My first thought is that the grooming sounds more like foreplay then payment.

yeah, that behavior is more akin to humans feeling more like participating in sexual activity, when their partner is attentive to their needs.

or, if one is a misogynist, that could be perceived as prostitution. you know, because some perceive "dating" behavior as prostitution.

oh, and I'll go on record here to point out that I've spent over 16 years studying human behavior. not going to listen to wack-job "evo-psychologists". not today.

That's insane. Really insane.

Everything I've read about primates considers grooming to be an expression of affection and social bonding. For instance, chimps whose regular grooming partners die suffer high rates of stress, and that stress can be alleviated by finding another grooming partner. It's parallel to the way humans mourn a beloved partner.

So what this article is really saying is that female primates are more likely to desire sex after a session of mutual affection and social bonding. I'm not shocked by that.

As usual, the articles do not provide access to the actual paper.

It seems to me that the observation -- female monkeys have more sex when groomed, and more often with their grooming partner -- is unremarkable. The interpretation -- that this is an exchange of services which functions as a market -- imports a ton of biases. The devil is in the details, the details are in the paper, and we don't have the paper.

Access to the paper, anyone?

This is gobbledy-gook.

This study really does seem to be assuming that sex is always a commodity, that it is provided by females to males, and that any kind of behavior that precedes sex should be seen as a form of payment for the subsequent act. Rather than as, say, foreplay. And God forbid grooming just be seen as grooming.

This is ridiculous. By those lights, the kisses I receive from my husband are payment too. Because there's no way women have sex just because they enjoy it, is there?

Ugh.

Touch and affection can lead to sex? Really? Someone alert the tabloids.

You know, if someone wanted to find examples of "prostitution" in nature, it's out there to find. For example, I understand that there's a species of penguin where an unpartnered female will mate with a male in exchange for being allowed to take stones from his nest to add to her own (something he would usually fight strenuously).

But this?

"Huh. Females of a species closely related to us are more interested in mating after being groomed." "Guess it's not just humans that like foreplay, huh?" "What? No, no! This is clearly an example of animal-kingdom prostitution!"

Somebody's apparently never heard of Occam's Razor.

I agree, this seems more like foreplay than payment.

However, there is evidence that prostitution exists among chimpanzees. Because chimpanzees have a society. And that society has elements that could be called patriarchal. Actually, they are far more patriarchal than some modern human cultures, and sex is treated as a bargaining tool.

Thus, if one takes from this that since non-human primates practice prositution, it's somehow "okay" or "programmed" that humans do the same, that's about like us saying "Well, you know, some human cultures practice ritual cannibalism. Thus, someone who likes cannibalism is just responding to evolutionary programming."

Think of macaque society like another human society at a much more primitive stage of development. Not everything they do is instinct; some of it is learned. So even though this is not a logical conclusion based on the data for this study, if it WAS, it still wouldn't mean anything besides the fact that macaque society uses sex as a commodity just like some human societies.

this is so absurd that it is almost laughable. almost. "science" enjoys such an elevated status in our society that its especially detrimental when such studies are used to essentialize patriarchy, capitalism and (dear god) prostitution. i cannot believe that this research was actually published somewhere. argh.

Agreed. I debunked this on another blog.

There’s no concept of money here. Just anthropomorphic projection from pointy head academics more engaged in wishful evolutionary conclusions than actual science.

The only thing proved conclusively is a simple quid pro quo via fore play. Something more human males should pay attention to. But even then the male monkey sometimes gets cucked for his 'money'.
What's concluded then? Primate lawyers?

Krykee.

Time for a remedial class in zoology for these 'scientists'.

Wow, can we hold the anthropomorphization here?!

What the article badly reported on was research into other reasons, besides procreation, that other animals might have sex. The idea being that sex is a complex behavior, and in nature, most complex behaviors serve more than one purpose. In this case, it seems to be bonding in macaques. Nowhere in the does it attribute sexist and untoward statements to the actual research or the scientists conducting it.

"Prostitution" is a human construct for human societies. It requires money. Otherwise, it's just individuals having sex - or, if you prefer, a little quim-pro-quo.

