I always find humor in people's constant concept of themselves as far removed from "animals," this basically being the belief that humans are entirely separate from the rest of nature. This can be easily seen as a predominant idea in culture simply in the way 'animal' is used as a quality of savagery, unintelligence, and also seldom being associated with human beings. This idea to me is ridiculous because we are just like the rest of the animal kingdom, after millions of years of slow change things just kind of worked out to make us this way, we aren't some kind of special-end-all creature that breaks through the concept of evolution.

I think a clear representation of our similarity to the rest of the animal kingdom can be seen in the way sex is acceptable in a party situation, especially college parties. At college parties, I observe that the need for verbal communication, while not completely irrelevant or unused, becomes unnecessary. I observe that all that is truly necessary is body language, usually through dance. In this sort of non-verbal communication, I see the same, constant themes that lead to successful mutual attraction. The main one I see most is agreement in mood. This means that each person's body signals agree with the others. Ie. if someone is excited about a certain song, then the other person matches that excitement, or if a person is dancing moodily or seriously than the other person matches that mood. Another nonverbal way of communication at these parties is physical contact. In order to understand if a certain person is into you (the hypothetical you) during a party, you will often move very close to that certain person and attempt to make physical contact with them. If that person remains close to you or reaffirms that connection by moving closer to you than you can be relatively sure that they are in agreement with your intentions or actions, if they move away from your, or act like they are ignoring you, you can be pretty sure that they are not into you and your advancements.

This is similar to ways many animals mate, including monkeys and apes. In many of these species, regardless if mating only takes place at a certain time or all year long, many of these mating practices take place without verbal communication. In many mating rituals of primates, removing the role of the alpha male or female who always gets the most women/men and the least resistance, the structure is completely reliant on physical interaction and reaction. A certain animal will make physical contact during a time that is acceptable to mate, and see if the other animal reacts in a favorable or negative way, if the reaction is favorable than the one animal will attempt to mate with the other (this excludes animals who function through a system of non-consensual sex, such as ducks).

This, to me, is directly related to humans. Human's are awkward, especially around the subject of sex. For many people, verbal communication dealing with sex, or sexual activity, is uncomfortable and difficult to face and bring up. Parties create an outlet where verbal communication, and the awkwardness that may come out of it, can be overlooked. People, in certain situations, can still communicate a sexual act and sexual attraction without the need to address it verbally or have to consciously closely look at it.