be a lot more complex, but in general, bonobos are more uh their roles, at least like in terms of like whether they are you know, the hierarchy. They don't have as much of a hierarchy compared to say, chimpanzees, and they have a lot of gay sex like constantly all the time, males and females,
especially females apparently, but males as well. And they the idea that this is sort of I'm gonna tell you guys sort of the like scientific explanation of it, and then we can just kind of talk about I don't know what we think, which is like that it is often done to reaffirm these like social bonds to ease
tensions and reinforce cooperation. Seems to happen more in times of high competition, and the idea is that this is because they are trying to kind of reinforce this cooperation, like okay, everybody, everyone's stressed out, let's have sex and everyone can just chill out a little more. And so the idea is that it is this kind of socially advantageous thing because it just calms everyone down and reaffirms these like strong bonds between females and also between males,
and then also between females and males. So it's you know which, But I want to hear kind of what you got, like what your interpretation of both like the behavior and then also the interpretation of the behavior.
M M hmmm, Yeah, I mean they beautifully have sex for conflict avoidance or conflict reconciliation to mitigate conflict. They especially when there is some sort of like aggravating circumstance, like a scarcity of food or a potential like meeting of two like clans of Bonova, things that could result in like adversarial behavior competitive behavior, and that frequently do
result in that behavior among chimpanzees. Instead the bonobos, well, first play, there's like joy, there's play, and there's a lot of sex and like a lot of sex. A sex act is like it's like a handshake thirteen thirteen seconds. Yeah, it's like so fast. And they got a lot of other bonobos to have sex best, so they're just doing it and like that to me is like a really beautiful way of, like you said, reinforcing the bonds rather than like falling into these more dangerous impulses of like
aggression and violence. And there's like sure there's scientific reasons for that. There's like hormonal changes that happen, there's like oxytocin there.
Yeah, they like look at the peat which I love this that like it's like, you know what, we gotta we gotta watch these binobos wait until they have sex, and then wait until they have peep right after sex, collect that pee and study it.
Which I mean, let's also scientists a group of people who are probably way more kinky than we're willing to admit. You know, I think scientists spend a lot more time working with like gay animal p than I do.
So but this is like the anti alpha you know, dominance narrative right here. You know, like if you're looking for it, it's like this is literally to like alleviate that tension, alleviate that conflict, and to say like, okay, things are getting intense, Like what do we do, Like we're not trying to get agro, we're not trying to fight.
Let's have sex.
And you know, you can see that you can make an argument for evolutionary purposes for that for you know, survival of the fitness in a different way, or you can say that this is how they're keeping their communities thriving. And it's really really interesting and it's just another example of non reproductive sex, which is a huge thing that we explore. Just what are all different ways that you know, non human animals are having sex where you know, the be all and all purpose is to not you know,
make babies. And sometimes it's we can't figure it out. It must just be because they want to do it, and sometimes like in this because it feels good. And then sometimes like in this example, there's this other reason which is really fascinating.
Yeah, and I think that it's I think that sometimes when it comes to animals, we sort of unlike, like, what is the difference between like a human doing something because it's fun and it feels good or it provokes some profound emotion from having sex to looking at a painting, right,
and an animal doing something like that. And then you can say like, well, in human society, museums and sex also strengthen our social and make our societies more peaceful and more functional, which increases the reproductive success of everybody. And so you can say the same thing about Bonobo's you can say the same thing about your pet dog or cat. Right, So this this distinction between like like, oh, it's like over evolutionariizing something that's not a word, but
I need where it's where. Of course evolution it is the thing that is driving so many changes in behaviors, and of course it's absolutely a factor in so many behaviors and so many things. But also like at a certain point, well, this bonobo isn't this other bonobo because of fitness. It's because he likes it and he's having a good time, and it doesn't in that specific case, it doesn't necessarily make that bonobo moral less fit. Sometimes
it can be neutral, sometimes it can be good. Right, So it's like, so a lot of these behaviors are you know, I think that the fear of over anthropomorphizing animals can sometimes result in actually taking away autonomy from them.
