When a ram tips its head back, curls its upper lip, and takes a deep breath \u2013 what is known in the world of animal husbandry as a \u201cflehmen response\u201d \u2013 it is often a sign of arousal. Sheep have a small sensory organ located above the roof of the mouth, and the flehmen response helps to flood it with any sex pheromones wafting about.<\/p>\n
Usually, rams flehmen when they encounter ewes during the mating period, according to Michael St\u00fccke, a farmer with 30 years of experience raising sheep in Westphalia, Germany<\/a>. But on St\u00fccke\u2019s farm, the rams flehmen \u201call the time\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThey do this all the time, because they find each other attractive,\u201d said St\u00fccke of his 35 male sheep. \u201cThey\u2019re cuddling. They\u2019re showing signs of affection. They\u2019re jumping on each other. It\u2019s undeniable that they\u2019re attracted to each other.\u201d<\/p>\n Michael St\u00fccke with one of his gay sheep. Photograph: Steve Marais for Rainbow Wool<\/p>\n St\u00fccke is the proud shepherd of the world\u2019s first and likely only flock of gay rams. Though researchers have found<\/a> that as many as 8% of male sheep are \u201cmale-oriented\u201d, homosexuality is viewed disfavorably by most farmers, who expect rams to perform a breeding function. Rams who refuse to breed are often slaughtered for meat, and it was during a discussion of this harsh reality with St\u00fccke\u2019s friend and business partner Nadia Leytes that the idea for Rainbow Wool<\/a> was born: \u201cWhat can we do to not send all of them to the slaughterhouse?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy heart beats for the weak and oppressed in general,\u201d St\u00fccke told the Guardian, with Leytes translating. \u201cI am gay myself and know the prejudices and obstacles that come with being a gay man, especially in the agricultural business.\u201d<\/p>\n Homosexuality is not only part of the human condition, but of the animal worldMichael Schmidt<\/p>\n Rainbow Wool\u2019s solution has been to buy gay rams directly from breeders, outbidding the price they might receive from a slaughterhouse, and keep them for their wool. The flock now numbers 35, and the farm has a waiting list. Individual sheep can be named and sponsored \u2013 they include a Bentheimer landschaf named Wolli Wonka<\/a>, a Shropshire named Prince Wolliam<\/a>, and Jean Woll Gaultier<\/a> \u2013 and the wool is processed by a mill in Spain. All profits are donated to LGBTQ+ charities in Germany. \u201cA couple of sheep [have been] saved but also a couple of people,\u201d Leytes said, noting that their donations have supported relocating people living in countries where being gay is illegal.<\/p>\n Correctly identifying a sheep\u2019s sexual orientation can be tricky. \u201cEverybody can just say: \u2018Hey I have a gay ram,\u2019\u201d St\u00fccke said, \u201cbut what we\u2019re doing is observing their behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSome rams basically jump on everything, whether it\u2019s female or male,\u201d he added. \u201cThat would not qualify as being a gay ram. That would qualify as being a dominant. But if a ram consistently refuses to mate with a female sheep, this is the sign that you know he prefers other rams.\u201d<\/p>\n St\u00fccke\u2019s flock burst on to the fashion scene<\/a> last month when they provided the raw material for a knitwear collection designed by Chrome Hearts collaborator Michael Schmidt and sponsored by gay dating app Grindr. Schmidt sent 36 looks down a New York City catwalk, all knit or crocheted from the wool of St\u00fccke\u2019s gay sheep. Each look represented a male archetype, starting with Adam sans Eve and including a pool boy, sailor, pizza delivery boy, plumber and leather daddy.<\/p>\n Models wait backstage at Michael Schmidt\u2019s presentation of I Wool Survive at Manhattan\u2019s Altman Building. Photograph: Oliver Halfin<\/p>\n \u201cI really wanted to lean into the gay,\u201d Schmidt told the New York Times<\/a>. \u201cI view it as an art project. It\u2019s selling an idea more than a collection of clothing, and the idea it\u2019s selling is that homosexuality is not only part of the human condition, but of the animal world. That puts the lie to this concept that being gay is a choice. It\u2019s part of nature.