Gay Bear Sex Arouses Scientists’ Curiosity
Scientists have discovered that brown bears in captivity sometimes enjoy gay sex with each other.
Brown bears in Eastern European zoos have been observed to engage in homosexual oral sex — that is, they go down on each other.
This recurrent fellating has aroused the curiosity of zoologists and launched a 116 hour observation at a Croatian wildlife facility. There, 28 instances of brown bears going down on each other were reported — each interval lasting anywhere from one to four minutes. (Question: Do bear penises look like the teat of a mother bear?)
Sexually stimulating behaviors that are not linked to reproduction are rare among non-human (especially non-primate) mammals. Such behaviors may have a function in the hierarchy of social species. In solitary species, such behaviors are more enigmatic, and possibly indicative of something abnormal. Here, we report on a case of two male brown bears, raised in captivity since being orphaned as cubs, which engaged in recurrent fellatio multiple times per day until at least 10 years old. The roles of provider and receiver in the act remained unchanged, and the behavior itself became highly ritualized. The provider always initiated the contact involving vigorous penile sucking that appeared to result in ejaculation. We suggest that the behavior began as a result of early deprivation of maternal suckling, and persisted through life, possibly because it remained satisfying for both individuals. This constitutes the first descriptive report of fellatio in bears, and suggests that some bears may suffer lifelong behavioral consequences from being orphaned at an early age.
Sounds like a major suckling problem to me.
h/t NewNowNext.