In reductive analysis, Yeah, for sure, I mean. And a good example that we discussed in the podcast is greade apes masturbating and making sex toys, because this is not only non reproductive sex, but it's also like non social. It's like simply about figuring out how to stimulate yourself.
Which doesn't mean that it doesn't have like biological advantages, because we do know that like orgasming, like floods of hormones, these things can make you feel better emotionally, psychologically, biologically, But really it's like it's centered on pleasure, and I think, like we are really oh like, we are very distracted by the need and the imperative to find an evolutionary reason behind everything that we don't allow for the nuances and for these other activities that do serve a purpose,
right that just isn't a reproductive purpose right exactly?
Which is you know it kind of that makes me think of the example you guys mentioned dolphins earlier, and that's that's a pretty you know, that's an example of like, male bottlenose dolphins will often form these groups of two or three unrelated males who use sex to strengthen their social bonds, and they will hang out, they'll have sex with each other, and they will also have sex with females,
and it's often described as this. They're basically forming a group that is cohesive, cooperative, and resistant to say, like another male dolphin that would try to bully them or say it might increase their reproductive success with a female dolphin because the female is attracted to this group of dolphins and also they have a number of them, so then if another male comes and tries to like chase them away, they can chase that male away because there's
strength and numbers. But like, you know, we can't really get inside of a dolphin's head and know for sure what they're thinking, right, Like, So while this may have I think it certainly does seem to have some advantages for these dolphins, but I think like they also just enjoy it, right, Dolphins are really really intelligent. They're really social. So like if you can like hang with your buds, have some sex, I don't know, I think I think they're having a good time, like dolphins are.
Sometimes, they're definitely having a good time.
There's no question about that. There's no question of dolphins trying to get so much vocalization like they I feel like, yeah, there's so many animals that like do the best that they can to let us know that they are having a good.
Yeah, Like they'll so dolphins will try to sometimes like gently chew toxic fish and the ideas that they might get a little bit of a high from it or at least some kind of interesting sensation, and so they're just like, well, that's interesting. I'm gonna nibble that. A lot of animals eat fermented berries, which you know, we could argue like, well, you know, maybe it.
Has their wax wings.
Yeah, exactly, they get drunk and we could argue that, like, well, it could be accidental. It could be because they like you know, it's like has this high density of sort of nutritional content because it's fermented. But you know, a lot of cases it seems like they're kind of having fun.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, like the chemistry among mammals, like brain chemistry, like neurochemistry is not that divergent, like right, we are, and these are things that naturally occur in the wild, these plants. So like if humans at some point ended up discovering them and eating them, obviously animals have been as well. They have like they're very adept at identifying like what you can and can't eat and what the impacts are. So definitely we're not exceptional when
it comes to loving sex and drugs. Yeah, like we're just not and like singing and all these other like indicators of pleasure and culture honestly of society of connections. Dolphins are a great example of all of that.
Just partake in fermented berries responsibly, yes, definitely, don't swim and chew on toxic puffer fish.
Do you know about dolphin goosing? The sex act goosing?
Okay, no, remind.
Me so it's when one It particularly occurs among male male sexual interactions between bottlenose dolphins. One male will stick his beak into the interior like the back genital slit of another male and like while in there, because they have slits that like a fallas can come out of sort of multipurpose slits while in there will like make humming vibrating sounds, blow bubbles. But also the part that
feels strikes me is just incredibly joyous and beautiful. And I will admit to a certain amount of jealousy of They will push each other through the water, They'll take each other on these like excursions being like and like push each other around in this like it like what what purpose does this, sir? I don't want to know.
I just don't ride.
Yes, they are just doing mustache rides. They are That is for fun. That is something they invented for each other to give each other pleasure. And you're like, what is the one that's doing it? Like what are they receiving there? Receiving the pleasure of the recipient, which is like very fascinating.
Yeah, which even and we think like, well, dolphins are super super smart, so okay, maybe not so surprising they do this, but bats like give kunnelingis.
Oh yeah, that's love it. And you know, scientists are like, well there's nutrition in the semen.
And it's like I don't know.
