# Rape – All about power and control Or an evolutionary option? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 12, 2004, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-all-about-power-and-control-or-an-evolutionary-option/254746 "2004-07-12T18:14:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![bodswood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e68b1a/32.png) [@bodswood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bodswood)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2004, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-all-about-power-and-control-or-an-evolutionary-option/254746/41 "2004-07-14T01:41:54Z")
I’ve tracked down the book I referred to earlier, which makes the rather dubious, and ultimately unsubstantiated, claim that rape has a biological basis: ‘A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion’, Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2000. It was reviewed in the New York Times Book Review by Frans B. M. de Waal. Part of his critique runs as follows: “In the young tradition of evolutionary psychology, Thornhill, a biologist, and Palmer, an anthropologist, depict rape as a product of Darwinian selection. As a biologist myself, I am prepared to listen. After all, rape can lead directly to gene transmission. But for natural selection to favor rape, rapists would have to differ genetically from nonrapists and need to sow their seed more successfully, so to speak, causing more pregnancies than nonrapists, or at least more than they would without raping. Not a shred of data for these two requirements is presented. The authors believe that information on modern humans would be irrelevant because the only important effects are in our evolutionary past. With this period a firmly closed book, we are left with a storytelling approach in which the usual rules of evidence are suspended.” ---
**Author:** ![Tigers2B1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc29f/32.png) [@Tigers2B1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tigers2B1)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2004, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-all-about-power-and-control-or-an-evolutionary-option/254746/42 "2004-07-14T02:10:33Z")
Well in fairness – there are two sides to the review of this book. Contrary to the way this reviewer sees it – Steven Pinker, who is now at Harvard, reviews _A Natural History of Rape_ this way – _“This is a courageous, intelligent, and eye-opening book with a noble goal - to understand and eliminate a loathsome crime. Armed with logic and copious data, A Natural History of Rape will force many intellectuals to decide which they value more: established dogma and ideology, or the welfare of real women in the real world.” – Steven Pinker, Professor of Psychology, MIT, and author of How the Mind Works and Words and Rules_ For those who would like to take a look at the first chapter of the _A Natural History of Rape_, and at least let that portion speak for itself, it’s located here - [http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/t/thornhill-rape.html](http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/t/thornhill-rape.html) And for an extensive chapter-by-chapter review here is a link to that - [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi\_m2372/is\_1\_38/ai\_75820043](http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2372/is_1_38/ai_75820043) From that review - > [@](#): > > \*\*…A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion is an intellectual masterpiece. Thornhill and Palmer present a courageous, compassionate, and scholarly analysis of rape and male sexual coercion, informed by an evolutionary perspective. There is much to commend and recommend about this book. First, we applaud Thornhill and Palmer for their courage in tackling an area of work that is riddled with ideology, misinformation, and untethered emotional upset. > > Second, this book has a great deal to offer in the prevention of male sexual coercion and rape and in the treatment of the victims and perpetrators of these dreadful behaviors. Thornhill and Palmer convincingly demonstrate that, not only is an evolutionary perspective necessary to understand the psychology motivating these horrific behaviors, but an evolutionary perspective is necessary if we are to design effective treatments for the victims and perpetrators of these behaviors. …\*\* ---
**Author:** ![dotchan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@dotchan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dotchan)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2004, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-all-about-power-and-control-or-an-evolutionary-option/254746/43 "2004-07-14T03:46:30Z")
…but isn’t post-war rape also due to the fact that the conquered women and children are effectively “belongings” of the victors, and therefore they had free reign to do whatever they wanted with them? I’m surprised that human history hasn’t be specifically raised that often. There’s at least two cases of rape that I remember that seem to have served a “genetic” purpose - the rape of the Sabine women by the early Romans (not necessarily a historic tale, but I’m putting it here because _The Cartoon History of the Universe_ does), and the Mongolian rape of Champagne (AFAIK, many conquering civilizations from around China did see cross-cultural marriage, both voluntary and forced, as an effective way of absorbing other peoples). ---
