R. Deutsch
30 April 2013
Bonobos
Female bonobos exhibit obvious sexual swellings throughout their adult lives. One of the most significant and defining characteristics of bonobos societies is sexual behavior. Sex serves purposes other than reproduction such as appeasement, affection, social status, erotic games, reconciliation, excitement, and stress reduction. While most mammals mate only during specified breeding seasons, many primate species are able to breed at any time during the course of a year. Many of the roots of human behavior can be traced to our primate heritage, including survival through cooperation and mutual assistance. In particular, humans and Bonobos have developed different mechanisms for peacekeeping. Cultural transmission and highly developed symbolic language are particularly unique to humans. Human conflicts and aggression are typically reconciled and avoided through language.
Unlike Bonobos, sexual control is evidenced in humans. Marriage typically serves as a sexual control mechanism. Human males participate in child rearing and, due to monogamous marriages, have some assurance of paternity. In most cultures men honor proprietary rights of husbands over their wife or wives. Marriage typically involves exclusion and control over a female's sexual life. Humans also demonstrate sexual coercion and jealousy between intimates. Most human cultures are male-dominated. Chimpanzees in comparison to us, is best listed on page 70. It reads, like humans, chimpanzees laugh, make up after a quarrel, support each other in times of trouble, medicate themselves with chemical and physical remedies, stop each other from eating poisonous foods, collaborate in the hunt, help each other over physical obstacles, raid neighboring groups, lose their tempers, get excited by dramatic weather, invent ways to show off, have family traditions and group traditions, make tools, devise plans, deceive, play tricks, grieve, and are cruel or kind.