\u201d<\/p>\n The naturalness of homosexuality as demonstrated by the gayness of sheep has been a subject of media fascination for decades, thanks in large part to Charles Roselli, a professor of biochemistry at Oregon Health and Science University. Roselli\u2019s research<\/a> into how sex hormones affect brain development is the source of the factoid about one in 12 rams being gay.<\/p>\n Designer Michael Schmidt greets the audience. Photograph: Randy Brooke<\/p>\n In 2007, his work fell victim to what the New York Times called<\/a> \u201ca textbook example of the distortion and vituperation that can result when science meets the global news cycle\u201d when the Times<\/a>, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) and some gay rights activists accused Roselli \u2013 inaccurately \u2013 of seeking to \u201ccure\u201d homosexuality in rams and, ultimately, humans. (Roselli did not respond to an interview request from the Guardian.)<\/p>\n Rainbow Wool has not been targeted with the same degree of vitriol \u2013 a snarky Telegraph headline<\/a> about a supposed \u201cwoke test\u201d for New York\u2019s fashion scene notwithstanding \u2013 but St\u00fccke has been moving the gay flock from field to field to ensure their safety after receiving online threats. \u201cNobody knows where they are stationed because there\u2019s a lot of haters,\u201d Leyte said.<\/p>\n Model Yves Mathieu walks in a delivery worker-inspired outfit. Photograph: Randy Brooke<\/p>\n Still, the project has faced criticism for whitewashing the realities of animal farming, which demand \u201cbrutal, violent heteronormativity\u201d, the scholars Gabriel N Rosenberg and Jan Dutkiewicz wrote in the New Republic<\/a>. \u201cIf anything, the gay wool fashion show should make us think not about the good fortune of the few rescued rams but about how animal farming systematically, routinely, and often violently exploits the reproduction of all the animals it encounters.\u201d<\/p>\n Rosenberg and Dutkiewicz point to a number of problems with ascribing human identities such as \u201cgayness\u201d to animals, including the fact that researchers only classify sexuality based on \u201ctopping\u201d behavior, and have no way to register a ram\u2019s preference for \u201cbottoming\u201d. \u201cYou can\u2019t ask rams about their identities, and we have no evidence that sheep ascribe any special significance to sex in the way humans often do,\u201d they write. \u201cCalling rams gay risks either imputing human thoughts and feelings to sheep \u2026 or distorting what people mean by gay.\u201d<\/p>\n The limits of how far any kind of biological essentialism can get in helping to justify human rights through appeals to naturalism became immediately clear when I asked Stucke whether Rainbow Wool had any plans to provide sanctuary for lesbian sheep.<\/p>\n \u201cI am personally convinced there are lesbian sheep, and I would like to create a new herd out of them, but it\u2019s really hard to determine,\u201d Stucke said. A key problem is that it\u2019s impossible to know female sheep\u2019s sexual preferences. \u201cThe act of being jumped on happens without consent in most cases, especially if the female herd is being kept for profit \u2013 for lambs or for meat,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Once a farmer starts taking an animal\u2019s consent into account, is it possible to still be a farmer? What about the sheep who prefer not to be shorn<\/a>? Or eaten? Every year, approximately 6.5bn male chicks are \u201cshredded alive<\/a>\u201d soon after they hatch, for the crime of being born male; female chicks get to live \u2013 but only for as long as they produce eggs.<\/p>\n A sheep at Rainbow Wool\u2019s farm. Photograph: Steve Marais for Rainbow Wool<\/p>\n St\u00fccke is conscious of the limits of comparisons between farm animals and humans, but he nevertheless finds meaning and purpose in tending to his flock of gay sheep.<\/p>\n \u201cI had some times when it was not easy for me to accept who I was and how I was wired, especially growing up in a very conservative family,\u201d he said. \u201cI needed to find myself, and I found myself, and this is now something that I treat with openness.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we can save an animal who is living in a different way, it sends a powerful message. It doesn\u2019t have to be a direct comparison to say animals are just like people. It\u2019s metaphorical.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When a ram tips its head back, curls its upper lip, and takes a deep breath \u2013 what…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-300898","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}