**Author:** ![bodswood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e68b1a/32.png) [@bodswood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bodswood)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2004, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-all-about-power-and-control-or-an-evolutionary-option/254746/44 "2004-07-14T04:07:37Z")
I know nothing about the ‘Mongolian rape of Champagne’, but China itself witnessed one of the largest historical rape events, at Nanking in 1937. The free rein that the aggressors in that instance, the Japanese, exercised saw hundreds if not thousands of women raped and then, in most cases, murdered. There was no procreational intent at all. I would imagine that this has been the pattern in many other historical large-scale rapes by invaders/aggressors, but would have to defer to a historian for the full story. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2004, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-all-about-power-and-control-or-an-evolutionary-option/254746/45 "2004-07-14T05:42:26Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > I have explicitly stated that I do _not_ accept the OP’s premise, but merely have not ruled it out. Yet, it remains conjecture. > [@](#): > > Completely irrelevant, and I addressed this misconception in my first post in this thread. There’s no reason that explicit psychological motivation for an action be the same as the action’s evolutionary purpose. Or, to put it another way, show me that the primary motivation of lovers, in their own words, is not merely sex, not pleasure, but _reproduction_. It’s not, at least not usually. And yet surely, if any behaviour is a product of evolution, our sex drive is. And yet we don’t desire sex for the explicit purpose of reproduction. The misconception is on your part. Psychological motivations are far more complex than one would, or should, expect were they driven solely by genes. And there are a good many lovers who _don’t_ get together for the purpose of reproduction. The _desire to have sex_ is evolutionary in origin. The means by which one accomplishes it, not so much. Our brains have allowed us to work out exactly how to have sex _without_ reproduction. Are you arguing that specific intent not to reproduce is evolutionary, as well? > [@](#): > > Again you’re misattributing motivations. Creatures don’t need to be playing explicitly evolutionary strategy in their heads in order to be acting in ways that increase their inclusive fitness, and to be acting in those ways due (in part) to genetics. And anyways, you’re wrong. Who cares if they’re the enemy? It’s not like the hypothetical raiders are wasting reproductive potential by raping enemy women. This has nothing to do with reproductive potential. It has everything to do with an alleged desire to pass on one’s genes. If you are passing on _your_ genes, you are by definition passing on _their_ genes as well. Explain how it might be beneficial for one to pass on _their_ genes. Besdies which, are are not talking about some nebulous “creatures” - we are talking about _humans_, which you may note are capable of making _choices_, some of which are more than capable of defying evolutionary “sense”. > [@](#): > > They can continue to function perfectly normally when they get back home. And who cares if the outsider women contribute 50% of the genes? The raider is still contributing some. The action increases the chances of genetic survival. You may not have noticed, but nature does NOT work like that. You may not have noticed, but as a rule, males _compete for_ females. What an odd behavioral choice if, in fact, it does not matter to the male where his genes wind up, don’t you think? How especially odd that sexual selection exists, yes? And even moreso when one considers that it is generally the males which are the main focus of sexual selection! But no, actually, it’s not so strange. You are simply quite far off the mark here. As I said, evolution is not about the willy-nilly sowing of one’s male seed. _Both_ parties involved have it in their “best interests” to find a suitable specimen (or specimens) to mate with. > [@](#): > > Maybe not by a whole lot, but to some degree. And frankly, I don’t understand why the adaption argument should break down if one isn’t picking mates strategically. Again, it’s not like there’s a limited supply of sperm. Any woman inseminated is an evolutionary gain. It’s a chance for genetic propagation, even if not necessarily the best chance. And it’s very low investment, too. Nope. See above. “Any woman inseminated” is most certainly not a guaranteed evolutionary gain, because evolution is not what happens from one generation ot the next. If the child dies – assuming one was even produced in the first place – because you weren’t selective enough, guess what: you’re an evolutionary failure. > [@](#): > > Just to repeat, so you don’t misunderstand for a third time - I am not saying I’m convinced that there’s a genetic link between aggression and sex which is the result of an adaption based in rape. _All_ I’m saying is that your complete dismissal of the possibility seems very quick and not solidly grounded in anything like evidence. Like hell it isn’t. It’s grounded in the definition of natural selection! And there’s nothing about rape behavior that indicates that it even _remotely_ satisfies the requirements for evolution via NS. _My_ complete dismissal of the OP’s premise lies entirely on the fact that it is nothing more than a “just so” story. But just because it’s a good story doesn’t make it so. My evidence has been presented multiple times: 1. Rape behavior is not genetic. If it is, show me. 2. Since it’s not genetic, it is not heritable. Therefore, it CANNOT be subject to natural selection, therefore it CANNOT be adaptive. 