Okay, okay, yes that's awesome and that's awesome, but like which came first? Also, like when did where they like, this feels good because we have erogenous zones that it can be stimulated that have an impact, and so we find you know, we speaking of just like greater creatures, creatures find ways to stimulate each other's erogenous zones and
then if maybe it's a byproduct that they discover. Like also there's like a nutritional advantage to consuming the sweat the runoff minerals to consuming the semen and what's in that. But I don't don't know if they were like I forgot to take my multi multi vitamin today, Like, bro, you down, Like I don't think that that's.
What they were, bro, Yeah, feeling a little hungry. I Mean. The thing for me is that bats are highly social and one of the more chill social species, right, Like there's not a huge amount of conflict and violence. Sure, there's like some squabbles, of course, there will be, but they don't. They're like, you know, and when I say bats, there's so many species of bats, but this is pretty general to bats that are our colony. Bats that will
roost together in large numbers. They have allo parenting where they you know, kind of watch after each other's young. There's behavior especially in bats that, like vampire bats, are actually very very like rare. In terms of species of bats, there's only like a couple species of vampire two or three species of vampire bats, whereas the rest of them
are either insectivores, nectar wars, or frugivores. But for vampire bats and other bats where meals are kind of hard to get and their metabolism is really fast, they'll share meals with each other. And it's kind of described as this like social safety net where it's like, if you miss a meal, your neighbor who you have had it like, it's your friends, right, Usually a stranger won't do it. But if you're friends with people and you've shared before,
you're also going to get shared back with. And so for me, like that indicates to me with in terms of bat sexuality, that it is seems to be all the components are aligning to me that this is a behavior that sure there's probably some like there could be some you know advantage to it, right, like, but it could also be they're highly social, They're quite friendly with each other, and so this like giving and receiving of pleasure with the bats is something that they enjoy and
helps them get along. And it's just you know, good vibes, good bet vibe.
Absolutely, and like you said, that's very common among many social animals. And I think that we don't want to think about ourselves as being interdependently linked, about you know, being heard animals, about being social creatures because of this like a particularly American idea of individualism, and you know, like we very taken to heart the mythos of survival of the fittest, when in fact, like we would be when they're stronger forms of community care, community childcare, mutual aid,
like we are going to survive more. Like I live in New Orleans and there's so many social aid and pleasure clubs, and it makes so much sense that social aid and pleasure are put together, because if you're going to be there for each other in acts of survival, being there for each other in acts of joy and exuberance is also really important, and we do see that reflected among so many other socially oriented mammals.
Yeah. Absolutely, So that's.
Are some of the earliest ones that were like witnessed by Western scientists. Those accounts go way back. People are like bats are doing it.
Maybe that's where the sexy vampire came from. We see bets doing this and we're like, man, vampires, vampires gotta be kinky, even though even though most bets are not vampires.
Yeah, I mean, I really do deeply believe that the idea of the sexy vampire does come from like sex morality and the fear of having sex of STI is like sexually transmitted infections and things like not knowing about it, not wanting to talk about it, you know.
Yeah, but it's also like it that there's the fear, but there's also the allure, which is why like vampires became very sexual topic.
Yeah, a very New Orleans talk.
Whenever, whenever we whenever, we're like, wait, was that the there was a Is that where there were the like vampire facials or is that not? Is that Florida?
Okay, okay, I'm gonna need you to say more.
Yeah, a little bit of a tangent.
You're gonna throw off my google's orchest.
Okay, it's I I promise it's well, no, I can't promise anything. So it's it actually has nothing to do with sex, but it's like a well, okay, I can't say that for sure. It's where they like where they like take some of your blood and then like put it back on your face. But like it's I get or like inject it back on your.
Is it topical because I've definitely heard about like plasma injection.
Yeah, no, I think it's like I don't think it's topical. I think it's like they they take some of your blood and then use like micro needles to like put it back in your face.
That's specific to New Orleans, okay, But New Orleans you can go to like Bourbon Street and get like a blood bag, and it's just like the cheapest form of red wine.
Is it is New Orleans. I just didn't know that New Orleans is like vampire Central. Is that where all the vami?
