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Push Play Please

Why “All Work and No Play” Makes Jack a right Jerk

Bonobos are a particular kind of chimp whose social habits have fascinated animal behavioralists for a very long time. They seem to be a remarkably well-adjusted bunch, with lively social behavior, pleasurable mating habits and a very well-developed habit of play.

I find it delightful that bonobos don’t seem to suffer the same puritan social constructs that we Americans do when it comes to sex (although backwards ideas are hardly limited to our fifty states). Bonobos use play in their everyday interactions, and the females are often the ones who initiate sex. In fact, they are more dominant, and even though sex is frequent, they only reproduce about every five or six years.

Which is why, given that humans are aggressively wiping out their habitat (the Congo) if we’re going to study our closest primate relative- some 98% of shared genetic material, we’d damned well better hurry up and study them.

The great naturalist and animal behavioralist Frans B. Van De Waal wrote this wonderful piece about bonobos some time back. More recently, NPR’s The Ted Hour featured a piece on the bonobos, and the powerful influence that play has in their social lives.

Seems like they do a lot of coupling of all kinds with pretty much everyone, with the…