3. It does not provide a clear reproductive advantage over old-fashioned courtship (see aforementioned fertility information). Reproductive advantage, even if minute, is a necessary condition for evolution via NS. This necessarily means that a rapist must be _better_ able to reproduce than the average member of the population. Given the odds, that means he’s either got to be incredibly lucky in having sex with just the right female at just the right time, or he has to rape a whole lot of women to even out the odds. And frankly, serial rapists are a very distinct minority relative to the general population. 4. None of this even takes into account the various forms of rape, as mentioned by **RindaRinda** , many of which are clearly not the least bit concerned with reprodutction (and some of which, such as gang rape or anal rape, are completely contrary to reproduction). > [@](#): > > And on preview, an act doesn’t have to be evolutionarily optimal to be adaptive. It merely has to be advantageous. A slim chance is better than none. Individuals do not and cannot adapt. Adaptation is a population-level phenomenon. It doesn’t matter squat what might improve an individual’s chance relative to “no chance”, what matters are his chances relative to the rest of the population. He is not competing with himself, he is competing with all the other males out there. And the evidence is that an occassional rape does not signify better odds than an average male who does not rape. Evolution is the _population-wide_ change of gene frequencies. NOT “whether one individual gets to reproduce or not”. Individual success accounts for nothing in and of itself in the long run – it is the sum of individual successes that dictate the populational trend. IF rape were genetic, AND heritable, AND advantageous, then it would tend to become more prevalent in the general population as a reproductive strategy because rapists would have an advantage over their non-raping counterparts. Otherwise it’s just a behavior whose overall frequency comes and goes like the tendency to murder or steal. It may “help” an individual in the short run, but that means nothing in evolutionary terms. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2004, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-all-about-power-and-control-or-an-evolutionary-option/254746/46 "2004-07-14T05:53:45Z")
> [@review posted by bodswood](#): > > But for natural selection to favor rape, rapists would have to differ genetically from nonrapists and need to sow their seed more successfully, so to speak, causing more pregnancies than nonrapists, or at least more than they would without raping. Not a shred of data for these two requirements is presented. Odd…that’s what I’ve been saying all along. And for yet more counterpoint regarding that particular book: [http://www.rednova.com/news/stories/2/2004/03/30/story105.html](http://www.rednova.com/news/stories/2/2004/03/30/story105.html) [http://www.azrapeprevention.org/abstracts/theory.htm](http://www.azrapeprevention.org/abstracts/theory.htm) So, positive reviews, negative reviews…we can go back and forth all day, **Tigers2B1**. It doesn’t change the essence of the point, which is summed up nicely in the above quote. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2004, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-all-about-power-and-control-or-an-evolutionary-option/254746/47 "2004-07-14T05:57:50Z")
**Gorsnak** , you have it exactly right, but there is persistent confusion by some of what is meant by “is the basis”. Some posters persist in thinking that what the individual “thinks” is his motivation is what is “causing” a behavior to be extant. Thus my wanting to have sex has is not a result of evolutionary pressures to pass on my genome, it is a result only of my desire to have a pleasurable experience. Of course, as you have pointed out, both are true, at different levels of analysis. **darwin** is particularly persistent in this naive false analysis and in setting up false dichotomies. “Either men are programmed to rape or not” … and either men are programmed to sleep or not, I guess. An evolutionary perspective of rape would predict that it would occur a minority of the time and under the particular circumstances that it typically does occur under - by individuals who had fairly little to lose from the act either by virtue of an extant disenfranchisement from the community (little to lose from punishment) or by virtue of the context of battle (little risk of punishement). The act of rape costs those individuals in those circumstances little and has a small but real chance of passing genome on. A male can spread his sperm to the wind, impregnating or not, with no cost to his survival required. What his conscious motivations are have nothing to do with why it occurs from an evolutionary perspective. Evolution does not act on his survival; it acts on how many copies of the gene(s) get passed on and survive to successfully reproduce themselves again. Now interestingly, the Thornhill and Palmer book offered two evolutionary hypotheses: the first is basically what I have described; the second is what **darwin** described. That is that “testosterone-laden men, without access to women for often-long periods of time, take out their sexual frustrations / desires on the conquered.”, that the evolutionarily selected drive for sex, coupled with the evolutionary tendency for young adult males to be violently aggressive in pursuit of goals, was a sufficient explanation of the evolution of this behavior. Both hypotheses are explanations of the biological basis for this behavior. The entire thesis was condemned because it was already “known” that rape was a sociologic crime perpetrated by the male gender as a whole upon the female gender. As my first post quoted "To argue, as did Thornhill and Palmer, that rape is a “natural” or evolved product of the psyche of the human male could, at the very least, be seen as politically loaded and, more justifiably, viewed as a gendered attack by yet another band of demonic males (3) on the value and meaning of women. " To even think it was verboten. To condemn it without reading it proper. ---
**Author:** ![bodswood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e68b1a/32.png) [@bodswood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bodswood)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2004, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-all-about-power-and-control-or-an-evolutionary-option/254746/48 "2004-07-14T06:48:37Z")
A question for Darwin’s Finch, though anyone else is most welcome to pitch in as pat of the war on ignorance. With regard to “animal rape”, isn’t there a danger that by using heavily anthropomorphised descriptions we misanalyse the behaviours? And doesn’t something similar apply in the “animal homosexuality” literature, where the behaviour of animals touching muzzles is sometimes described as “kissing”? Should behaviours that involve touching or that echo courtship behaviour be described on a purely, or primarily, sexual level, regardless of any other social functions they might have? By the same token, should a sexual interpretation be given to every activity that results in genital arousal, such as fighting over mates? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2004, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-all-about-power-and-control-or-an-evolutionary-option/254746/49 "2004-07-14T12:01:44Z")
**bodswood** , The danger cuts both ways. There is a danger in presuming what the social function of a behavior is in another species and there is a danger in presuming that humans are somehow particularly above the evolutionary pressures, that we alone have “the ghost in the machine” and analyzing our behavior according to different standards. In this context “rape” means nothing more or less than sexual contact coerced by violence or by the clear threat of violence. A woman threatened with a gun and coerced to have sex, is raped. The orangatans are clearly raped. The chimps who are consenting to intercourse only after clear threat of violence has been made clear are raped. ---
**Author:** ![Tigers2B1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc29f/32.png) [@Tigers2B1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tigers2B1)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-all-about-power-and-control-or-an-evolutionary-option/254746/50 "2004-07-15T00:36:55Z")
As this study of monozygotic twins reared apart indicates, personality seems to be strongly heritable for most traits. So, while this might have been turned into a political issue– the evidence is strong that more than our physical appearance is substantially affected by our genetic makeup. There are studies out there that support the conclusion that we are affected by our genes both in and out. Considering this and the evidence already presented in this thread – it doesn’t take much of an imagination to suspect that rape behavior might very well be, at least in some aspect, a product of evolution – rather than as some advocate – all socialized into the individual. [http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/Issues/psychology/IQ/bouchard-twins.html](http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/Issues/psychology/IQ/bouchard-twins.html) > [@](#): > > Sources of human psychological differences: the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart. > > Bouchard TJ Jr, Lykken DT, McGue M, Segal NL, Tellegen A. > > Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 55455. > > Since 1979, a continuing study of monozygotic and dizygotic twins, separated in infancy and reared apart, has subjected more than 100 sets of reared-apart twins or triplets to a week of intensive psychological and physiological assessment… **On multiple measures of personality and temperament, occupational and leisure-time interests, and social attitudes, monozygotic twins reared apart are about as similar as are monozygotic twins reared together. These findings extend and support those from numerous other twin, family, and adoption studies.