It really is and for many reasons, and part of it is an rice in the popularity of interview with a vampire, but it also has to do with just like the high frequency of transmissible diseases in the first several hundred years at being a place that was like specifically inflicted by tuberculosis and yellow fever and not understanding what these vectors were and it being like a very Catholic place. Was it like the Mosquito so a very
wanton place. Yeah, mosquito prevalence's blow sea levels, so like so many things were like linking that and then and then you throw in sex morality and it's like, oh, people, people who are out at night are more likely to get these diseases. Maybe it's because they're exposed to vectors like mosquitoes, but maybe it's also because of their activities. What are they doing, Like if they were only leaving the house to go to church, maybe they're not going
to be getting yellow feet, so they must. So you start to see these it must be a.
Hair of sexy vampires. I'll second on each other's but I swear like purit and logic is the kinkiest thing. Like I don't think, I don't.
Like they come up they come up with that, yea yea yah, yeah.
Yeah yeah yeah yeah right, And that's something that we came up with we came across in this where it's like scientists trying to explain, like gay sex have provided us with so many incredible reasons to participate in gay sex, and then like the only reason that they've given us to participate in like hetero sex is to have babies. But then they're like they're like, okay, well, social for like social bonding, nutritional aids, Like there's so many reasons why gay sex is good for you.
Okay, great, sounds like it sounds like science has a pro gay agenda.
Yeah exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they don't know you heard it here.
We're going to take a quick break, and then when we get back, we're going to talk about sex and gender in the Animal Kingdom. Okay, so we have talked about sexuality, and I do also want to talk about sex and gender because I think like the sort of again, I spend too much time on Twitter because I think I'm masochist, and like there's always this conversation about like, well, biology says there's two sexes, and so anyone who says
any different isn't listening to biology. And I've already explained why this argument is so frustrating in terms of how it's so it so simplifies both the human experience and also biology, Like it you don't understand biology, you're also making biology sound like something really boring and simplistic, and
it's not. But I think, you know, it is like we can definitely talk about like examples in the natural world and how sex can be very fluid, what it means for there to be even gender in the natural world.
But also just like again the thing that we've talked about before, the idea that something like that there is something that is natural and biology driven and then that's how we should shape our society after those it's such a weird like to me, that's that is so backwards, right, where sure we can understand things about biology, but litting that determine how we live our lives, right, and how we accept other people, how what we want in a
community of people. Is kind of strange because it's like I thought, the whole point of civilization again is underpants and eyeglasses. I can't actually think of any other reasons we have civilization. They've been underpants and eyeglasses. But you know, I'm sure there are other good stuff too. Vampire facial vampire facial right, yah, clearly exactly. So clownfish is that they are like the kind of uh, I think like poster boys and girls of sex fluidity in nature because
they're very charismatic species. Right. But this happens for like, uh, you know, a lot of animals have this. It's called sequential hermaphroditism. Uh. It's basically when an animal you can have animals that are hermaphrodites, meaning that they have both male and female genitals, and they can both have female biological processes or male biological processes at the same time, but in sequential hermaphroditism. I gotta hate that that word is.
I hate the Greeks you're doing.
Yeah, yeah, it really is. It is. When it is, it's something that happens in a specific sequence. So it's like you start off as one sex and then become another sex. And sometimes it's under specific it's usually under specific conditions. So for clownfish, the classic example, you have a bunch of male clownfish, and you have a dominant female and a male who is her breeding partner, and then you have the submissive males who you know kind of like are in this like I guess royal Court
of clownfish. And then if something happens to the female a uh, the breeding partner of the female actually then becomes the next female uh. And then and one of the other submissive males then becomes her breeding partner. And it's just sort of this like it's kind of an exchange.
And again, like when we talk about I feel like it we could spend a huge conversation talking about dominant and submissive of in nature and how that's not like the idea of being alpha and this kind of the idea, and like a lot of these hierarchies are not so much like brutal tyrannies of sex and more like, hey, we kind of have this system. You guys are younger, you'll get your turn, you know, and like as sort of swapping out kind of thing where you, you know, you'll.
Have what if we thought about it more about like wisdom or experience and not about force or power.
