Science

What the Bull and Donkey Actually Chose

Oli·Tuesday, November 3, 2026 Edition

Observation Stops Where Experience Begins

In Ethiopia, a bull and a male donkey had sex repeatedly over months, showed consistent preference for each other's company. Refused other mates — and scientists documented it.

The finding made international headlines because same-sex pairing in animals challenges how we organize sexuality into neat categories, suggesting fluidity where we expected rigid biology. What's surprising is not the observation itself, but what everyone assumed it meant.

Nearly every write-up of cross-species same-sex pairing assumes that repeated proximity and copulation indicate preference the way human preference works — that the animals were bonded, attracted, choosing. The behavior happened. The interpretation that it happened because of something the animals wanted is where the argument lives, invisible.

When observation becomes interpretation

Animal behaviorists have never settled this question. In the 1970s, researchers across primatology and ethology began documenting same-sex mounting, copulation. Stable partnerships in dozens of species. But the theoretical fight that followed wasn't about whether it happened. It was about whether observation told you anything about causation. Did the animals prefer same-sex partners, or did they mate with available partners when opposite-sex ones weren't present? The field split and stayed split because the question itself required answering something animal behavior cannot answer. What do the animals subjectively experience?

The interpretation that it happened *because of* something the animals wanted — that's where the argument lives, invisible.

The whole cultural weight of these stories rests on that invisible assumption. That sexuality is naturally fluid, even in animals. Feels like solid ground. But the evidence is observational and the interpretation is ours. If the bull simply mated with what was available and bonded through proximity, the finding tells us almost nothing about preference or orientation. It tells us something quieter. Animal behavior is driven by factors we can document but not necessarily understand from the inside.