Goes to show the extreme lengths people (ahem, men--only men are quoted here) to justify patriarchal oppression and behavior.

Just because monkeys do it, or sea horses do it, doesn't mean it's "natural" for humans to do it. Grr....

"My first thought is that the grooming sounds more like foreplay then payment."

Same here. I wouldn't call it "prostitution." For interesting sexual behavior, we need turn no further than our very close relatives, the pygmy bonobo (not the "regular" bonobo, formerly called the pygmy chimpanzee). Sex is used quite freely, in all its permutations (swapping, group, homo, pedo . . . ), as a means of communication and bond building within the troop. Males are not territorial with the females (as are many other apes such as the chimpanzee where the breeding alpha may kill any babies suspected not to be its own) at all.

So most animals including primates, are not monogamous. To an extent, it holds true for humans as well, particularly before marriage, despite our intelligence or moral values. I do not consider it a big deal, as we can consciously make our own decisions.

To Vanessa and those who are frightened or offended by the idea that male monkeys may purchase sex from female monkeys - please step back and try not to think about this as reflecting upon you personally (I am assuming this is the cause of the excitement in the comments)

It is perfectly possible for women to have varying and diverse interests - women who sell sex for a living are not automatically victims and I encourage you to question whether it is something that you should become afraid or angry about.

I do not know whether the article in question is good or bad science, but I am unhappy to see that it is met in this forum by a strong bias based on personal value judgements.

In our diverse modern society I feel you must accept that women are free to sell their bodies, and men are free to buy them (and vice versa).

Right. Hear that, it's SCIENCE! So if you disagree with the conclusion, it must be because your female brain gets frightened, offended or confused by the SCIENCE! of it all.

That and you hate sex.

relaxed londoner, The post did not address the presence or validity of prostitution in human societies. As I saw it, Vanessa responded to the untenable and misogynist conclusions drawn by the researchers and/or journalists who reported on the research.

The assumption that this species' sexual behaviors have anything to do with human sexuality is bizarre.

In order to contextualize the grooming behavior I would want to know what other activities mates engaged in together, whether the animals showed signs of arousal during grooming, and the other contexts in which grooming behavior is performed, for a start. I have no idea how thorough the original investigation was, but the write-up Vanessa links to is sensationalist bs.

Jeff, your male brain seems overwhelmed and over excited by my comment ;)

My key point is this:

the publication reports that there seems to be a market economy around sex in a monkey population based on supply and demand

this forum has reacted to that in a way that I find disheartening - the criticisms in the above comments all disparage the post in emotional terms

the leap from monkey to human society seems speculative, but for those who doubt the asymmetry in the demand for purchased sex, I again encourage you to search the internet for services offering foreign brides, or female escorts. After that try the same thing for male foreign grooms, or male escorts.

londoner - you seem to be having trouble following, so let me break it down for you:

1. this posting was not about humans paying for sex, a disparity between men and women who pay for sex, or whether paying for sex (or providing sex for money) is good or bad. no one here thus far has argued one way or the other on that topic.

2. this posting WAS about the dubious looking science in this study about monkeys, at least as it was reported in the article. since of course the study is not linked, we can't examine the science to know if it is bs or not. it wouldn't be the first time science has tried to justify gender roles. even without the study, the article seems sensationalist itself. we can critique that.

Well I don't about you guys but I pretty much always feel obligated to have sex with my hair dresser after a good haircut :)

When I was in high school the boy that sat behind me in english was always trying to brush my hair - he had a weird fetish for long hair. This explains so much! I never understood he was just paying me for sex - and he really was a primate!

@rileystclair, thanks for the breakdown.

Here are the links you ask for:

(1) http://www.newscientist.com/channel/sex/mg19726374.100-macaque-monkeys-pay-for-sex.html
(2) http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6W9W-4R2HKSW-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=5737f8f8f412bcd0d8c43ef98c777175

I do not understand what the critique is? I feel its disingenuous to say you are critiquing the sensationalism, as this is a site about feminism.