And sometimes it can be literally about force and power because you know, it really depends on the animal, but often it isn't. But the language that we use to describe it, I think often has this connotation. But that's not necessarily doesn't really capture the nuance of it.
Yeah, And like you said, there are lots of animals that exhibit multiple kinds of reproductive anatomy that are intersex colne fish first, sure, but also like larger species like grizzly bears will actually develop later in life like a
functioning pallas while maintaining a functioning birthing canal. So there's like different ways that we can see variation within like sexual anatomy, and there's also different ways that we can see variation within gender and gendered behavior and also like the gendered the idea of a gender behavior to your
point about like what is alpha? What is beta? Like this is so much of that is coming from us looking to animals and only identifying certain things and not really talking about like the larger social context or like is are we only seeing a little bit of dominance behavior in this one moment, but like what is the reality? Is this an you know, writ large across the species
or is it just those two animals? So it does get really complex because it's like really in you know, individualized, also talking about like what is the gendered experience or behavior of this one animal? But certainly there's so many examples of diversity in animal on both counts, both like small little creatures existing in the sea that have multiple forms of reproductive anatomy and can like jettison one or the other based on like what is useful at the time.
And then you have like hyenas which develop phallasies. All the female hyenas develop fallacies that they.
See and give birth through which.
And give birth through them exactly, which like grizzly bears
can do as well. Yes, have been documented. So it's like the truth is like there are so many examples that we just don't look to, we don't acknowledge because it's easier to say that just because something is like maybe more frequent, doesn't mean that it is the default or the only right, like it confused like a frequency of observation as meaning that it is the sole observation, where in fact, you know there is there are some species that have a higher frequency of same sex sexual
behavior than like heterosexual sexual behavior, and then there are some species that have a very low frequency, but it's still there and it's still worth acknowledging as part of the full picture of what that experience of that species is, right, And that's the same with it comes to gender and sex.
Right, which is also this is all also within the framework of there being two sexes, which there aren't, right, So it's also still kind of saying, well, this exists. That it's also still thinking about any of this as some sort of aberration within the concept of there being two sexes, which there are more than two sexes, which we all know, but it's still kind of it's still kind of thinking of it within that that idea that there are these things that exist outside of as opposed
to there are just more than two sexes. You know, like even us having this conversation, there's a little bit of that happening.
Yes, yes, there is. Thank you for pointing that out.
Absolutely, it's very hard to get outside of because we live in a society we're in like the fish bowl, and then you're sort of trying to be like, well, let me take a step outside this fishful for a second and like look at it. It's it can be tricky especially.
When you especially when you're like deeply in the papers, like and the research and you're like, Okay, I'm trying to understand this from this perspective, and then like begin to think about it from that perspective, even if it's contradictory to like lived.
Experience, right right, right, because I know that.
To not be true for me. But then you're like, right right, like I'm trying to understand how it's being presented to me, and then you start adapting that language, and then it becomes this echo chamber and the sort of self fulfilling prophecy in that way. Yes, you're like, Okay, I'm glad that I can find examples of derivation and like and celebrate that. And then it's like, wait, it's actually not.
It just is, right, right, I mean, like it is.
It just is how it is.
I mean it's kind of like how there's this example of whiptail lizards in New Mexico and we kind of myself included, I kind of see them as like it's a bunch of these like basically like Amazonian females, right, who reproduce asexually. Uh, and they they do they do mate, but they don't they don't mate in order to exchange genetic information. They mate in order to kind of encourage each other to produce a hormone that helps with reproduction. But the sex is entirely clonal. It is just their
own genes that are being recombined to create offspring. But the thing is like we think of them right as like females, but they also have their triploid so they have three sets of chromosomes that they inherited from a mutation. And so it's it's interesting where it's like, Okay, so now they have these three sets of chromosomes and there they a sexually reproduced, they all mate with each other. We don't really see them as a different sex outside
of the binary. We see them as female, which is to me just kind of interesting because it's it's you know, it is like if we had a society perhaps in which we didn't have such a strict binary, we may see this as like, hey, this is another type of sex, right where you have a A A, you know, this entire species where they have essentially evolved this third sex that has three chromosomes and recombines them or something like that. Right.
