pornography, animals, voyerismDepending on how you count, humans apparently have upwards of a $14 billion per year fascination with pornography. I’m curious if this trait is unique to the human animal, or if other animals exhibit voyeuristic behavior in nature. I imagine in a natural setting, this would be expressed by animals expressing sexual excitement at the sight of other couples copulating. But in more modern settings, perhaps studies have been done on animals with actual photographic and/or vidographic “porn”?
What studies, if any, have been done in this area, and what were the results?
TLDR (And to tie this into the strict realm of “Human sexuality”): Are humans unique in their fascination with voyeurism?
A study at Duke University has shown that male rhesus macaques (a kind of monkey) are willing to “pay” to see photos of female macaques’ butts.
The experiment was rather complicated, but the relevant part is as follows:
The researchers took pictures of the butts of females, as well as the faces of females and males.
The photos were then loaded into a computer program, and male monkeys were allowed to view a bank of computer screens on which the photos would appear.
Whenever the monkey looked from one photo to the next, he was rewarded with fruit juice. Looking at some photos resulted in a bigger reward.
The study found that males were willing to keep staring at female butts despite the fact that it meant they didn’t get any juice. Given the choice of a butt with no juice or a face with a lot of juice, they tended to prefer to look at the butt and stay thirsty.
Next, the researchers took photographs of the macaques and loaded them into a computer program. Some females were photographed from behind, so that the image showed a close-up of their hindquarters. Other pictures were head shots of both males and females.
Four of the male monkeys then sat in front of computer screens. They were rewarded with juice whenever they shifted their gaze from one image to another. Some images resulted in more juice than other photos.
When given the choice between a photo of a low-status male with a high juice reward and a photo of a female’s hindquarters, the male test subjects refused the extra juice so that they could gaze at the sexy female images.
The study determined that when males look at high-status males they pay attention, but do not make sustained eye contact. Deaner says long looks could signal aggression and, under normal circumstances, could pose a potentially costly threat of violence.
Males did not look away as quickly when they admired the females’ behinds.
“Viewing the hindquarters of a female, on the other hand, may provide a benefit, but no potential cost,” Deaner says, and added that males likely check out the colour and size of the female’s perineum, or her genitalia. A large, red perineum generally means she is ovulating.
Camerer says it is “no surprise” that male monkeys “really like looking at female posteriors”. But he is puzzled that males would pay with juice to see high-status males, but would not look at them for very long.
There is also a less serious story about a chimp in a zoo in Spain, who was given a television and remote control in her enclosure, and watched nothing but porn all day.
Kate Hudson is an evolutionary biologist who has written about this a bit. Unfortunately, I can't find the article I'm thinking of, so I'll paraphrase for now and update this later if I find it.
Basically, many mammals and birds routinely watch others mate. For a lot of them, it's essential sex ed, and they will have trouble mating successfully as adults if they never see others of their species do it.
Many social animals also pay close attention to who mates with whom, because that is an important type of information about the status competition within the group.
But voyeurism implies more than curiosity. It implies (A) getting turned on by the mating activities of others, and (B) perhaps seeking it out as a pleasure in its own right. And it turns out that (A) sometimes happens, but (B) seems to be solely a human thing.
Sea lions are one of the species that seem to get aroused when others near them are having sex. If I remember correctly, young males in some "tournament" species are more likely to challenge the Alpha male after seeing him mount a female, but I'm not sure that counts as sexual arousal or just opportunism.
Summary
Among animals, particularly social animals, curiosity is common, but arousal is rare. Prurient interest/porn seems to be a purely human vice.
You have to separate pornography from voyeurism.
the word is greek:
πόρνη (pórnē) is the prostitute; πορνεία (porneia) is prostitution
γράφειν (gráphein) means “to write” and “to draw”
So literally pornography is the recording of prostitutes, i.e. any pictures and written stories about sexual activities.
But animals are not able to record anything. So by definition there is nothing like pornography made by animals.
But there is a second point of view. The definition from above is focused on the production of pornography. But there are also consumers of pornography, who did not create the recordings. So is seems to be possible to have pornography that is made by humans to be consumed by animals.
And there really is something like this. “Behavioural Biology” is a scientific discipline where scientists do research about the behavior of animals. And in this discipline it is a standard procedure, to use dummies to lure animals from some species.
For example they use man-made dummies, that look like a male or female fish of a certain species to attract individuals from the other gender. The lured animals then often act as if there was a real fish. (see Behavioural Ecology of Fishes) They often show the full spectrum of courtship display.
Those dummies don't need really to look exactly like real individuals. You can try it out, if you know a place where toads and frogs are living. Just place a stone of about the size of a frog in shallow water and wait. If you are patient enough, you will find male frogs that will clasp this stone the same way they would clasp a female frog, and they also will ejaculate when mating the stone.
To come back to the question:
Animals don't create pornography, but they react on dummies that “exudes that special charm” in the same way as humans react when they see a sex-doll.
Voyeurism means to watch, but not to participate.
The frontal lobe is that part of a human's brain, that is located just behind your forehead, above your eyes. Medical history knows many cases of people who lived without any handicaps after this region of brain was damaged (most famous is Phineas Gage). But the victims personality did change dramatically. People who were noble and restrained became unpredictable and instinctive. They lost discipline and self-control.
So scientists believe that the function of the human frontal lobe is to control the impulses and signals that come from the rest of the brain.
When a man sees a naked woman in the neighbors house, the parts of his brain that are responsible for sexual arousal will be activated and most parts of this man's brain say: “Go to that naked woman and have sex with her. Go now! Go!”
But the frontal lobe says: “No, this not a good idea. You will get trouble if you do it. It is not wise. Stay here.” And so, this man stays outside of the woman's house. But still the primeval parts of his brain fire impulses saying “look at those boobs and ass! Go NOW!” And in this situation the frontal lobe might say: “Well, it's still not a good idea, but you can stay here and keep watching.”
And this is what voyeurism is.
But this is impossible for people with a frontal lobe that is not working properly. A man like Phineas Gage is unable to stay where he is when he sees a naked woman. He must go to her and he must try to have sex with her because this is what the primeval parts of his brain call for. And there is no intelligent controller which stops the man from always doing what he wants.
What has this to do with the question? With animal-voyeurism?
Well, the frontal lobe is that part of a humans body, that most of all distinguishes humans from animals. Some animals (apes, dogs) have rudimentary equivalents of this part of brain, but most animals have nothing that can be compared with it. And a human's frontal lobe is really big (see the picture at frontal lobe at Wikipedia). I guess is is a quarter of the whole human brain.
So animals have no “voice” in their brain that stops them from following the primeval drives. When a male hamster sees or smells a female hamster, he is unable to stay hidden behind a bush and just watch her. Either he don't recognize her at all, or he wants to go to her to have sex with her. There is nothing in between.
And this is true for all animals that don't have a very highly developed frontal lobe, and so it is true for all animals except Homo sapiens.
Being sexually aroused and attracted by an individual without trying to have intercourse with this individual is--as far as I know--not possible for animals.
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