** It is a plausible hypothesis that genetic differences affect psychological differences largely indirectly, by influencing the effective environment of the developing child. This evidence for the strong heritability of most psychological traits, sensibly construed, does not detract from the value or importance of parenting, education, and other propaedeutic interventions. > [@](#): > > …**The study of these reared-apart twins has led to two general and seemingly remarkable conclusions concerning the sources of the psychological differences - behavioral variation - between people: (i) genetic factors exert a pronounced and pervasive influence on behavioral variability, and (ii) the effect of being reared in the same home is negligible for many psychological traits.** These conclusions will not come as revelations to the many behavioral geneticists who have observed similar results and drawn similar conclusions [5]. This study and the broader behavioral genetic literature, nevertheless, challenge prevailing psychological theories on the origins of individual differences in ability, personality, interests, and social attitudes [6]… Bolding mine- ---
**Author:** ![1010011010](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/ea666f/32.png) [@1010011010](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/1010011010)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-all-about-power-and-control-or-an-evolutionary-option/254746/51 "2004-07-15T01:02:38Z")
> [@RindaRinda](#): > > > [@1010011010](#): > > > > I haven’t seen in brought up… but I recall hearing about some group suggesting that the different in size and strength in human sexes is/was driven by rape. Large strong males can more easily rape smaller weaker females… as such, both these traits end up getting passed on. > > Crazy. If that were true, then rape would have had to have been the predominant form of reproduction. Not exactly. Presumably, consentual sex introduces no selective pressure for sexual dimorphism. Rape would introduce a selective pressure for sexual dimorphism in the direction of males being larger/stronger than females. With no counter pressure, rape could be a minor sexual practice and it would still shift the population towards males larger/stronger than females. ---
**Author:** ![Abe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f1d935/32.png) [@Abe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Abe)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-all-about-power-and-control-or-an-evolutionary-option/254746/52 "2004-07-15T11:08:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*from [http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstrea...hard-twins.html](http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstrea...hard-twins.html) \* > > On multiple measures of personality and temperament, occupational and leisure-time interests, and social attitudes, monozygotic twins reared apart are about as similar as are monozygotic twins reared together. Hm, assuming the above, **Tigers2B1** , (and there is still quite a bit of debate over the genetic/environmental contributions to personality) wouldn’t you still have to specify the link between between rape and personality, and then show that this link is genetic and therefore inherited? To my limited knowledge this hasn’t been done, which I think is **Darwin’s Finch** ’s point when he asks for evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-all-about-power-and-control-or-an-evolutionary-option/254746/53 "2004-07-15T12:55:33Z")
> [@1010011010](#): > > Presumably, consentual sex introduces no selective pressure for sexual dimorphism. What, you’ve never heard of sexual selection? If lots of women find larger men attractive (and considering the complaining I’ve heard from short guys, this seems to be true) and if many men also find smaller women attractive (which also seems to be true, although not as strongly) then big man/small woman pairs are going to reproduce more frequently than the other pairings. That’s how consensual sex could lead to sexual dimorphism. > [@](#): > > Rape would introduce a selective pressure for sexual dimorphism in the direction of males being larger/stronger than females. With no counter pressure, rape could be a minor sexual practice and it would still shift the population towards males larger/stronger than females. Rape could also introduce a selective pressure for complete baldness to be rare women, because it’s harder to drag a woman off to your cave by her hair if she ain’t got any. It’s a stupid and ultimately unprovable hypothesis though, and one with no evidence at all to support it. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-all-about-power-and-control-or-an-evolutionary-option/254746/54 "2004-07-15T16:31:47Z")