So it's kind of this perspective of like and certainly one that I fall that I fall into all the time because like I think about, like, yeah, these are Amazonians who are like popping out clones, which I think is how Wonder Woman was made. I don't actually follow comics too much. I don't know how it works on Themyscira.
Yeah, but yeah, exactly. That's such an excellent point, like this is an example of just yet another sex that exists. Yeah, yeah, I mean similarly, like there's been a lot of examples of late among I'm gonna watch the pronunciation of this word.
Welcome to my showmorphism. Yes, so good. You said it and I didn't have to say that word.
And yeah. The way that it's talked about is like this is a combination of the two sexes or the two genders, and you're like, or it's just another thing, Like that's incredible. Also, it's because it is. It is another thing. It's not just a like to be like non binary is to be like a perfect amount of the binary.
Right. Well, it's kind of funny because it's like it's like, there's a binary except for all these exceptions. It's like, so not a binary, right.
Not a binary?
Not a binary?
No.
Yeah. Gynander morphs are really interesting too, because there it happens in I think it's specifically because of the way that the chromosomes work for butterflies, other insects and birds, like, we don't really see this much in mammals, and that's because birds have chromosomes that are unique in terms of like like unique from mammals, and so it allows for asymmetrical gynandromorphy. Look big word you have where you have one side that looks let's say female, and one side
that looks let's say male. But you know it is because they're you know, this is not something that would necess really happen in a mammal because of these specific ways in which like bird genes can combine. And this also means that birds can change sex sometimes just spontaneously for seemingly no reason. We don't know if there's a reason. But and then also birds can occasionally have parthenogenesis where they you know, basically don't need to exactly vultures, but
also chickens, it's hard to know. It's hard to know because we don't a lot of these things we observe in chickens. Why because we have so many freaking chickens around. We surround ourselves with chickens, so we see it in chickens, but it's probably happening in a lot of speech. And we also the reason we see it in vultures, is because they're so a lot of these species are so endangered.
We observe them very careful. Yeah, we're constantly, Yeah, we're monitoring their breeding, we're taking these genetics, we're taking these blood samples from them, right because we're tracking them making sure that their population is secure. And so that's how we catch that. But this could be happening, you know,
much more frequently than we think. And so the whole idea of it being sort of like, well, you know, it's it's this, It is this like exception to the binar, which again is kind of like doesn't really make sense, but it's because these these animals, like birds, butterflies, these other insects have this unique well not unique to them, but different from our kind of uh of chromosome that
allows for this. And so it's like this idea, like the whole thing where you frequently hear it's like well x y is male and xx is female, and it's like, okay, but that's not how it is for birds, uh, and that's not how it is. And like also that's not how it is for humans too, like and so like if you if you can have all these counter examples. Then it's like, well, maybe we should understand that this is more complicated than you know, something that you learn
in third grade. I don't know, I don't remember what grade.
Absolutely, absolutely, yeah, yeah. And there's examples of animals that like do what scientists calls biomimicry, which is like a difficult idea to swallow because it's sort of like proposes
a certain amount of deception or something. But they'll like produce hormones and pheromones not associated with the sex that they this animal has been assigned, and you know, to try to figure out like why would they do this, you know, like for garter snakes, like maybe it's about warmth, but maybe it's just about like you know, because they invite sudden, they invite a bunch of male attention or something,
and it's like, who knows. This is just another incredible example of all the different ways that like sex and gender play out. Yeah, just like don't support the prevailing theory.
Right, And like there's there are animals where their juvenile forms look all female and then their adult forms will diverge. Or a lot of birds, yes you have male and female seabirds, but pretty much all of their behavior is exactly the same, their plumage, their courtship, it's all the same.
Yeah. We talk about pigeons in the series and of you know, sexually monomorphic species, and of like you know, looking at just walking the streets of New York City and all these kind of stories that we project onto two pigeons, you know, one pigeon chasing another pigeon, and this story of like, oh, there's that man you know, chasing that that that woman. There's that husband chasing that wife, and you know, because they look the same. But it's like, we have no idea.
