Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape
43 "Bonobos wave, beg, wrist-shake, or make threatening gestures predominantly with their right hands. This is the first evidence in a close relative of ours that a communicatory capacity other than language may be associated with the left side of the brain. The similarity in brain specialization hints at a shared evolutionary history between gesturing and language." OOOOOO.
One interesting thing he note about their sexuality is about inhibitions: 100 "Some of these moral constraints exist for good reason, and I am not questioning them, but bonobo society may quite possibly provide insight into how our sexuality might function without them." Another example is that sex is often used more literally as a currency - sex for food, or favors, etc. which we tend to look down on in our society even though it is arguably just a present. :)
"Face-to-face intercourse was long thought to be uniquely human." Nope, Bonobos do it that way :) (Apprently, there was all kinds of moral high-ground associated with this position as a distinguishing factor in making human sex less animal, so much so that its called the missionary position because it was thought that this should be taught of savages when converting them. :)) Also, female orgasm was thought to be uniquely human.
This also reminds me of a part in there that I now don't remember where it was, but he talks about how they seem quite interested in each other's facial expressions and whether or not they are enjoying their sexual experiences because if one of them seems uninterested, they'll just stop.
"some feminist scholars believe that bonding among women is uniquely human" but bonobos definitely appear to bond more than even human women do. 115
134 He talks about the significance of bonobos and their capacity for overturning or rehtinking some long-held beliefs . . . including an alternative evolutionary history or relationship that traces female importance instead of "macho' evolutionary models derived from the behavior of baboons and chimpanzees" (and elsewhere, he talks about empathy in a similar way), "Secondly, bonobos thoroughly upset the idea that sex is intended solely for procreation." Related to this is a comment he made in the lecture about how, though sex might clearly evolved from a reproductive function, it can be used for many more things, so that homosexual relationships are no less natural than heterosexual ones . . . which I think goes against this naturalistic fallacy or whatever Jacob calls it which is really surprisingly prevalant in arguments against all kinds of things. And this idea that if it doesn't happen in nature, it goes against God or something even though this stuff DOES take place in nature. So then they just change the argument so that now nature is animal and therefore against God . . .
He talks about our species and how we "value stable partnerships"
He does say that nuclear families are uniquely human -- "for which no parallel exists in the great apes" at least (i'm not sure about other animals. He offers this whole interesting idea of how we became these kinds of family units, based on the fact that the more males were invested in their offspring, the more interest they had in controlling female reproduction, but the more they could be sure the offspring were theirs, the more the would stick around and help to care for young. He talks about the role of infanticide (throughout the book, actually) and in particular how chimps utilize that to make sure their own offspring live and to increase the reproductive cycle of females to replace the young they lost . . . and how bonobos basically operate under the "if any of these could be my babies and we are all potential fathers, its probably best not to kill any of them" and for humans we just limited female reproductive freedom.
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