You're not going to believe the injustice.

[Shevanel]

Link

+ YouTube Video

Zookeepers in Toronto, while “fascinated” by male African penguins who appear to be a couple, even displaying signs of mating rituals, plan on splitting up the pair for the sake of captive breeding.

I'm utterly disgusted at how they could break up these obvious soul mates. It's ridiculous. I thought Canada was supposed to be supportive!

[Ridiculous]

I would like to think I'd do the same (voluntarily) if the human population was down to 60,000. But honestly I don't think I'd be able to perform.. maybe it'll be the same for the penguins.

Can they employ artificial insemination with penguins?

[J Snow]

I don't know on this one. If their species is really endangered, perhaps the needs of the many should out weigh the needs of the few. I would be offended if they split them up for no reason, but if it really is simply for the procreation of an endangered species I don't think I would call it an injustice.

[RaeofLite]

I might have to go with Jon Snow on this one. I mean... if the human population was down, and I "HAD" to join the other females in carrying on the human species, I would due my share... I guess. :P

But in a world where a species is plentiful? I would definately follow my heart and my sexual orientation.

[starfish]

I don't know, 60K is not exactly a small population. Plus since if homosexuality does have a genetic component, in a endangered species condition it would be better for them not to reproduce.

Plus who know they may want to adopt a penguin some day. There was a case of two gay penguins who stole an egg from another penguin and hatched it.

[Mogget]

Okay guys, anthropomorphizing animals is always a risky business. Homosexuality and heterosexuality are social constructs, applying them to animals, especially animals as distantly related to us as penguins, is a bad idea. Penguins pair-bond, but we don't know whether it's at all analogous to human pair-bonding, let alone whether penguins have a sexual or romantic orientation (or even have something like romance at all).

[Emberstone]

Originally Posted by Liam

Okay guys, anthropomorphizing animals is always a risky business.

Thank you. However, homosexuality and heterosexuality arent social constructs. it is observable in nearly all speices... monogamy is more of a social construct... it is rarer in nature.

the only social construct within sexuality is how people perceve it, not the 'it' of sexual attraction itself.

[Eric]

Originally Posted by starfish

I don't know, 60K is not exactly a small population. Plus since if homosexuality does have a genetic component, in a endangered species condition it would be better for them not to reproduce.

Plus who know they may want to adopt a penguin some day. There was a case of two gay penguins who stole an egg from another penguin and hatched it.

That's kidnapping! They're setting a bad example for other strong gay penguins who want to adopt! D:

[J Snow]

Originally Posted by Emberstone

Thank you. However, homosexuality and heterosexuality arent social constructs. it is observable in nearly all speices... monogamy is more of a social construct... it is rarer in nature.

the only social construct within sexuality is how people perceve it, not the 'it' of sexual attraction itself.

Homosexuality and heterosexuality are socially constructed though. There was no concept for sexual orientation before that. There was certainly same sex encounters, but there was no concept of someone being a heterosexual or homosexual. For example, in and ancient Greece it was customary for a young man to court an older man. The younger man had to be the bottom, and to not be able to attract an older male was considered shameful.

This was just behavior though. There were no homosexual, bisexuals, or heterosexuals. Through out the course of our history everyone had to have children to survive more or less. Your family was your means of survival. As such there was no concept of a homosexual. Certainly men had sex with men and women had sex with women, but it wasn't until the Industrial Revolution that sexual orientation even existed.

Which is really why its absurd when people make the claim that the bible is calling homosexuality an abomination. Homosexuality as we know it today didn't exist. There was just sexuality in its great complexity. What the Jewish people were really doing was establishing a cultural norm that separated their sexual practices from those of the Greeks.

[Ridiculous]

Originally Posted by Liam

Homosexuality and heterosexuality are social constructs, applying them to animals, especially animals as distantly related to us as penguins, is a bad idea.

Backing up Emberstone here: sexuality definitely isn't a human-only social construct.