You know, it could be.
Two males, two females, you know, but like that, that's what we're doing with all of these species that might look the same to our naked eye, and you know they're probably gay.
Yeah, yeah, let's just start roaming around with that as the primary assumption. Like why not? Yeah, but we are so limited, like our observational prowess. Be it what it is is, we're so limited.
In what we can and we have no idea what weigh.
So many species. We don't know, no idea what whales are up to.
We do not know what girls are doing. They're too big. We can't fit them in, Like when too far away, big, they're too far away. We have no idea. They could have all they don't want us to know.
They don't want us to know. They don't want us to know.
But they could have nukes and we wouldn't know.
Yeah. I mean, what I love about the humpback whale is there the humpback whale is like you all creatures are obsessed with us and we have been living stealth TIHI for so long. But then they're like, we're going to show you sex for the first time, but it's going to be gay sex. The recent in March the first observation of humpback whale sex and it was like
gay sex, and like they did that strategically. They're like, we just we know that you're going to be wringing your hands for another century trying to figure that out.
They immediately immediately log onto Twitter to see the fallout. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they're like, oh, we look good, yeah, and they do. An example that I like was like this, there was this group of lionesses who, well the way they're described as like lionesses who grewmines and start acting as like like males in Botswana, and you know, like, first of all, they were really cool looking because they have kind of it looked a little bit like a
lion foxhawk, which is fun. They were somehow able to confirm that they had high testosterone levels. But again, I mean that's kind of an example of how we're like, well, they're female lions, but they have high testosterone and they're acting like males rather than like, you know, this combination of aspects for this group of lions. So it's something else.
And we need different language. I think they're just very limited by our language. Yeah, like it holds so much power. We just need different language. We need to stop saying like these are females that are behaving like males, but also like have biology of females and males, and you're like, it's something else. Yeah, exactly, we need that word. Maybe it's just a human preoccupation to be like what are you?
But yeah, I would like to see someone try to do that to a lion, be like pick one, pick a gender and then they're just getting their face ripped off by a lion.
Yeah, listeners can look this up. But there was recently two male lions who were caught on video having sex and the like. Park officials were like, they're not gay. They just saw gay humans. They saw gay humans and they wanted to try it out. They're just mimicking humans. This is because of humans and it's like, wow, the like the leaps that will go through.
They read a book in middle school that told them turn them gay. Well, you guys, before we go, we do got to play a little game. It's called Guests Who Squawk and the Mystery Animal Sound game is a game in which I play a mystery animal sound and sometimes I'm very sneaky and tricky about it, and you, the guest, and you the listener, try to guess who is making that sound. It can be any animal in the world or in space. Once we find them, it's only a matter of time. So here is the hint
for last week's mystery animal sound. They can be victims of thieves or thieves themselves. May the most cunning rogues win?
Are we to guess what the animal sound is?
Yes?
Okay, Well you're in for a treat. Because Lane and I, when it comes to competition, are really bad.
I do like I do like to say that this is not a gotcha if I had to play this game, I would be terrible at it.
But the fun part truth it's we're neither good nor bad, but we're a secret.
Third thing, the fun part is I get to act really smug because I just look for the animal sound and then make I'm like the Riddler of animal sounds. All right here it is?
Okay, all right?
Did you hear some of those squawking sounds?
So I heard the sounds. There was squawks, for sure, some sort of short staccato squawks. There were some like context sounds of London waves.
There was some horns. There was some wind.
Uh huh uh huh. I mean this is Lene and I talking amongst ourselves. But like my impulse is to say, like a goal or a turn. Yeah, like squawking the location.
Yeah, definitely some sort of sort of seabird.
How specific we're supposed to get.
But I mean as specific as you want to be.
I mean, yeah, it's some sort of some sort of goal. It had like less of like a real squawk, you know, like it was a little more muted m hm. So it's like that's why I'm thinking, like maybe not like it wasn't like a seagull it had like a more of like a muted kind of yeah, you know, hmmm.
