Cheeky Monkey

Male macaque monkeys pay for sex by grooming females, according to a recent study that suggests the primates may treat sex as a commodity. Another blow against the forces of Creationism (and another species of females pwning the males)!

In primate societies, grooming is the underlying fabric of it all -- a sign of friendship and family, and it's also something that can be exchanged for sexual services.

The findings, reported in New Scientist last week, resulted from a 20-month observation of about 50 long-tailed macaques in a reserve in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, which found that after a male grooms a female, the likelihood that she will engage in sexual activity with the male was about three times more than if the grooming had not occurred. And as with other commodities, the value of sex is affected by supply and demand factors. A male would spend more time grooming a female if there were fewer females in the vicinity, and when the female supply is higher, the male spends less time on grooming.

Other experts not involved in the study welcomed the research, saying it was a major effort in systematically studying the interaction of organisms in ways in which an exchange of commodities or services can be observed, a theory known as biological markets, which was developed in 1994.

There are less organic markets in which the sexual commodities are traded beyond the animal kingdom, and they have names like Fred Segal, Tiffany's, Barney's...