PROVINCETOWN — The news that the first-known human observation of copulation in humpback whales documented sex between two males of the species has captured imaginations across the globe and perhaps nowhere more than in Provincetown, where we consider our home a haven for both whales and homosexuals.

A report published in Marine Mammal Science on Feb. 27 recorded the moment when two male humpbacks approached a boat off the coast of Maui and engaged in nonreproductive sex, with one whale’s pectoral fins wrapped around the other animal.

The January 2022 event, photographed by scientists Lyle Krannichfeld and Brandi Romano, occurred three to five meters below the water’s surface. One of the whales, called Whale A in the report, appeared ailing and close to death. With an injured jaw and visibly emaciated, the slow-moving whale may have approached the humans and their vessel to escape the unwanted advances of Whale B, according to the report.

These details, which have been included only as a footnote in most stories circulating online, are key to understanding the nature of the incident and broader humpback behavior, said Jooke Robbins, the director of humpback whale studies at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown. Robbins cautioned against treating the incident as a demonstration of preference for same-sex copulation among humpbacks.

What the report does offer is a rare observation of the behavior of a widely studied animal whose sexual proclivities are still a giant mystery.

According to the Marine Mammal Science report, by Pacific Whale Foundation biologist Stephanie Stack, copulation between humpback whales had not been photographed before the January 2022 incident. Penis sightings on the whales are also rare, despite decades of research. The penises of humpbacks are concealed in genital slits to make the animals more hydrodynamic, the study says.

“Until this, we haven’t heard much about mating activity in humpback whales regardless of gender,” said Stormy Mayo, a Center for Coastal Studies founder and head of the center’s Right Whale Ecology Program.

Much like Provincetown’s human population, humpbacks are seasonal creatures: the animals spend summers feeding in Cape Cod Bay before heading to breeding grounds in the Caribbean during the winter. Humpbacks in the Pacific feed in Alaska and the Antarctic before meeting in the middle near Hawaii, said Robbins.

Their breeding grounds are large, often attracting thousands of whales from across the globe. In the Caribbean, “a female from Cape Cod could mate with a male from Norway,” Robbins said.

And at the breeding grounds, males often interact with each other in competitive groups, where between 2 and 15 males fight over a single female, Robbins said.

A 2002 study in Aquatic Mammals reviewed underwater footage and reported that in 13 of 630 humpback sightings a penis was in view, and on four of those occasions, the penis appeared directed towards another male. All four cases occurred in competitive groups, according to the study.

In 1998, researcher Adam Pack published an eyewitness report of a male humpback approaching a dead male and wrapping its pectoral fins around the body with its penis visible. The dead whale most likely perished in a competitive fight for a female, Robbins said, and the other male may have been experiencing residual sexual energy, scientists speculated.

The Marine Mammal Science report notes that the behind-the-scenes motivations of the whales could have included simulating reproductive behavior, establishing dominance, forming social alliances, or a reduction in social tension.

Other sources had other hypotheses: National Geographic guessed that it could have been a case of mistaken identity, or that the two whales had an established relationship, and “the behavior was an act of bonding, or perhaps even comfort, to an ailing acquaintance.” A Feb. 29 New York Post article suggested that the whales sought pleasure from the encounter: “Humpback whales caught enjoying gay sex romp,” the Post’s headline said.

Likely not, said Robbins. “The way the incident has been framed is that of a consensual same-sex attraction, when in reality this was not a mutual occurrence,” Robbins said.

Robbins told the Independent that what she found most interesting about the report was a lesson in signaling. The opportunity to mate for humpbacks has to do with being presented with the opportunity: a male whale will most likely take the hint if his conquest is trying to escape. But if the whale can’t fight, that signaling might not be there, Robbins said.

Homosexuality in Marine Life

It is possible that humpback whales engage in same-sex behavior that mirrors other species. Off the northwest Pacific coast, male orcas are known to leave their family pods to rub their erections against each other’s bellies. Stack’s report listed a 1985 sighting in which a teenage male humpback rubbed its extruded penis against an adult male’s underside.

The report noted that homosexual behavior has also been documented in pinnipeds, walruses, gray seals, various dolphin species, and among both gray whales and bowhead whales. An October 2023 study in Nature found that same-sex behavior occurs in at least 261 mammalian species and over 1,500 species total.

In Cape Cod Bay, researchers have found homosocial behavior in the endangered right whale species, according to Mayo.

Right whale sexual behavior is “somewhat orgiastic,” Mayo said, with multiple males engaging in copulation with a single female. Such gatherings occur on the surface of the ocean. Sometimes females are hard to find in such encounters. “We see occasions when it seems like the composition is all male,” said Mayo. It’s hard to know, he said, “what goes on in the froth while these whales roll around and splash.”

Animal homosexuality isn’t just limited to the ocean dwellers. Dogs can be gay, too, Mayo said. “They’ve even been known to attack my leg,” he added. But interpreting such behavior as a sexual preference is a slippery slope, he said. “If a dog mounts my leg, it’s not saying, ‘Oh, this is a male,’ or ‘Oh, this is a leg.’ It’s just an animal desiring release.”

Robbins also warned against anthropomorphizing humpback behavior, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

“It’s challenging because we are looking at it through a human lens,” Robbins said. What may have looked to us like a disturbing occurrence may have just been the wildness of the animal kingdom. “We are working with our social environment, which is not that of a humpback whale.”