Male aggression during mating: evidence for sexual coercion in a female dominant primate?

Abstract

In this article we document male sexual coercion of a Lemur catta female on St. Catherines Island (SCI), USA. Data presented in this paper were collected on one free-ranging L. catta group during October-November 2002 using all-occurrences sampling for agonism and reproductive behavior. We observed a male forcefully attempting to mate with a year-old estrous female. Despite the fact that we observed this female to present to the male during her estrus, throughout the episode the male employed the use of force, and achieved penile intromission on at least one occasion while the female struggled and resisted. We interpret his behavior as sexual coercion. As measured by sexual presents, the female appeared to more strongly prefer two other males as mates, yet each of these males gained fewer mounts and less cumulative time spent in mounts than the coercive male. The coercive male was one of two group males with the lowest observed mating success, suggesting that coercion might be a strategy used by males who are not highly sexually preferred. Females undergo early sexual maturation at this site owing to provisioning, and can therefore enter estrus before fully attaining dominance over males. As such, these data suggest that one consequence of provisioning a wild L. catta population (or of maintaining L. catta in captivity) may be that young females can be the targets of sexual coercion if they reach sexual maturity before fully achieving social dominance over males. In conclusion, male sexual coercion can occur in L. catta despite the female dominance characteristic of this species, and can constrain the mating behavior of females.

Sexual Conspecific Aggressive Response (SCAR): A Model of Sexual Trauma that Disrupts Maternal Learning and Plasticity in the Female Brain

“…The experience is especially common for young women in puberty and early adulthood. However, sexual aggression is not limited to humans and can occur during sexual behavior and exploration in species ranging from reptiles to rodents to nonhuman primates 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 . It has been hypothesized that aggression, especially physical aggression during sexual exploration, allows the male to gain access to the female for reproductive purposes 27 33 34 .…”

“Stink flirting” in ring‐tailed lemurs (Lemur catta): Male olfactory displays to females as honest, costly signals

“…The data collection period encompassed females’ first estrus cycle of the mating season (Van Horn & Resko, ), during which time all group females asynchronously enter estrus within a period of 1–3 weeks of one another (Sauther, ). The female behavior of sexually presenting to males, which functions as female solicitation of male mounting in this species (Parga, ; Parga & Henry, ), helped to determine the estrus period of each individual female. When a female entered estrus, focal sampling was suspended to observe the estrous female, and record all occurrences of mating, mate guarding, agonism, and sexual presentations involving the female in estrus.…”

Sexual Conflict in Nonhuman Primates

“…Researchers of a variety of nonhuman primate species under naturalistic conditions have reported "forced copulation" or "rape" as relatively rare episodes occurring over many hundreds (if not thousands) of observation hours: slender loris (Loris lydekkerianus) (Radhakrishna & Singh, 2004), ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta) (Parga & Henry, 2008), mantled howler monkey (Alouatta palliata) ( Jones, 1985( Jones, , 2002, white-bellied spider monkey (Ateles belzebuth) (Gibson et al, 2008), southern muriqui (Brachyteles arachnoides) (Milton, 1985), samango monkey (Cercopithecus mitis) (Henzi & Lawes, 1987), patas monkey (Erythrocebus patas) (Chism & Rogers, 1997), long-tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis) (Engelhardt et al, 2006), bonnet macaque (Macaca radiata) (Singh, Kumara, Ananda, Singh, & Cooper, 2006), and chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) (Goodall, 1986;Stumpf & Boesch, 2006;Tutin, 1979). The relatively small number of relevant data and variable outcomes limits causal and functional analyses of the behavior in these cases.…”

“…This behavior has been suggested to be a mate choice mechanism (see above), but it may alternatively function to forestall sexual harassment. A quasiexperimental case study of a captive female ring-tailed lemur sheds light on this role of female dominance (Parga & Henry, 2008). Artificial provisioning allowed a young female to reach sexual maturity and begin cycling earlier than is typical but, notably, before the age at which social dominance over males is fully achieved.…”