[NYTr] Bonobo Bashing in the New Yorker

[nytr at olm.blythe-systems.com]

[Note: Ian Parker's New Yorker article discussed here can be found at
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/07/30/070730fa_fact_parker
-NY Transfer]


Counterpunch - Jul 26, 2007
http://www.counterpunch.org/block07252007.html

Bonobo Bashing in the New Yorker

The New War on Love-Loving Chimps

By Dr. SUSAN BLOCK

When I first fell in love with bonobos in the early 1990s, none of my
acquaintances knew a bonobo from a bonsai tree. Now, these amazing
apes, who swing with each other as well as from the trees, have become
rather famous.

Of course, with fame comes defamation. So I wasn't surprised to see Ian
Parker* attempting to deflate the buoyant, mystical aura of the bonobo
in the pages of the New Yorker, subtly deriding the work of some of the
bonobos' best friends in the human world, and hinting ominously that
his article would be debunking the central ideas of what I call "The
Bonobo Way." These include the notions that 1) bonobos engage in
various, rather elaborate forms of pleasure sex, not just reproductive
sex, 2) they do not seem to deliberately murder or make war on members
of their own species like common chimps and humans do, and 3) females
wield considerably more power than in other primate species.

Parker does provide a fascinating descriptive look at the daily life of
a bonobo researcher in the Congolese Rainforest, as well as a
comprehensive overview of bonobo primatology politics. He is
particularly telling when he writes "The challenges of bonobo research
call for chimpanzee vigor, and this leads to animosities," including, I
would add, the strong, almost vicious desire to debunk one another.

But in the end, Parker's article debunks nothing. He gives a few
examples of bonobos committing acts of violence, but not murder, at
least not with any real evidence. No one has ever said bonobos are
angels, just that as primates, they are relatively peaceful. They have
never been observed engaging in calculated murder or organized warfare
such as has been observed in common chimps and, of course, humans.
Parker's piece doesn't include anything even approaching a bonobo war
party. Interestingly, almost all of the examples of violence mentioned
in the article are perpetrated by females, buttressing the notion that
females rule, at least in certain vital areas of life in Bonoboland.

Then there's the sex. Most experts agree that bonobos tend to combine
food-sharing and sex. This is one reason why Japanese Primatologist
Takayoshi Kano got to observe so much sex and sensuality among bonobos
in the wild: he fed them. Gottfried Hohmann, the primatologist "star"
of Parker's piece who takes him into the Heart of Darkness, doesn't
feed the bonobos. Both approaches seem to be legitimate ways to gather
information, each having its pros and cons. When you feed or
"provision" bonobos, they're a lot more likely to hang around you,
engaging in intimate activities. When you don't feed them, you're not
influencing their behavior so much. But they're also not so inclined to
get near you, let alone have sex in front of you.

They're also more likely to catch and kill their own food. After all,
they're hungry! Wild bonobos must be especially famished since their
rainforest home has been decimated by constant human warfare, bushmeat
poaching and the logging industry. The stress of all this ecological
devastation and the reduction of their normal food supply, as well as
constantly seeing their family members and friends being violently
slaughtered by hunters, must have a traumatizing effect on the bonobos
still left in the jungle, just as polar bears have lately been turning
to cannibalism because longer seasons without ice keep them from
getting to their natural food. It will be illuminating to hear from
Hohmann when he finally publishes papers on his recent discoveries in
the wilds of war-riddled, ecologically damaged Lui Kotal. But the
observations he has revealed thus far do not negate the earlier,
pre-war findings of Kano and others.

By the way, I had never heard from any of the experts that bonobos were
vegetarians. Kano had reported that bonobos occasionally eat meat of
other species, like we do (actually, a lot less than we do).

Hohmann's oddest observation is about female bonobo "g-g rubbing,"
genito-genital rubbing, "hoka-hoka," or what Parker refers to as
"frottage," when one female rubs her swollen vulva against the vulva of
another. Hohmann and his team have observed this numerous times, as
have many other primatologists. "But does it have anything to do with
sex?" Hohmann asks and then answers himself, "Probably not."

