Prostitution in Monkeyland?

by Abha Malpani on

If anyone says that they don’t stop in their tracks when they see animals mating (out of sheer curiosity, of course), they are probably lying.

When I was in India on a school trek, I remember seeing a chameleon getting it on with another and it changed colors in the process! It’s not something you see often, and I personally think it’s fascinating.

But, who would have thought that paying for sex extends to the animal kingdom?

According to the Discovery Channel, evidence has been found that male monkeys “pay” for sex by untangling and cleaning dirt and parasites from the fur of the females. The higher the ratio of male to female monkeys, the more grooming the male monkeys need to do to get their sex-life going. This process can last from a few seconds up to half-an-hour and turns the monkeys on. Scientists are guessing that this is how foreplay in humans developed. Also, it seems that materialism is part of primate social life as well: the higher status monkeys don’t have to work as hard as lower status monkeys have to for sex.

The research was conducted in Indonesia from 2003-2005 where the 243 grooming sessions of long-tailed macaques were analyzed.

Although we evolved from these animals, you hardly imagine that the prostitution and materialism of humans also have roots in our animal ancestors.

Where on Earth? Week 12: Elephanta Island, Mumbai, India

by Justin Glow on

I was so impressed with the guess by Stiv last week of Elephanta Island that I completely forgot to write this post on Friday! Sorry, but awesome job, Stiv! (And a shout-out to Carol B for backing him up!) Here I was trying to make the challenge a little more difficult and the Gadling readers still guessed it in less than three hours. Impressive.

I was in India a few months ago, and on our big Mumbai sightseeing day, we took a boat out to Elephanta Island. The thousand-year-old , hand-carved caves on the island were impressive, but what I remember the most is all the different fees we had to pay just to get there. Granted they were all very cheap by USD standards, but even so, we had to pay for the boat ride to the island, a fee once we got off of the pier and onto the island, another fee to be allowed to walk up the vendor-laced stairs, and then another fee at the top to enter the area with the caves. My friend had a video camera, too, so that was another charge — and then you couldn’t even use it in the caves!

This photograph was snapped just outside of the caves, looking out at an area where families sat down to picnic. Monkeys were everywhere on the island — eating trash, harassing dogs, locals, and tourists alike — but somehow I was still able to take this picture without a single one in frame. Amazing.