As I see it, the article only makes a (non-normative) observation about generalized behaviour based on sex?

I have a real problem with news stories that expressly or impliedly suggest that the behavior of animals can tell us about the behavior of humans. The behavior of a male dog tells nothing about my behavior (some men, yes), and it is insulting to suggest that we can learn anything about women from studying monkeys -- just because they are both female.

> I have a real problem with news stories that expressly or impliedly suggest that the behavior of animals can tell us about the behavior of humans

you must also take issue with the entire scientific field? http://www.hbes.com/intro_to_field.htm

> and it is insulting to suggest that we can learn anything about women from studying monkeys -- just because they are both female

scientists are not seeking to insult people when they compare them to monkeys (this obviously differs from how culture uses these comparisons for insults), they are seeking to understand behaviors, sometimes partitioned by sex, on the basis of our biological ancestors

I think you can critique individual instances of these claims, but I'm not sure its tenable to attack the entire field

londoner - those links aren't to the actual STUDY. we want to see the data that was examined and controlled for--as was pointed out earlier by jessica and others--why did the scientists rule out the grooming as foreplay or other social bonding? why did they jump to the conclusion that the grooming was "in exchange" for sex? those links don't adequately explain the logical leap here. maybe it's valid and maybe it isn't, but i can't tell.

as for critiquing the sensationalism--how is that not valid in a society that loves to pander to gender stereotypes? it's worthwhile to point out when both science and journalism attempt to justify gender roles because they are "nature", which of course implies that they are fundamentally inescapable and instead of trying for change and equality, we should just accept "the natural order". why even bother referencing humans at the end, if the author wasn't really thinking that the study could be extrapolated to humans (which is obviously a whole other issue)?

Ok yeah, rileystclair i agree. I want to see the DATA not a REPORT on the data. And I think it's fuckin hilarious that they would rule out forplay and leap right to prostitution.

And londoner, seriously, nobody was talking about justifying (or not) prostitution for humans. Thats a different story for a different thread. And so sorry if you think this site is biased (as per your other comment) but we happen to think our society is biased.

The second link provided was to the abstract, which is all that is available without subscribing to the journal.

While the abstract uses words like "sex market," "exchange" and "payment," it does not, I believe, go so far to imply "prostitution" per se. I think that was a journalistic misinterpretation of these words in their context. From the abstract, I believe the author was using these words to express sexual activity in a non-anthropomorphic manner by using these terms. For instance, suppose an alien researcher was watching human mating behavior. The researcher sees a male give a female a cunnilingus, then sees the female reciprocate. The researcher might conclude that there was an exchange of one sex act for another.

HOWEVER, this study is still biased because it terms sex as a trade-off for the female; in this study the female rewards the grooming behavior by "giving" sex; the author fails to view sex as something the female might want, too. It takes two to tango, as it were, and sex has roughly equal "rewards" for both partners, whereas grooming rewards one partner more than the other. It is not an equal exchange and sex must not be seen as having more rewards for one biological sex over the other; that is a bias introduced into animal research from human assumptions about human behavior.

> sex must not be seen as having more rewards for one biological sex over the other

is there not an asymmetry in how much biological resource each sex devotes to the results of a successful conception?

remember individual equality (gender egalitarianism) does not imply that there are not physical and mental differences between the sexes (averaged over a population)

Do you think macaques realize that sex=pregnancy? Please. The biological urge to have sex is extremely strong, and that's why it feels good. I'm pretty sure when macaques have sex they're thinking about how good it feels and not weighing the risk v benefit of a possible pregnancy.

> Do you think macaques realize that sex=pregnancy?

I did not mean to suggest the individual would rationalize about this, but that their instinctive behavior would reflect a strategy honed by evolution?

Maybe I'm not up to date, but I believe the thinking crudely put would have

female -> wants one quality mate
male -> wants many mates

Yeah the animal behavior and evolutionary behavior fields (of which I work in, although I'm more in genetics than behavior) debunked those theories about 20 years ago, although most of the public and a few scientists still believe it.

