LadyGardenSnake

Cows and gays. Moo-moos and homos. You don't often see these two things, um, yoked together. And yet in the recent news, there is the freak occurrence of two separate stories bringing together the bovine and the homosexual.

The first is an 'udderly serious' lesbian cow study: 'Australia's only professor of animal welfare, Clive Phillips from the University of Queensland, is hoping a basic study of Malaysia's endangered Gaur cattle will help explain why domestic cows mount each other during fertile periods. 'With domestic cattle the cows show mounting homosexual behaviour when they are on heat and the wild cattle don't show that,' Professor Phillips said. He said factors such as stress, a selective domestication process which favoured outwardly sexual cows and the number of animals on heat in a small enclosure, could explain why domestic cows displayed this deviation in sexual behaviour. 'Possibly in the wild you don't get enough cows on heat in one area together,' he said. 'There is evidence that this oestrous display is more overt in cramped conditions.'

In other words, this study of lesbian behavior in cows reveals what any common prisoner will tell you: put a bunch of people of the same sex into a small space and they turn gay in droves. It's a trite lesson, and yet at the same time it has pretty interesting consequences, since it also implies that stress can cause homosexual behavior. You might want to think about that the next time you find yourself having a conniption about something stupid. The more you fight it, the gayer you get.

And then there is cow sex story number two, which gave rise to all sorts of witty headlines such as "Sorry Darling, But Those Cows Are Such a Turn-Off" and "I'm Not in the Moo-d." Apparently residents of a small Dutch town near Amsterdam were getting sick and tired of people humping in the local park. For example, one resident complained: "I just got off the phone with a man who was cycling in the area with his children, when suddenly two naked men came running across the road." (Thanks to alanr for this link.)

But then the mayor of the town heard of a solution employed by another nature reserve in Holland. "Park rangers there reported a downturn in public sex sessions after cows were let in to graze. It is not known what makes Highland cows ? the world's oldest cattle breed ? such big passion killers. Yesterday, one Dutch park ranger said: 'They are gentle creatures, but they do look fierce. And let's face it, having a two-ton hairy beast with huge horns looking at you isn't exactly going to put you in the mood for making love.'"

That's probably true for most people, but then again it does make you wonder: in the future, will they have problems with perverts like this guy?

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