I've just been reading an article where they found Chimps exchanging food for sex.  Seems to me clear evidence that punting is genetically encoded.  This is good news for those who might think that their punting habits is a psychological problem, at least now we can say it in my blood

Here's the article:

Chimps Exchange Meat for Sex, Study Finds
Wednesday, April 08, 2009

The oldest profession isn't restricted to humans. A new study found that wild chimpanzees exchange meat for sex.

By stealthily following a group of about 20 adult chimpanzees in Côte d’Ivoire's Taï National Park, behavioral ecologists Cristina Gomes and Christophe Boesch of Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany carefully noted which male chimpanzees copulated with which females. The researchers found that she-chimps put out more often for males that shared food with them at least once, compared to stingy males who never offered meat.

Apparently, buying dinner is a good way to improve the chances of getting lucky on a date, even if you're a chimp.

The primates' food-for-sex barter occurs indirectly, over the course of weeks or months, with males seeming to accrue credit with the ladies by plying them with meat killed on a hunt.

"What people have been looking for before is an immediate exchange," Gomes told LiveScience. "I included all interactions between a pair that occurred over several months to see if there was more of a long-term relationship. I suspect this is why I found a correlation that nobody else had found before."

To establish that tit-for-tat was going on, rather than just friendship (which could also explain why one chimp would give another food), the researchers tried to control for other factors. By tracking association patterns between pairs, the scientists found that males didn't just give meat to females they hung around with often. They specifically gifted food to those that they ended up copulating with. Additionally, factors such as rank and age also did not explain the connection between giving away meat and mating success.

Chimpanzees, humans' closest living relatives, are not monogamous. Females try to mate with as many different partners as they can, Gomes said, while males often attempt to monopolize females, preventing them from hooking up with other males. Though males can sometimes get their way by overpowering females with strength, evidence shows that the ladies' choice also plays an important role in determining which two individuals will get together.

The new findings do establish that males can try to improve their chances with gifts of food, though it's not clear whether this is a conscious planning effort, or merely an emotional urge on the males' part.

"They can keep track somehow of what they have received or given in the past," Gomes said. "It doesn't mean they're aware of this. It could be emotional. In humans, you don’t even really know how many coffees someone has bought for you in the past, you just generally feel that this person is nice to you. It creates a positive feeling toward that person."

The results help relate chimp society to human hunter-gatherer societies, in which men who are more successful hunters have more affairs and a larger number of offspring, research has found. Among both chimps and humans, it seems bringing home the bacon can pay off in the bedroom.

The findings are detailed in the April 8 issue of the journal PLoS ONE.

well the report did say the exchange didn't occurs immediately..
the chimps have to buiid a good rapport with the females in order to give a good impression towards the fem-chimps
but the article is interesting, obviously it teaches us to be nice to the ladies if we wanted to get something out of them
...although by doing so won't guarantee she will only be with you..very similar to human huh?

Yes...that behaviour was improved over millions of years of evolution

not entirely surprising ... what's more interesting is it took the scientific community so long to come up with the observation ...

penguins give stones as a courting signal

and we once watched a crow build a nest for his girl, only to be rejected, so he then took the nest apart again one stick at a time ...

we are not alone, bros!!

i should bring food along when punting. hahaha

"The primates' food-for-sex barter occurs indirectly, over the course of weeks or months, with males seeming to accrue credit with the ladies by plying them with meat killed on a hunt."

Sounds more like long term dating than punting haha ;)

Hahahah that's what I'm thinking.

But in turn when you bring snacks or a drink for a hotel res girl I'm sure she appreciates it.  Same thing as after a session the girl offers you a drink or a snack you'd appreciate it too

Yep "Its in my blood"

We humans do it as well. But we throw in a priest and call it marriage.

Now that's an interesting statement. Some might say it's the other way round for us...

Glad to see those scientists using their research grants productively.

Can't see much difference with humans, you date a girl a few times, buy her dinner (steak perhaps) and then bed her.

Pity the chimp can't get an education and a good job, then he could earn some money and get some guaranteed action. The chimpette could buy herself something nice.

Actually that's not how humans behave.

1. Men are genetically programed to have a strategy of breeding with as many women as possible to increase their chances of passing on their genes. This often yeilds a LOT of cheating...
2. Women have a strategy of breeding with the best "genetic" choice, but mating with the best stable provider. When the two roles aren't filled by the same male, it's usually done secretely. This often yeilds a LOT of cheating...

So there you have it, chimps are whores at heart, but humans are just cheaters.

-G

Yup there was this case in the US a while back where a guy had a DNA test for some innocent reason and found that only one of "his" five children was actually his ...

A true story; A colleague of mine in the UK got married and had his first baby - he was shocked to see very clear afro-caribbean features and a darker skin tone to his son. We're talking divorce kind of shocked. What he had forgotten was that his wife had a black grandad and although very diluted the gene pool was still present and emerged spectacularly with his son. He has blond hair like his dad though, and other features make him clearly a good resemblance but to the layman viewer one would assume that it was not his lad. Very funny but not really a subject to take the piss about even though he is a close mate.

A throwback.

Very different from the lady I met as a kid, who had developed the tendency to introduce her children immediately adding "the thirdone's not my husband's ... very much as a pre-emptive strike, simply because he was obviously of african descent, while the others were not ...