Genetically, humans and bonobos, a species of chimpanzee, are more than 98 percent similar. Socially, it is another matter. Matriarchal as a rule, bonobos eschew conflict. They do not fight over territory. They do not kill. Any small friction they resolve through sexual contact: a playful rub, oral sex, full intercourse.
. . .
On a Sunday afternoon not long ago, the park’s 31 young charges did what young bonobos do: chewed on blades of grass, swung from palm fronds, kissed, frolicked and fondled.
“It’s the hippies of the forest,” Ms. AndrŽ said, taking their wrinkled hairy hands in hers. “When they feel anxious, when they are afraid, they have sex. And they calm down.”
As if on cue, a big bonobo mounted a small bonobo. They rolled around on the grass, rubbed against each other and went on their merry ways.
Bonobos are not proprietary about mates, and sex is not always about procreation. Homosexuality is au courant, and sexual play begins when they are barely a year old, though intercourse must wait until they are teenagers. Much to Ms. AndrŽ’s delight, a teenage orphan, a male, arrived recently. Hopefully, she said, mating will soon begin.
