How times change.

These are the very first words of a 1969 book, The Human Zoo by Desmond Morris (who is better known for The Naked Ape):

When the pressures of modern living become heavy, the harassed city-dweller often refers to his teeming world as a concrete jungle. This is a colorful way of describing the pattern of life in a dense urban community, but it is also grossly inaccurate, as anyone who has studied a real jungle will confirm. Under normal conditions, in their natural habitats, wild animals do not mutilate themselves, masturbate, attack their offspring, develop stomach ulcers, become fetishists, suffer from obesity, form homosexual pair bonds, or commit murder.

This was of courses meant as a provocative, attention-getting opening. But what struck me was this:

Who today would include masturbation and homosexuality in a list of symptoms of aberrant society, right up there with self-mutilation and murder?

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Under normal conditions, in their natural habitats, wild animals do not mutilate themselves, masturbate, attack their offspring, develop stomach ulcers, become fetishists, suffer from obesity, form homosexual pair bonds, or commit murder.

He's also wrong here. I'm no naturalist but I know that many monkeys and benobos masturbate. Several animals attack their offspring, and also commit murder. I have also heard that there are pairs of homosexual penguins.

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I have also heard that there are pairs of homosexual penguins.

But they were only acting out against their parents.

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I'm no naturalist but I know that many monkeys and benobos masturbate. Several animals attack their offspring, and also commit murder. I have also heard that there are pairs of homosexual penguins.

I don't know about penguins, but I've seen monkeys masturbate in zoos.