Is the act of rape committed only by Homo Sapiens, or do other animals do this? I have a couple of ideas to discuss, but I’d like to hear from your well-oiled brains first. What do you think?
You’ll need to define “rape” a little first. Homo sapiens is the only species where a male might have intercourse with a female, even if the female threatens to scream for the police, or to hit the male on the head with her handbag.
It’s also the only species in which the male can hold a gun on the female, or threaten to have her fired… At least I think it is.
Bragging mode on:
I got my CNE!
Bragging mode off.
Considering that most animal species capablie of sexual reproduction have sex specifically for perpetuating the species, I would say YES. Humans are one of a couple of species that have sex for pleasure (I think dolphins have been cited as doing this as well, but I’m not so sure I buy it). Therefore, humans would be the only species capable of rape… all the other animals have sex because they WANT to have offspring. I guess you can’t call that rape then.
-Dragwyr
“If God had meant for man to eat waffles,
he would have given him lips like snowshoes”
-Rev. Billy C. Wirtz
I was watching a documentary about dolphins one time. They showed a group of male dolphins gang up on a female dolphin for the purpose of reproductive activity. The female swam from them until she was exhausted and could no longer get away from them. Can we call that rape? I don’t know. It gave me a sick feeling in my stomach watching it though.
I disagree, Dragwyr. Other animals do not have sex specifically for perpetuating their species; they do it because it feels good. They don’t know any better
I would say that only humans ever have sex expressly for procreation, because we’re the only ones who know that sex=offspring!
But I think what you mean is that only humans have sex even when they know it won’t produce offspring.
See you in Great Debates, eh?
Your brain-in-a-jar,
Myron
Imbibo, ergo sum.
Well, animals can’t say ‘No’ so, guess so.
“‘How do you know I’m mad’ said Alice.
'You must be, ’ said the Cat, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’”
When I was a teen I was with my dad one day. We were at one of his friends shops in town. The guy had this lab that laid around in the shop all day. One of their friends came in with his pet Bobcat on a leash. This stupid dog gets up comes over and tries to mount the damned Bobcat. Need I say that fur and a good portion of the dogs nose began to fly.
Needs2know
In the talk.origins archive, they talk about bedbugs that practice “stabbing rape.” After mating, a bedbug puts a plug in the female so that no other male can mate. Some males get around this by simply using a sharp penis that pierces the female and injects the sperm into her body so that it can travel to the eggs.
Now get this, some males perform this act of stabbing on other males so that their sperm gets carried to more females.
Actually, there is a species of male bats that forces sex upon the female. I cannot remember the name of the species or the common name, but it was a recent special on bats on the discovery channel. It may rerun again. Or hopefully, someone here can elaborate on it.
If you define rape as a male forcing a female to have sexual relations when the female is unwilling, then apparently our primate relations also have the capacity to rape. See this page for a discussion of aggressive primate behaviors in general.
Once, about ten years ago, I went to the zoo here in Denver. What I saw was about as close to an attempted rape as it gets, I think.
'Twas in the monkey house. I was watching the baboons scamper about their pen, frolicking to and fro.
Well, Mr. Dominant Male comes rushing from the other side of the cage to the front, where there were a pair of females playing with a stick. The male immediately grabbed the hindquarters of one of the females, and attempted to mount her.
The female wanted no truck with this, and braced her feet against the male’s hips. He pulled harder, trying to break her resistance, and the female let out a blood-curdling scream. (by this time I was standing ther all agog, dumbstruck)
When the male realized that he was not going to be able to mate with her, he immediately began to masturbate himself with his foot, (I imagine he was thanking him monkey-god for opposable toes right about then) while still attempting to force the female onto himself.
The female, still in his grip, continued to scream. The others in the pen screamed. I was ready to scream.
Finally, the male climaxed onto the straw beneath them, and settled back onto his haunches. He released the female, who immediately ran to the far side of the pen, and clung to the other female for support.
I’d classify that as an attempted rape, for sure. I would also classify it as pretty nasty that the male picked up the discharge and ate it.
$0.02 worth of my personal experience. Hope it helps.
