Are humans the only species to have homophobes?

Question

Here's a quote that's being passed around:

Homosexuality is found in over 450 species. Homophobia is only found in one. Which one seems unnatural now?

With all the good intentions behind what's being said -- and as much as I'd really want to believe in it -- I still have to keep a skeptical mind about it.

Assuming that the quote was implying that we humans are the only ones to have homophobic individuals, a question comes to my mind: are humans really the only ones?

Answer 1

There are two dimensions to this: homophobia as a meme, and homophobia as physiological response.

1. Most of the instances of homophobia are cultural. This is easily proven by existance of human cultures (which were biologically identical) that did not have negative view of same sex relations (classical examples include Greeks in certain periods).

   As such, as ANY cultural phenomena, it works on the conscious memetic level and therefore is by definition unique to humans who alone among species can have memes.

2. homophobia as physiological response - this one is probably very hard to measure since this is likely not as prevalent (again, proven by the fact that humans DID have societies that didn't object to same sex pairings and even encouraged them). However, considering the famous Kinsey findings that a vast majority of humans are at least to some degree "homosexual", I seriously doubt that phenomenon even exists outside of psychosomatic response.

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On another level, you can try to look at this from game theory perspective and see which reasons/conditions might have caused the meme to evolve; and then compare those conditions to the animal species on "450" list to see if they apply. There are two distinct root levels I'm aware of as far as opposition to homosexuality:

1. Reduction of sexual relations not leading to child bearing (Abrahamic religions ideas on homosexuality are largely derived from this). You will note that (at least in Old testament) the major issue is with male/male homosexuality - lesbianism is frowned upon in the general "sexuality control" context but is nowhere near being as discouraged/punished.

   One interesting study would be to find out if ANY of the "450 species" on the list that actually exhibit significant levels of male/male homosexuality belong to species that have small offspring per parent pair level (and where parents pair up in the first place). I'm thinking species such as elephants etc - I am not sure elephants have proper level of pairing though... The point being that in species for which "wasting the seed" is NOT a problem (due to either less males needed per female, or higher offspring rate) there's a lot less downside to homosexuality from this angle.

2. Psychologically, that children need a male and female role model. This is possible to try to prove by any of the studies that show disparities between US children from 1- vs. 2-parent families. I'm not aware of this being a fully proven theory, though.

   Again, an interesting study to check that would be to filter those same 450 species for the ones that have joint rearing of offspring. To the best of my knowledge, VERY few species have that (most of the ones I know of are birds).

Answer 2

I am afraid I don't agree with DVK's answer. I can propose another definition of homophobia which is not necessarily a cultural meme: homophobia is present when the participation in homosexual acts is tied to the low social status of one or both participants.

By this definition, homophobia is present in some cultures where homosexual acts are widespread, usually because the participant in the passive role always has a low social status (or fears that it will be lowered if his behaviour is known). An example for this in a current culture can be found in this magazine article. The only accounts I have read on homosexuality in Ancient Greece were fiction, not research literature, but they tend to agree that the passive role in the sexual act was restricted to young boys. After age and military success raised their social status, they were expected to become the active partner of another boy.

In animals, such homophobia isn't present in all species who exhibit homosexuality, but it has been observed. An example are the guinea pigs, where individuals with higher social status mount individuals with lower social status.

You don't have to agree with my definition, but if you do, the result isn't very optimistic. Not only is there homophobia in other species, but the homophobia in humans is more widely spread than with the narrower definition.

I would have liked to present more hard data, but I don't have access to scientific sources. I still trust the claim about guinea pigs, not only because it is commonly stated, but because I have observed it myself.