One final thought from me for today: In the original closed thread, Юрка mentioned such strange natural phenomena as the "penis" of female hyenas.* If one is generally interested in sexual behavior among non-human animals, I would strongly recommend Olivia Johnson's book "Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation" -- in my opinion, it's absolutely the best English-language book if you want a discussion of "the evolution of sex" на уровне, доступном к чайникам.
She talks about hyena genitals, the widespread "adultery" among monogamous birds, hermaphroditism in sea-snails, virgin-births in lizards, male bats that produce breast-milk, insects that copulate for several weeks, the effects of testosterone on the fetal brain-tissue of a "little girl mouse" before birth, female spiders that cannibalize their males, and, yes, a little about homosexuality (though this last topic only gets 5 or 6 pages, mostly on the topic of animal bisexuality -- she admits that "exclusive homosexuality" is quite mysterious).
And it's also very funny, since she writes in the style of a "Love-Advice Column for Lonely Hearts". For instance:
And after an introduction in that style, she explains in detail (but on a non-specialist's level) the evolutionary science behind this seemingly strange behavior.Dear Dr. Tatiana: I'm a male purple-spotted Madagascar tree-beetle. Last week I had a "lady friend" over to my house for a romantic evening -- dinner, aromatic candles, some wine, hot jazz playing on the radio. Suddenly, she bit off one of my eight testicles and flew away with it! Should I be worried? And I really liked her... do you think she'll want another date?
Dear Purple: In your species, it's considered very good manners for a lady to steal a gentleman's testicle -- that's why you have seven more of them. In fact, testicle-theft is an evolutionary advantage both for your girlfriend and for you yourself. Let me explain further...
Unfortunately, although it has been translated into almost 20 languages, Russian is not among them yet. But I highly recommend it!
*To be more exact, female "penises" are the norm only in the Spotted Hyena (species Crocuta crocuta), but not found in any of the related hyena species.