23-05-2025
Gay lions and cheating chimps — what animals tell us about sexuality
Clarity comes, as so often, from one's testicles. Amid all the confusions surrounding modern sexuality — the gender fluidity, sexual fluidity, polyamory and poly-all-sorts-of-things — a truth, of sorts, can be found in gonads. Because dangling within, Nathan Lents explains in The Sexual Evolution, lies an entire evolutionary history of sexual politics.
Consider a chimpanzee's balls, if you must. Chimpanzees have massive balls. Balls an Italian mafioso would boast about. The reason is simple, and something an Italian mafioso would be less proud of. When chimpanzees have sex the males can never be sure how many other males have recently had sex with the same female. This is a species that is, shall we say, sex-positive. So how do they ensure their own genes
