We are just as close to bonobos, the “Kama Sutra apes” for whom sex is as banal as a handshake, though much more fun. He makes this case by reference to the non-human primates he has observed for decades, but the book is also a plea to us to look beyond chimpanzees when searching for parallels in our nearest primate relatives. The fact that the latter grew out of the former should not stop us questioning the cultural components of gender, some of which are based on a misunderstanding of biology, nor rejecting gender-based discrimination. Sex (male/female) is approximately binary, he argues, while gender (masculine/feminine) is a spectrum. “That’s an undeniable fact, in my opinion, even though the gender concept is obviously more flexible than the two sexes that we have.” “The fact that we have genders is related to the fact that we have sexes and sexual reproduction,” he told me, ahead of a tour to promote Different. For too long, de Waal thinks, gender was regarded as a purely social construct and talk of inborn sex differences was taboo. What this book is is an attempt to put the biology – the sex – back into gender. “Unfortunately,” he said, “that’s not this book.” Given the author’s public visibility and his masterful storytelling skills, Fuentes told me, this was his opportunity to present a thorough and thoughtful discussion of the latest research. Princeton University primatologist Agustín Fuentes, meanwhile, is full of admiration for de Waal’s descriptions of ape behaviour, but feels the book falls short when it comes to humans. Rates of contact aggression and charging displays conformed to this prediction, suggesting that each male exhibited a different dominance "style.“I found the book to be as wise as it was humane,” the American primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy told me, while US palaeontologist and writer Riley Black, a non-binary trans woman, is disappointed the author didn’t attempt a more radical overhaul of sex. To achieve alpha status, a small male may need to compensate for reduced size by investing more time and energy in grooming, thereby ensuring coalitionary support from others. This is probably because large males are more effective at physically intimidating subordinates. The largest male exhibited the lowest overall grooming rates, whereas the smallest male spent the most time grooming others. We suggest that body mass may be one possible determinant of differences in grooming behavior. We found that (1) these males differed significantly in their tendency to groom with other males (2) each male's grooming patterns remained consistent before, during and after his tenure as alpha, and (3) the three males tended to groom with high- middle- and low-ranking partners equally. Here, we examine the grooming behavior of three alpha male chimpanzees at Gombe National Park, Tanzania. The optimal combination of these behaviors is likely to differ among males with individuals exhibiting a dominance "style" that reflects their tendency to use cooperative and/or agonistic dominance tactics. Grooming, displays and contact aggression are common components of a male chimpanzee's dominance repertoire. In social primates, individuals use various tactics to compete for dominance rank.
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