Rape is like spam. It doesn’t have to be successful very often to pay for itself. As for it not being evolutionary because too few men do it, well, how many men would do it if they could get away with it? Having an impulse be overridden by other concerns is hardly unusual. I have the impulse to eat that entire quart of ice cream, but I don’t do it because I don’t want to be the size of Atlanta. If I knew, or expected, that I could eat it and not suffer any consequences, I’d do it! ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-all-about-power-and-control-or-an-evolutionary-option/254746/55 "2004-07-15T18:29:41Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > **darwin** is particularly persistent in this naive false analysis and in setting up false dichotomies. “Either men are programmed to rape or not” … and either men are programmed to sleep or not, I guess. Oh, give me abreak. You people are the ones insisting that everything is genetically programmed, therefore everything is evolutionary in origin. If choice is involved – if a man _chooses_ to rape – then it is not a programmed behavior. Behaviors which are the result of selective pressures already have a perfectly good name: instinct. The urge to reproduce is instinctual. The urge to eat is instinctual. Of course, urges can be overridden. One might argue that rape is such an urge that is overriden in “polite society”. And, again, I will say, show me the evidence. Everyone eats sooner or later. Everyone sleeps sooner or later. Those are clearly the “baseline”, regardless what we may choose. Show me that rape is the baseline behavior that is overriden by societal constraints. I’ve asked numerous times before, and no one has stepped up to offer any actual evidence. > [@](#): > > An evolutionary perspective of rape would predict that it would occur a minority of the time and under the particular circumstances that it typically does occur under Like hell it would. Traits _evolve through natural selection_ because they are, by definition, _in the majority_ (unless it is a “new” behavior; but then these same are arguing that it exists outside humans, which points to it being a primitive, rather than derived, behavior). Minority traits can arise by means other than natural selection, but those are, also by definition, _not adapative_. > [@](#): > > Now interestingly, the Thornhill and Palmer book offered two evolutionary hypotheses: the first is basically what I have described; the second is what **darwin** described. That is that “testosterone-laden men, without access to women for often-long periods of time, take out their sexual frustrations / desires on the conquered.”, that the evolutionarily selected drive for sex, coupled with the evolutionary tendency for young adult males to be violently aggressive in pursuit of goals, was a sufficient explanation of the evolution of this behavior. Both hypotheses are explanations of the biological basis for this behavior. The entire thesis was condemned because it was already “known” that rape was a sociologic crime perpetrated by the male gender as a whole upon the female gender. As my first post quoted "To argue, as did Thornhill and Palmer, that rape is a “natural” or evolved product of the psyche of the human male could, at the very least, be seen as politically loaded and, more justifiably, viewed as a gendered attack by yet another band of demonic males (3) on the value and meaning of women. " To even think it was verboten. To condemn it without reading it proper. I couldn’t care less what the political or social ramifications of the argument are. What I am objecting to, and what I have ibjected to all along, is the insistance that the behavior is evolutionary in origin because “it could be”. As I have pointed out, many things which “could be”, aren’t. It seems to me that those arguing for “rape behavior as evolutionary adaptation” really want it to be true, for some reason. Yet their arguments are suspiciously like those arguing that creation is true because they want it to be true: lots of hand-waving, very little display of evidence. Complex behaviors as emergent properties of complex brains does not render such behaviors non-biological, or non-treatable, or even non-understandable. The ONLY reason why rape is singled out over such behaviors as theft or murder is because sex is involved, and some people seem to have gotten it into their heads that ALL sex ONLY has to do with evolution, and nothing else. Of course, I also asked for evidence that sex specifically without the intent of reproduction was evolutionary in origin, but was met with nothing more than the sound of crickets. Not unlike my requests for evidence that rape, in any way, satisfies the criteria for natural selection. The mere fact that reproduction occurs does not signify evolution; it is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-all-about-power-and-control-or-an-evolutionary-option/254746/56 "2004-07-15T19:41:09Z")
