Just like members of a certain other species, researchers at Duke University Medical Center discovered that male monkeys will pay for pornography.
According to a press release describing the research,
In the new work, researchers Robert Deaner, Amit Khera and Michael Pitt . . . tested this hypotheses by measuring how much fruit juice monkeys would accept or forgo to see photographs of familiar monkeys, permitting the researchers to compare monkey’s valuation of different types of social information. Male monkeys “paid” in juice to view female hindquarters or high-ranking monkey’s faces, but required “overpayment” to view low-ranking monkeys’ faces. Despite living in a captive colony, the value monkeys placed on information about potential sexual partners and powerful individuals matched the relative importance of these individuals for behavioral success in the wild. This study demonstrates that monkeys assess visual information by its social value and provides the first evidence that they spontaneously discriminate between images of others based on the social rank or classification of individuals.
The monkeys in this case were rhesus macaques. Apparently no one told the researchers that monkey pornography is just like terrorism.
Sources:
Monkeys pay per view. Press Release Cell Press, January 27, 2005.
Monkeys pay to view porn. BetterHumans.Com, January 28, 2005.