Bonobo-Style: Sex for Peace

Ethologist Dr. Frans B. M. de Waal has studied the Bonobo (a chimpanzee species related the closest to human beings) and made some interesting observation with regards to their sexual and social behaviour. Some of his most interesting discoveries he has put together in an essay – from which the excerpts are below. That might give the human species some incentive to learn from their ancestors about how to resolve a conflict or better not to start one in the first place...

The Bonobo is one of the last large mammals to be found by science. The creature was discovered in 1929 in a Belgian colonial museum, far from its lush African habitat.
The species is best characterized as female-centered and egalitarian and as one that substitutes sex for aggression.
My own interest in Bonobos came not from an inherent fascination with their charms but from research on aggressive behavior in primates. I was particularly intrigued with the aftermath of conflict. After two chimpanzees have fought, for instance, they may come together for a hug and mouth-to-mouth kiss. Assuming that such reunions serve to restore peace and harmony, I labeled them reconciliations.
For my study, which began in 1983, I chose the San Diego Zoo. At the time, it housed the world's largest captive Bonobo colony--10 members divided into three groups. I spent entire days in front of the enclosure with a video camera, which was switched on at feeding time. As soon as a caretaker approached the enclosure with food, the males would develop erections. Even before the food was thrown into the area, the Bonobos would be inviting each other for sex: males would invite females, and females would invite males and other females.
The diversity of erotic contacts in Bonobos includes sporadic oral sex, massage of another individual's genitals and intense tongue-kissing. Lest this leave the impression of a pathologically oversexed species, I must add, based on hundreds of hours of watching Bonobos, that their sexual activity is rather casual and relaxed. It appears to be a completely natural part of their group life. Like people, bonobos engage in sex only occasionally, not continuously. Furthermore, with the average copulation lasting 13 seconds, sexual contact in Bonobos is rather quick by human standards.

That sex is connected to feeding, and even appears to make food sharing possible, has been observed not only in zoos but also in the wild. Nancy Thompson-Handler, then at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, saw Bonobos in Zaire's Lomako Forest engage in sex after they had entered trees loaded with ripe figs or when one among them had captured a prey animal, such as a small forest duiker. The flurry of sexual contacts would last for five to 10 minutes, after which the apes would settle down to consume the food.

One explanation for the sexual activity at feeding time could be that excitement over food translates into sexual arousal. This idea may be partly true. Yet another motivation is probably the real cause: competition. There are two reasons to believe sexual activity is the Bonobo's answer to avoiding conflict.
First, anything, not just food, that arouses the interest of more than one Bonobo at a time tends to result in sexual contact. If two Bonobos approach a cardboard box thrown into their enclosure, they will briefly mount each other before playing with the box. Such situations lead to squabbles in most other species. But Bonobos are quite tolerant, perhaps because they use sex to divert attention and to diffuse tension.

Second, Bonobo sex often occurs in aggressive contexts totally unrelated to food. A jealous male might chase another away from a female, after which the two males reunite and engage in scrotal rubbing. Or after a female hits a juvenile, the latter's mother may lunge at the aggressor, an action that is immediately followed by genital rubbing between the two adults.

During reconciliations, Bonobos use the same sexual repertoire as they do during feeding time. Based on an analysis of many such incidents, my study yielded the first solid evidence for sexual behavior as a mechanism to overcome aggression. Not that this function is absent in other animals--or in humans, for that matter--but the art of sexual reconciliation may well have reached its evolutionary peak in the Bonobo. For these animals, sexual behavior is indistinguishable from social behavior. Given its peacemaking and appeasement functions, it is not surprising that sex among Bonobos occurs in so many different partner combinations, including between juveniles and adults. The need for peaceful coexistence is obviously not restricted to adult heterosexual pairs.
Sex, it turned out, is the key to the social life of the bonobo.

Unfortunately the Bonobo has now become an endangered species. He is only to be found in the rainforest of the Republic of Congo.

http://songweaver.com/info/bonobos.html
(Originally published in the March 1995 issue of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, pp. 82-88)