362
Masturbation among birds is ‘natural’ and should not be punished, say experts
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2026
362 points (98.7% liked)
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A bird wrote this
PS: Article delivers
Freaky ass birds.
Hold up. If a bird is bonded to you, and it does it, does it even count as baitin'? Sounds more like it's trying to mate with its mate. Or is bird-jacking fundamentally different? Bird experts... pitch in.
This is actually one part of why fully hand-rearing baby parrots should not be done. When they don't perceive themselves as birds and will only bond to humans, they can get extremely frustrated since humans can't properly answer to their instinctual needs like mating behavior. This then easily leads to plenty of behavioral issues like excessive screaming and aggression towards even the human they're bonded with. Never seek to become a birds mate, just be friends with them
Can you explain why a bird bonded to you from early childhood would also be sexually attracted to you? To humans in general I could understand but why to you, the "parent"? Are birds less opposed to incest?
There's a difference between incest and inbreeding. Opposition to incest, that is sex for pleasure among family members, is a moral position, and apparently unique to humans.
Inbreeding, sex for reproduction, is blocked on a biological level more strongly in some species than others, but it still happens, of course.
In humans, and perhaps other species, there is sometimes sexual disinterest in closely related family members, but this is not "opposition to incest", and certainly is not universal.
Well yeah, inbreeding is what I meant. Didn't actually know there was a difference.
Still, I've read that many animals prefer not to fuck/breed with relatives. Except some pigeons in cities apparently, they prefer their relatives if Wikipedia and my memory of that article is to be believed.
Better phrasing would've probably been "Lack of sexual interest in family".
I don't actually know do birds have higher tendency to inbreeding in nature. I know in captivity especially the smaller, more aviary setting kept birds might breed with their siblings and parents if there's not enough unrelated mates.
And with hand-fed bigger parrots getting bonded to humans in general is like grooming, very simplified. Growing up without proper birding tends to cause all sorts of mental problems already, and they might not have any other person or parrot to seek company from, and at worst people do stuff like stroke their backs which is a sexual signal. So what's a hormonal teenager gonna do when the strong instinct of gotta find a mate kicks in?
Edit// forgot words
Not an expert, but I've witnessed something like this. Step mom turned into a strange bird person for her midlife crisis, got an African grey that absolutely hates all females including her, but loves all dude. It dude puff up and squat on your shoulder, but it wouldn't rub anything. Maybe it's different for male birds.