The more I teaches you, the dumber you gets.
I think most rapes are probably committed by straights.
Ok, that’s Homo sapiens.
Nevermind.
I guess the concept of rape can be looked at in two seemingly similar but basically different ways: (1) an act of engaging in sex when one of the two individuals is unwilling but unable to prevent the act; and (2) an act of sex brought about because one individual has threatened the other with harm or death unless the other complies. Situation (1) seems to describe all the acts of “animal” rape we are discussing, while only Homo Sapiens has the sophistication to commit situation (2).
My ideas are that some special conditions must be present before “animal” rape can occur. Because animals are unable to communicate the promise of a threat, as humans can, the only way they can have sex with an unwilling partner is to be able to somehow “pin” the partner. I’ve heard that seals on the beach can rape (pinning down the female with their weight), ducks can rape (in the water – the female cannot easily get out from under and fly away quickly), and have heard of zoo gorillas pinning the female in the corner of the cage (one assumes that in the jungle, she can run away). However, I have heard Jane Goodall describe an instance of male chimps chasing a female up a tree and pushing her off a high branch in frustration when she refused to mate. This is approaching situation (2).
So, I guess my point is that if an animal female is physically able to run away from her unwanted partner, she should be able to avoid “animal” rape.
My answer to the OP would be no, Homo Sapiens is not the only species.
I read an article in Science News or Scientific American once about a species of platyhelminth (flatworm) where one male will occasionaly insert his penis into another male’s reproductive canal, and depost a ball of a cement-like substance that will prevent the other male from extruding his penis and therefore render the other male unable to mate.
I would classify that as an example of homosexual rape.
I would classify that as either, “What will Mother Nature think of next?” or, “Eww!”
Am I supposed to believe that all this rain was suspended in mid-air until moments ago?
Animals are perfectly capable of communicating the “promise” of a real threat and in point of fact, do so quite often as a major part of establishing status hierarchies. Several primate species (among others) “rape” in both the first and second sense of your definition.
As a side note females have also developed several counter strategies to achieve their pro-creational game plans. Some good references on this issue would be
The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley
The Moral Animal : Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology by Robert Wright
Amazon has both.
>I guess the concept of rape can be looked at in two seemingly similar but basically different ways: (1) an act of engaging in sex when one of the two individuals is unwilling but unable to prevent the act; and (2) an act of sex brought about because one individual has threatened the other with harm or death unless the other complies. Situation (1) seems to describe all the acts of “animal” rape we are discussing, while only Homo Sapiens has the sophistication to commit situation (2).
My ideas are that some special conditions must be present before “animal” rape can occur. Because animals are unable to communicate the promise of a threat, as humans can, the only way they can have sex with an unwilling partner is to be able to somehow “pin” the partner. I’ve heard that seals on the beach can rape (pinning down the female with their weight), ducks can rape (in the water – the female cannot easily get out from under and fly away quickly), and have heard of zoo gorillas pinning the female in the corner of the cage (one assumes that in the jungle, she can run away). However, I have heard Jane Goodall describe an instance of male chimps chasing a female up a tree and pushing her off a high branch in frustration when she refused to mate. This is approaching situation (2).
So, I guess my point is that if an animal female is physically able to run away from her unwanted partner, she should be able to avoid “animal” rape.
Some animals have sex when they are only 6 months old. That’s statutory. Hmmm.
“‘How do you know I’m mad’ said Alice.
'You must be, ’ said the Cat, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’”
The book Demonic Males states that non-dominant male orangutans frequently rape females. Normally females will mate only with dominant males, so rape is the only way a non-dominant male can spread his seed. The book even describes one case of a male orangutan raping a human female.
Work is the curse of the drinking classes. (Oscar Wilde)
Male blackfooted ferrets* will sneak into the den of an unrelated female ferret who has young and forcibly mate with any immature females in the den. Appearently the males sperm will survive in the females uterine tract long enough to impregnate her when she sexualy matures.
The images of this was rather shocking to see on one of the discovery channels (Animal planet I think, but not certain.)
*I think it is blackfooted ferrets, though it might be one of the other mustelid families such as weasels or mink.
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