Relaxed, the commenters are taking issue with the assumption that grooming = payment rather than foreplay.
Nothing more. You are the one complicating things.

It's like observing sex between humans and concluding that manual stimulation of the female is the male's method of paying for entrance to her vagina.

By picking this report apart, londoner, we are actually engaging in the very same thing that any other scientist who was interested in the study and it's results would do. If a scientific "answer" doesn't stand up to legitimate questions about methods, it's crap science. Period.

relaxing_londoner: "To Vanessa and those who are frightened or offended by the idea that male monkeys may purchase sex from female monkeys"

What? Where do you get off assuming that their comments were based on fear or being offended? If they just said "I hate this it's stupid!!!" or "The guy who wrote this went to jail once therefore everything he writes is wrong" then I'd understand, but they said things like "although the females don't necessarily even have sex with the macaque who grooms them" and "Everything I've read about primates considers grooming to be an expression of affection and social bonding" and "There’s no concept of money here" - in other words, arguments regarding the validity of the article's conclusions based on the facts. And Seraph and Basoriana even pointed out that it can be argued that there is prostitution among animals, and just that this particular example is a bad one. I can only assume that you didn't bother to understand what people were saying and just wanted to get into an argument with feminists about gender roles in human society.

As for why this may be relevant to feminism, that's because some people do bad science, and then sometimes other people latch onto that bad science and do bad philosophy based on it, and then conclude that things like sexism and racism are justified. And it is perfectly reasonable to want to stop people from believing bad science before this happens, both because it's untrue and because it can be harmful. As long as the arguments against the allegedly bad science are rational, there's nothing wrong with this, and these arguments were rational. If you have a counterargument, let's hear it, but if you just want to assume that we're against women having the freedom to sell sex if they choose, I'd rather you just go troll somewhere else.

@judgesnineteen

> What?

From your comment, we agree mostly - that science should be evaluated without prejudice.

My original point (before admittedly expanding the scope) was that the responses were jumping to conclusions.

Consider this - the responders have almost certainly not read the full report, yet they use inflammatory and emotional language.

Some examples:

"That's insane. Really insane."
"This is gobbledy-gook."
"Goes to show the extreme lengths people (ahem, men--only men are quoted here) to justify patriarchal oppression and behavior."

My critique of this forum is that articles are selected on the basis that they may be (or are perceived to be) easily criticized, and that forum members come here for a kind of rage-fix.

Your own comment is slightly aggressive, using language such as:

"What? Where do you get off assuming that their comments were based on fear or being offended?"
and
"I'd rather you just go troll somewhere else"

I assume people are afraid or offended when they use aggressive or apoplectic language - in summary, I stand by my original post.

@SarahMC
> the commenters are taking issue with the assumption that grooming = payment rather than foreplay.

I believe the assumption is more of an observation? i.e. the study claims that the 'foreplay' (or payment) decreased as supply of females (or sex) increased?

@leah
> debunked those theories about 20 years ago

I'd be very interested in a citation :)

@waxghost
>If a scientific "answer" doesn't stand up to legitimate questions about methods, it's crap scienc

I agree

First, Wow, lots of claim of "junk science" and "gobbledy-gook" and such considering we haven't even read the actual report. It was published in respected journal Animal Behaviour so I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00033472

SARAHMC: "Relaxed, the commenters are taking issue with the assumption that grooming = payment rather than foreplay."

Whether it is "payment" or "foreplay" is not really the relevant issue here. It is likely that grooming is acting as foreplay - the male grooming elicits arousal in the female, which leads to sex.

But even in that case, the male is paying a cost: time and energy. Time is an important resource that could be spent foraging, forming alliances, etc. Males needed to give up some of that time in order to receive sexual access. Females did not need to groom in order to gain sexual access to the male.

So there is an imbalance in the costs and need for of grooming for males and females. Hence the reason it is considered a "payment" for sex - males need to incur a cost in order to gain sex.

