Parting Glances: Birds do it. Bees do it.

Even educated fleas do it. Let's buzz . . .
Last week's New Scientist, Britain's popular science reportage magazine, is an eye-opener about kinky animal sex. "(Animals) participate in kissing, hugging, oral sex, masturbation and every kind of penetrative intercourse imaginable."
This, it would seem, explains a lot about the behavior of us bivouacking bipeds and our eons-old, evolutionary penchant for having a good time with whatever materials or orifices happen to be handy, either in cave, condo, or pup tent.
Whether such carnal activities – animal and/or human – began in the Garden of Eden or after Noah's Ark began leaking on or about Mt. Ararat, is not referenced in the article. One thing's clear: like humankind, animals hump not only for offspring but for unadulterated pleasure and warm-fuzzy groupie canoodling.
Animals have it over us on one score, though. They don't feel guilty about copulating. As Mark Twain puts it, "Humans are the only animals that blush. Or need to." (Blushing makes mascara run.)
Writes Amanda Geftner, a New Scientist quote-unquote opinion editor, "Lionesses perform oral sex on lions, male grey-headed flying foxes perform oral sex on females, and Livingston's fruit bats and male kangaroos perform fellatio on themselves.
"Spinner dolphins emit cries that vibrate the surrounding water and, in turn, one another's genitals – a practice known as 'buzzing.'
" …there is the notion that heterosexuality rules the animal world. This is not true: homosexuality has been documented in lions, giraffes, African elephants and American bison, to name a few. Male Amazon river dolphins engage in anal, genital and blowhole penetration, and an activity known as 'penis fencing'." (Well-built fences make good neighbors.)
Gefter covers another long-standing myth, "the idea that organisms are either male or female. In as many as half of all animals species, individuals can be both at the same or different times during their lives. Take the blue-banded goby, a fish that lives in harems with one male to every four to six females.
"If the male leaves or dies, the highest-ranking female develops male gonads and genitalia to take his place."
The New Scientist article was prompted by a visit to the Museum of Sex in New York City (Where else?). It's staffed by prominent biologists, curators and artists, including transgendered Stanford University biologist Joan Roughgarden.
Featured are photos, videos, text and life-sized sculptures of animals in the act of a frig or a fondle by Brooklyn-based artist Rune Olsen (One wonders if Rune and Roughgarden got hired on the basis of exotic species name recognition?).
The museum sculpture highlighting the article is a threesome: a male deer is humping a doe, while said buck is getting a vigorous royal four flushing from behind by another male. The polymorphous perverse posturing is tastefully rendered in silver by the artist.
T-biologist Roughgarden disagrees with Darwin's time-honored sexual selection theory: top males competing for choosy bottom females. She promotes social selection. Sex to strengthen group bonding, "be it for pleasure, including same-sex encounters, or procreation."
Having read these words of amatory inspiration and shared them with BTL homosapiens, I'm just a tad horny. So, don't be surprised if you see the following ad under the fetish category in a weekly tabloid. It's me.
"Adventuresome, spunky, sexy, gregarious, intelligent, charming, vivacious, courtly – and very modest – gentleman, having been around the sexual block so many times it has no corners, seeks a new thrill. If you're into buzzing and have an Olympic-sized, er, pool, let's skinnydip. No breaststroking, dog paddling, or Esther Williams routines, please."
Signed: Rune Roughgarden-Phelps.