If you happen to be in Norway this summer, be sure to check out the Natural History Museum at the University of Oslo to take in their exhibit “Against Nature?,” a ground-breaking display dedicated to … gay animals.
Running until August 19, the exhibition presents its collection of pictures of members of the animal kingdom engaged in acts of homosexuality. The curatorial statement exclaims “Today we know that homosexuality is a common and widespread phenomenon in the animal world. Not only short-lived sexual relationships, but even long-lasting partnerships; partnerships that may last a lifetime.”
You can view pictures of male giraffes mounting each other, male sperm whales engaged in penetration and two female adult bonobo chimpanzees having sex, oblivious to a young male who is attempting to join in, while you learn that homosexuality has been observed among approximately 1 500 species and well documented in about 500 of those. The exhibit of everything from beetles to swans to lions goes on to boldly state that sex – both homo and hetero – among animals, as with humans, is often just as much a thing of pleasure as it of procreation. Some species, such as penguins, have as many as one in ten same-sex pairs, while other species, such as the bonobo chimpanzee are entirely bisexual. Homosexuality among animals, according to the exhibit, is harmless and at times even helpful, as in cases where a pair of male birds adopts and raises eggs donated by a female.
The exhibit, open since last October, has been mostly well received by the public, including families and school children. Of course there are its critics. One American commentator called it “propaganda invading the scientific world” (BBC). A Lutheran priest said he hoped the organizers would “burn in hell,” and a Pentecostal priest said he thought taxpayers’ money used for it would have been better spent helping the animals correct “their perversions and deviances” (AFP). The organizers of the exhibit profess to be deliberately filling a need for publicly funded museums to be “deliverers of truth” and to “put on display controversial subjects, things that are not said and are swept under the carpet,” says curator Geir Soeli. Their hope is to reject the too well-known argument that homosexual behavior is a crime against nature. If you can’t make it to Oslo before August 19, check out http://www.nhm.uio.no/againstnature/index.html.
This article was published Friday, July 6, 2007.