Also, as noted in the article, grooming isn't used simply as a payment for sex. It can be used as payment for forming alliances with higher ranking males. In other words, any time you have a situation where one individual has something the other desires (sex, protection, resources, etc.), one can provide a service (grooming) to obtain what was desired. Maybe "bartering" is more apt than "payment". In macacues, the males are more frequently interested in sex. If the reverse were true, you'd see a female to male grooming for sex pattern.

The primary benefit to the female is quite practical - grooming removes parasites, dirt, tangles, etc. Arousal is likely a byproduct of that process meant to facilitate further grooming. Many people argue that grooming behaviors evolved into foreplay behaviors in humans.

There are other examples of this in the animal kingdom. For example, meat-for-sex trades, where male chimps provide meat to females who then become sexually receptive. And there are non-sexual payments as well - for example, providing meat to form alliances.

The most interesting findings haven't even been discussed. They favor the payment interpretation over the foreplay interpretation

A) female to male grooming was actually related to lower sexual frequency, which doesn't favor the foreplay interpretation (unless males for some reason don't like foreplay).

B) High ranking females required more

Is it foreplay or payment seems to be the question people are asking. In some ways, the difference doesn't matter. In both cases, the male is providing a service in exchange for sex. Time is a limited resource that could be used for foraging, grooming one's self, etc. It's a cost to exchange something (time, food, etc.) for sex. The reverse pattern did not occur (female grooming of males did not correlate with sexual frequency).

In this case, the service is either getting rid of parasite/insects/dirt/tanges from fur or generating arousal in the female, both of which create a cost to the male.

It does bring up an interesting question of what mechanism is operating. Did the male monkeys learn through trial and error that longer grooming bouts lead to sexual gratification? Is there an innate tendency for males to attempt to groom females because males with that impulse reproduced more successfully? Then, on the flip

LEAH: "HOWEVER, this study is still biased because it terms sex as a trade-off for the female; in this study the female rewards the grooming behavior by "giving" sex; the author fails to view sex as something the female might want, too. It takes two to tango, as it were, and sex has roughly equal "rewards" for both partners, whereas grooming rewards one partner more than the other. It is not an equal exchange and sex must not be seen as having more rewards for one biological sex over the other; that is a bias introduced into animal research from human assumptions about human behavior."

It's not introducing a bias. It's looking at what actually happened in the study. In the study, female grooming males was less common and not related to sexual behavior. Second, male were more likely to initiate sexual encounters. So in this species, sex appears to be the limited resource for males and not females. At that point you have a simple supply and demand problem. If female macaques are less interested in sex and males are more interested, how can the males increase the frequency of sex?

They can give females something they want - in this case, grooming.

Is it foreplay or payment seems to be the question people are asking. In some ways, the difference doesn't matter. In both cases, the male is providing a service in exchange for sex.

But UCLA, isn't that assuming that the male does not enjoy or get anything positive out of the grooming experience? That is the relevant difference between payment and foreplay: the men I've slept with, at least, do seem to enjoy the foreplay.

ACTUAL STUDY ABSTRACT

In primate sexual relationships, males and females can cooperate through social trade. Market-like trading of sexual activity has been theorized, but no data have yet been presented that clearly show its existence. I collected data to test whether biological market theory could account for exchanges of male-to-female grooming and sexual activity in longtailed macaques. I explored male-to-female grooming, rates of sexual activity, and grooming–mating interchanges, which were male-to-female grooming bouts that directly involved mating. Male-to-female grooming mainly occurred when females were sexually active, and males groomed females longer per bout when mating, inspection, or presentation of female hindquarters was involved. Moreover, male-to-female grooming was associated with an increase in female rates for all forms of sexual activity, where in contrast, female-to-male grooming was associated with decreased rates of mating in the groomed males. Males did not preferentially mate with swollen females or invest more grooming in them during grooming–mating interchanges, as swellings did not seem to be a reliable indicator of female fertility. Rank status was correlated with grooming payment during grooming–mating interchanges in favour of higher-ranked males and females. In support of a biological market interpretation, the amount of grooming a male performed on a female during grooming–mating interchanges was related to the current supply of females around the interaction. The results provided evidence of a grooming–mating trade that was influenced by a mating market.

Keywords: biological markets