My friend Amy forwarded this interesting piece to me:
From the article "Band of Brothers" in the March, 2005 Homiletic & Pastoral Review, written by Fr. Richard M. Hogan (great article, and well worth reading!), pg 49.
“Two anthropologists, Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox, performed an experiment on a group of monkeys. The study included the head male, a number of other males, and some females. The head male, Austin, appropriated to himself three females and did not allow the other males to touch those three. Then, the scientists gave contraception to five of the females, including two of Austin’s three favorites. After these two of Austin’s favorites were medicated with contraception, Austin would still approach them, but not engage them as he had before. He found two other females who had not been medicated to replace the two who had been given the contraceptive medicine. With these two in addition to the one from the previous set of three who had not been contracepted, Austin formed a new set of three favorites. Of course, none of the other males were allowed to touch Austin’s favorites. Next, the scientists gave contraception to all the females. At this point, Austin became very confused, attempting rape and self-abuse. He would approach the females, but never engage them as he had before. When the scientists stopped giving contraception to the females, Austin re-established his relationship with the first set of three females and would not allow any of the other males to touch those three. The other males also re-established their relationships with the other females. Contraception caused the males to turn away from the females and toward deviant behavior.”
His source is:
Lionel Tiger, The Decline of Males, (New York: Golden Books, 1999), pp. 37-39
Now I expect that the estrus that the females go through had something to do with that — presumably females with contraception wouldn't give out the normal signs that drive the males wild, so to speak, thus depriving them of a desire to mate, but it's an interesting account nonetheless. Of course ... we have to be careful not to go so far as to say "Animals don't do it, therefore it must be unnatural." This argument has been used with respect to homosexuality, only there are animals that practice homosexuality.
