Beyond reproduction: Moving away from heteronormative tropes in ethological research into animal “sexuality”

Abstract

Over the last twenty years, in the wake of Bagemihl’s observation, some progress has been made in the way ethological science engages and interprets sexual behaviors among nonhuman animals. However, when observed in more detail, even among those ethologists keen to recognize the complex behaviors of the animals they observe, there is still a notable degree of heteronormativity at play. Today, the issue lies not so much in denying the ubiquity of non-normative sexual activities and the pleasure they bring to nonhuman animals, but in the fact that the interpretation and the language used by some ethologists in scientific publications indicate that they are locked into a Neo-Darwinian evolutionary paradigm which drives them to systematically consider reproduction to be the single ultimate causation for animal traits and behaviors. Taking a Neo-Aristotelian approach to animal behavior, added to a queer perspective on nonhuman sexuality, and the sex/gender binary, this article will suggest that approaching nonhuman sexual activity without looking for ways to explain it in the context of reproduction could allow ethologists to move away from these heteronormative tropes more easily and open up new ways of accounting for sexual activity in their research design and public communication.