man thinks gay lions learnt it from humans and deserve counselling

[Rev. Rye]

Okay, I just did a bit more research, and it seems likely that the lions in question aren't actually having gay sex.

First of all, it's rare, but some lionesses do actually have manes.

However, there's also another point, one that doesn't hinge on the possibility of what is most likely an extremely rare birth defect:

In connection to a different video of what appeared to be two gay lions in Botswana that went viral last year, the Washington Post interviewed Craig Packer, one of the most knowledgeable people studying lion behaviour. Here's what he had to say:

The mounting she captured is rarer and, Packer noted, “more persistent than I’ve ever seen in the wild.” But, he said, male lions sometimes do that when they seem nervous about an encroaching coalition. Or they might be in the mood when there aren’t available females around. Cambré noted that a nearby lioness appeared to be pregnant, which would make her unavailable.

“If there was a receptive female that would wander up about that point, they would stop that,” said Packer, who compared the lions’ mounting to a dog humping a human’s leg.

But Packer said it’s not “mating,” as some headlines declared. To be specific: Lions let out a “distinctive yowling noise” when they finish the deed, Packer said, and that didn’t happen in Cambré’s videos.

What does all this say about the nature of homosexuality, including in humans? Probably not much, Packer said. But that hasn’t stopped people from holding up animals’ sexual behavior to make a point about human sexuality, often with political ends.

So, here's the thing: when lions legitimately mate, they make a noise like this around the time they reach orgasm:





I've watched a couple videos of what people assumed were lions having gay sex. Not once did they make such noises before unmounting. I'm not totally ruling out the existence of gay lions, but it would appear they're far more camera-shy than most lions.