Pet Forum / Mammals / Rats / February 2005

Homosexuality is commonplace in rats. Male rats can be seen to be
expressing homosexual desire when a male rat takes a female sex postures
(lordosis or swayback posture) & successfully seduces another male, which
is quite different from alpha male dominance behavior.  

A classic study by Dr. Ingebod Ward established that male rat
homosexuality is more common in rats whose mothers were stressed during
early pregnancy (Science, January 7, 1972). These rats are more accurately
assessed as bisexual, but the homosexual inclination does result in fewer
offspring related to the given male.

Female homosexuality in rats is also well documented to occur, but the
triggering mechanism is not quite so well understood; the causes of male
rat homosexuality are so well documented that homosexuality can be
artificially induced by prenatal stress factors & hormone supression
factors, but if there is a similar trigger for lesbianism in rats it is
not so easily replicated. Tweeking the hormone exposure of female rats
(with androgenic hormones before & immediately after birth) can increase
their aggression ratio toward that of male behavior patterns, but their
sexual urges often remain heterosexual. However, Richard Pillard in the
Harvard Mental Health Letter in 2003 gave a preliminary report on Stanford
University experiments wherein lesbianism was induced in rats exposed
prenatally to androgens; the females of these liters had both higher
aggression AND sexual pursuit of female partners.

It should be noted that these studies prove very little about human male
homosexuality though it may be an explanatory factor for transgender
syndromes. Human male homosexuality cannot be gauged by degree of
female-like posturing as it can for rats; human male homosexuals are apt
to be very butch, but homosexual rats are what the Governator would call
little girly-men.

Hormones active immediately before & immediately after birth can effect a
rat's lifelong sexual preferences. The rat's brain has a normal setting
that is strictly female, & male behaviors are triggered by hormones at
about the time of birth (before & after). Anything that inhibits these
hormone triggers will increase the homoexual preferences of the male rat.

To an extent rats are naturally bisexual & "normal" male rats will mount
other males to establish dominance & submission in patterns that are
explicitely butch/femme sex roles. Alpha male behavior is actually
instigated by the female, in usual circumstances, & it could be argued he
is not "alpha" at all but merely obedient to the instigating female's
cyclic urges. With submissive male rats, the research indicates that those
males which submit to another male are actually the INSTIGATORS taking on
swayback postures & other seductive techniques, & are not just beta males
who had no choice but to sexually submit to the so-called alpha male.

-paghat the ratgirl

LOL... if you have a gay male then I have 4.....  mine are all about the
same age..(stroppy teenagers).  I am sure with my lot that it is just a
dominance thing, moreso that now my Alpha male runs and hides when they
start up their nonsense..:))

Regards Kate