I'm assuming what you are trying to say is that animals aren't exclusively homosexual or heterosexual, and just form bonds on an 'arbitrary' basis regardless of the sex of their partner. I would say this is true for a lot of animals, but there are pretty well documented cases for exclusively homosexual animals (e.g. it is well studied that about 8% of male sheep are exclusively homosexual and will never mount a female, only other males; physical differences in their brains compared to heterosexuals have been found).

[J Snow]

Originally Posted by Ridiculous

Backing up Emberstone here: sexuality definitely isn't a human-only social construct.

I'm assuming what you are trying to say is that animals aren't exclusively homosexual or heterosexual, and just form bonds on an 'arbitrary' basis regardless of the sex of their partner. I would say this is true for a lot of animals, but there are pretty well documented cases for exclusively homosexual animals (e.g. it is well studied that about 8% of male sheep are exclusively homosexual and will never mount a female, only other males; physical differences in their brains compared to heterosexuals have been found).

Sexual orientation is social construction much like race is. We have this notion of "race," but its just something we made up. Its just stereotypes we associated with the way a culture of people looks or by lines we drew in the sand. Much like if humans never existed there would be no such thing as The United States of America. Its just some idea to explain and put phenomena we observe into binary categories.

What these binary terms do is make us choose one of these binary labels and force it upon ourselves instead of embracing the complexity that is humanity. Most of the labels we put on ourselves are socially constructed, race, sexual orientation, gender (different from sex), class. These are all just things we use to define what we're not.

Sorry, for that rant. We've been talking a lot about postmodernism and poststructuralism in my Introduction to Queer Studies class.

[Mogget]

Homosexuality and heterosexuality as orientations are socially constructed. As behaviors they aren't.

[djt820]

[J Snow]

Originally Posted by djt820

Image

I am uncertain as to who you are calling a troll. As such I don't know whether to side for or against your cause. You have cause internal conflict in me, and as such I propose to you that you are the real troll, good sir.

[Ridiculous]

If something only has homosexual partnerships and sex when other options are available then I think you can pretty clearly say that its orientation is homosexual.

But if for some reason you don't want to give animals orientations, then you can say they only possess exclusive homosexual behaviour.. but it's just saying the same thing in different words.

[Shevanel]

Originally Posted by Ridiculous

If something only has homosexual partnerships and sex when other options are available then I think you can pretty clearly say that its orientation is homosexual.

Completely off topic. I just wanted to mention that everyone seems to forget that there is more than just straight and gay ...

[ArcaneVerse]

Honestly who gives a fuck if they could be called "homosexual" or not, the point is they are splitting apart penguins who clearly have a strong bond, which i think they have done in the past and the animals have ended up declining in health (i could be wrong though).

anyway I don't think Zookeepers should really be forcing nature in this way, if they haven't bonded with a female its most likely because its not in their nature to do so or at least not at this point in time.

Also if they are splitting them up because they are "gay", is it really right to force our human "social-constructs" onto them?

[Kidd]

Originally Posted by Shevanel

Completely off topic. I just wanted to mention that everyone seems to forget that there is more than just straight and gay ...

True. If I was going to give these penguins any orientation at all it would be bisexual. There have been a ton of other "gay" penguin pairs and after a few seasons with each other they broke it off and moved on to other partners, sometimes other males and sometimes a female.

I really love this one. Poor Pepper... x_x

Gay Penguins At San Francisco Zoo Have Split After Six Years After Harry Leaves Pepper For Linda | Strange News | Sky News

[Porphyrogenitus]

Originally Posted by ArcaneVerse

anyway I don't think Zookeepers should really be forcing nature in this way, if they haven't bonded with a female its most likely because its not in their nature to do so or at least not at this point in time.

ummm, yeah. Living in a zoo is totally natural.

[ArcaneVerse]

Originally Posted by Porphyrogenitus

ummm, yeah. Living in a zoo is totally natural.

ummm, yeah. didnt say it was. Troll someone else please.