Incisoscutum ritchiei - a species we may owe a lot of undue respect and reverence to. According to Dr Zohina Johansen of London's Natural History Museum, the fossilized remains of Incisoscutum ritchiei contains the earliest account of internally developed embryos. These claims have been bolstered by findings of similar placoderms in the Gogo region of Australia. That puts copulation; doin the deed; the horizontal polka and one, two, three oops at an astonishingly 365 million year old vantage point!
A lot has changed in these 365 million years since sex was invented. Some changes occur in the way we have sex, and some why we have sex. S&M enthusiasts aren't the only ones who like it rough. Female dragon flies do to! When dragonflies copulate the male will take the extended ten segmented abdomen and grab the female by the neck to hold her in place. The female apparently likes this and grabs his sperm with her extended abdomen. Bower birds show us to what lengths we strive to find a mate - no pun inteded. The male bower bird will build a house for his potential mate. Not for living in, but just for the copulation. These are beautifully and elaborately constructed sexual domains.
Interestingly, there are only two species of animal on the planet who have sex face to face. Humans are one of them; Bonobos (Pygmy Chimps) are the other. Bonobos will even proceed in some tongue on tongue action. Although not usually during sex given that they the average Bonobo copulation lasts 13 seconds! However, gential rubbing, kissing and sex are all apart of a culture of apeasing and peacmaking in Bonobo culture. When a acute conflict arises between two individuals they often sexually stimulate each other with great alacrity.
These acts of display aren't limited to heterosexuals either. Male Bonobo have been shown to play "physical" swords with one another, or just engage in the good ol' scrodum rub. Female Orang utans (Pongo Pygmaeus) are also known to engage in female-female genetalia rubbing. To me this is a great example of selection for homosexual traits. If two species of the same sex can avoid killing one another through mutual groping then they both live to pass on their genes. Simple. I know, I know. Why not just chase out the other individual or kill them off like gorillas do? I would argue that those actions take significant effort to achieve and that reducing your time fighting could increase your instances of mating.
These are obviously very superficial and amateur arguments, however either way it does not matter to me. If there are genes that control homosexuality - which I believe there are - then great, and if there aren't then great. [My personal theory is based on recessive homsexual alleles that quickly flurished once a critical population threshold was surpassed. More on that some other time.] The only opposition I see to homosexuality is through dogmatic religious beliefs. Beliefs that are at the heart of them intolerant and jejune. Now if we can just evolve past that we might be alright after all.
-m.tsang
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