Since when is rubbing engorged genitalia against your partner's
engorged genitalia, often while embracing, French-kissing and/or having
what looks like an orgasm, not "sex"? Is Hohmann limiting his
definition of "sex" only to intercourse? That is hardly appropriate for
a creature that is known for engaging in sex for pleasure (including
what we might call "bisexuality") more than reproduction.

Hohmann goes on to wonder why "the males, the physically superior
animals, do not dominate the females, the inferior animals?...It is not
only different from chimpanzees but it violates the rules of social
ecology." Well, it doesn't violate the Bonobo Way. As Kano, Franz de
Waal, Amy Parish and other primatologists have observed: bonobo males
appear to be more docile than chimp males (or even than bonobo
females), in part because they remain under the calming influence of
their mothers until they die. And then there's the fact that bonobo
males get a lot of sex from those so-called "inferior" but sexually
aggressive females. That's right: Peace through pleasure. Good sex
diffuses tension. And you can't very well fight a war while you're
having an orgasm.

Hohmann appears to be a meticulous scientist. But no matter how
"objective" you try to be, the human personality still shines through
the researcher's conclusions. While Kano's image is one of gentle
collaboration, Hohmann's is one of "chilliness," being "very difficult
to work with." Parker writes about an incident where Hohmann "loomed
over" a local villager "wagging his finger. 'It's good to remind him
now and then how short he is,' Hohmann later said, smiling." Folks who
like to throw their physical weight around in the course of a verbal
debate tend to find parallels for their own bullying tendencies in
nature.Primatologists aren't angels either.

Parker's report on Hohmann's work is useful, especially since Hohmann
hasn't published much himself lately. But the article's implication
that anyone who is inspired by the "Make Love Not War" chimps (both to
save them from extinction, as Sally Coxe's Bonobo Conservation
Initiative is working hard to accomplish, and to understand and improve
our own lives, as some of us try to do by following the Bonobo Way) is
deluded is irresponsible and wrong. In classic New Yorker style,
Parker's critiques are measured and nuanced, even polite. His derision
sneaks up on you like a quiet "chimp-bothering" primatologist. In the
end, he brings no myth-shattering news that hasn't already been
published. Though their lives in the wild are, of course, more violent
than in captivity (and with the destruction being wreaked upon their
environment, it would be hard to blame them for turning a new species
of primate-psychopaths), the bonobos still seem to live, relative to
other wild primates, by the Bonobo Way of peace through pleasure.

Nevertheless, many right-leaning bloggers, including the Wall Street
Journal's gleeful headline "Bonobo Apes Might Not Be Politically
Correct, After All" and Jack Rich's "Shades of Margaret Mead," are
already picking up this critique of the "left-bank chimps" and running
with it, referring to it as an official indictment of sexual freedom,
women's rights, environmentalism, communitarianism, the peace movement
and liberal thinking in general, not to mention the bonobos themselves.

I appreciate Parker's reporting on the primatology spats and evocative
writing about the Congo. I know he worked hard on this piece; he spent
an hour talking to me for the sake of just one sentence. I am also
grateful for the excruciating fieldwork in which Hohmann is engaged.
All research on bonobos--whether Kano studying them as they frolicked
in his sugarcane field, De Waal reporting upon bonobo behavior in
captivity, Richard Wrangham comparing bonobos with other great apes,
Sue Savage-Rumbaugh communicating via computer with her primate
"genius" Kanzi, Hohmann running after the bonobos as they run away from
him in the thick of the jungle, or Martin Surbeck catching
tree-dwelling apes' golden showers in a lacrosse stick-like
container--are worthwhile.

One observer's findings have not discounted the others, at least for
now. Bonobos are no angels. But as far as we know, they still deserve
the distinguished title of the Make Love Not War Chimpanzees. Hoka-Hoka!

[Dr. Susan Block is a sex educator, cable TV host and author of The 10
Commandments of Pleasure. Visit her BRAND NEW BLOGGAMY & POST COMMENTS
at http://www.drsusanblock.com/blog/blog.asp Send comments to
liberties at blockbooks.com.]


[* Editorial note: Ian Parker is an English freelance writer without
specialist knowledge of Pan troglodytes, though he did explore a mutant
of the chimpanzee genus last year in the New Yorker with his profile of
Christopher Hitchens. AC / JSC]