by Agrippina wrote:Bonobos seem to do nothing else Epepke.
With a little bit of help from their mothers.
Sex and Society (Bonobos)
And in this one, sex is what makes the difference between violent chimps and peaceable bonobos:
Chimps and Bonobos.
It seems that "make love not war' is not that far off.
The distinction of "violent chimps" and "peaceful bonobos" is an imaginary one. Arguably, chimps might engage in more violence than bonobos (I don't have any numbers on me, but I'll accept it as true for the sake of argument), but it's certainly not true that bonobos are a particularly peaceful culture. They engage in fighting, bullying, and sometimes rip other bonobos limb from limb for otherwise trivial transgressions. The idea that they are "peaceful" comes from the initial observation that sex is often used in their culture as way of easing the tension in the group. As De Waal mentions, when he first wrote about bonobos using "sex for peace" he did not mean for people to infer that this meant bonobos were peaceful, and the entire notion of using sex to settle disputes necessarily implies that disharmony and violence occurs - otherwise what need would there be for peacemaking if they lived in harmony?