Yeah, maybe let's see what else what other birds such? I don't think it's a sure bird because it did sound like bigger. What we do agree that we think it's a bird.
Yeah, I think I think you're safe to assume it's a bird at this point.
Yes, okay, And we do agree that we think it's a gay bird.
Oh yeah, I think it's safe to assume it's a gay bird, just to assume.
Okay, so it's a gay bird.
I what do do pelicans make noises like that? Now?
Like that in my experience, I mean, I feel like it's smaller than an albatross, bigger than a plo for Yeah, I mean I think that it's like seagull, I mean a goal of some sort. I don't think it's a laughing goal, but I do think it's a kind of goal, uh, or a turn.
I'll give you another hint. It does have some relevance to this episode, just actually coincidentally.
Okay, it's a it's a like a it's.
A it's a lesbian seagull. It's a lesbian seagull.
Yes, well, I can confidently say it is. Well, look, most likely it is lesbian, but it is in fact a deli penguin. You're so close circle.
We have listened to so much like tape of penguin sounds that we've recorded, and like, I didn't think.
It is so hard. See. The thing about sea birds is they all are They all vaguely look like little angry butlers and sound like little angry angry butlers, so it is hard to tell the difference. But yeah, they are found in the Antarctic. They craft amazing nests out of rocks for they're young, but they will often try to steal rocks from each other to furnish their own nest. Uh. And yes, they are often gay, so you know. And these penguins have been observed like taking turns having gay sex.
So there is really no I guess question. Like it's not like you know, they accidentally slipped on an ice flow and happened upon a penguin orgy there. It's very intentional.
Uh.
And so you know they can rob your pebbles or your heart. These little penguins look so cute. Yes, all right, So onto this week's mystery animal sound hint is this is it a noodle. Is it a cat or is it neither? All right, you guys have any guesses? Noodle or what is it a noodle? Is it a cat or is it something else?
Entirely, I just think it would be cruel if it was something.
Else entire I'm gonna go with cat.
I'm gonna go with noodle. I think it's it sounds to me like something that's like getting wind through it, which I guess is how a boys box work.
The boys box is essentially a noodle, you know, it is essentially a meat.
A meat noodle is a throat, but not a noodle.
But not a meat noodle. Yes, meat noodle is gonna be.
I just feel like if it was a cat, like what it be so sort of like consistent across like every time that we heard, I would just like imagine that would be a little bit more variation, and it's like total quality and it's like hitch, it's just so consistent. So it makes me think it's just like it it's like a noodle that has one shape that doesn't change on like a voice box, and so you're just gonna get that consistency at pitch. So I think it's so.
Jital So I've got one for cat.
Now I'm hungry.
I've got one for cat, one for a noodle. I you both are in a way correct, but the true answer will not be revealed until next week's preach your feature clip hair noodles and cats falling off cliffs. Oh no, guys, thank you so much for joining me today. This was a wonderful conversation. I'm so excited for your podcast. Just so people can remember, tell them what the name of your podcast is, they can find it and where they can find you guys.
Yeah, well, the podcast is called a Field Guide to Gay Animals and it is out June thirteenth, and it's five episodes, So the first episode is out June thirteenth, and then it will be out weekly after that. Wherever you get your podcasts, so you know, just go to your little podcast app and you'll be able to find it and look.
Up a Field Guide to Gay Animals and we'll be there.
We'll be there.
That's where you can find it. That's where you can find us, and.
Find us on Instagram as well at a Field Guide to Gay Animals.
Yeah, and thank you so much for having us, Katie.
This was so fun so much for.
Having Yeah, this is super fun for me.
I enjoy being a featured Creature.
And thank you guys so much for listening. If you're enjoying the show, if you leave a rating and review, it tangibly helps me and I read every single one of your reviews, all of them, no matter the cost. And thank you so much to the Space Cossics for their super awesome song Exo. Lumina. Creature features a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit the iHeartRadio ap Apple podcast. He guess what where have you listen to your favorite shows? I don't care.
I'm not your mother, and I can't tell you what to do. You gotta be the captain pilot of your own life, if your life is a ship or a plane. Anyways, I'll see you next Wednesday.