Okay. Let’s start from the top. What are the facts to explain and what are the extant hypotheses? The facts to explain: Throughout the animal kingdom, including non-human primates, are examples of young male adults coercing females to have sex through violence or the threat of violence, an action that when it occurs among humans is called “rape.” Throughout human societies rape occurs, and occurs primarily in particular circumstances: by young adult males who are disenfranchised from the society as a whole; and/or under conditions in which punishment is highly unlikely (such as tribal war) Females very rarely violently coerce sex upon males. Rape can result in children and a female impregnated in that way is generally committed to continuing her biologic investment in that child. The male has conversely “spent” little whether a child is produced or not. The extant hypotheses: Rape is a sociologic phenomenem. A result of men being socialized to oppress women. This fails to explain the wide occurence of coerced sex across human societies independent of the level of female oppression. It would predict that rape be more prevelant in societies such as Saudia Arabia and Japan and less in modern day America and such a prediction is false. Rape is a psychological problem reflective of dysfunctional upbringing. Do women not suffer from dysfunctional upbringing as well. Women should then violently coerce for sex as well. But they only rarely do. Rape is the result of inate predispositions in males in general to coerce sex by violence under circumstances in which such would make evolutionary sense. Those circumstances would only be those in which the potential benefits (to the propagation of the responsible genes) outweigh the potential risks. The risks of rape by someone accepted by the society in which they reside are very great. The risk to someone disenfranchised is low. The risk/cost in warfare situations is low. The individual does not need to conscious of these factors for them to be the cause for males in general to have a tendency to behave in this way; evolution doesn’t care about your motivations or right and wrong. It just selects for that which works to make copies of the genes. A biologic predisposition does not preclude choice or free will; but it informs and biases it. Humans are biologically predisposed to appreciate music but choose which sort, for example. They are biologically predisp[osed to learn language, but experience will shape which ones. Choice does not obviate having a particular human nature (to appreciate music, art, salty food, or to do good or evil) and having an inheritable baseline of human nature requires a means to inherit it and necessarily implies selectability. Therefore an evolutionary basis for rape explains the facts as we have them better than any other current hypothesis and must prevail until new facts either falsify it or make another one more parsimonious with the facts. This is how science works. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-all-about-power-and-control-or-an-evolutionary-option/254746/57 "2004-07-15T21:57:56Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Okay. Let’s start from the top. What are the facts to explain and what are the extant hypotheses? Sounds good to me. > [@](#): > > Throughout the animal kingdom, including non-human primates, are examples of young male adults coercing females to have sex through violence or the threat of violence, an action that when it occurs among humans is called “rape.” An unproven statement. The only “fact” given in support of this statement thus far relates to the behavior of chimps in the OP, and that example does not bear resemblance to what humans call “rape”. Rape, in humans, involves sex right off the bat. There is no period of coercion through threats of violence - there is simply the violence and the act. > [@](#): > > Throughout human societies rape occurs, and occurs primarily in particular circumstances: by young adult males who are disenfranchised from the society as a whole; and/or under conditions in which punishment is highly unlikely (such as tribal war) Let’s look at some [statistics](http://www.vaasa.org/vastats.html): > [@](#): > > Seventy-five percent of women raped are between the ages of 15 and 21. The average age is 18. > [@](#): > > 80% of all sexual assaults are committed by an acquaintance of the victim. > [@](#): > > Twenty-nine percent of all forcible rapes in America occurred when the victim was less than 11 years old. > [@](#): > > The most vulnerable age for sexual abuse is between 7 and 13 years. > [@](#): > > Most sexual abuse is committed by men (90%), and by persons known to the child (70% to 90%), with family members constituting one- third to one-half of the perpetrators against girls, and 10% to 20% of the perpetrators against boys. > [@](#): > > Over nine percent, or 31,160 out of the 311,110 victims of rape were men. > [@](#): > > While not all men who are victimized as adults are assaulted in prison, 26,000 adult males are raped daily in US jails and prisons and even more are abused in reform school. > [@](#): > > More than 66% of college men involved in date rape had been intoxicated with alcohol or drugs. Hall, “Date Rape: The Hidden Epidemic,” National Collegiate Date and Acquaintance Rape Statistics, 1996 Together, these statistics paint a rather different picture than the one you are trying to paint: Human females reach reproductive peaks around 30 years old, yet the majority of rape victims are 18 or younger. Males constitute a significant percentage of rape victims. Young girls below reproductive age are frequently targets. Rape is quite frequently commited by a relative. None of these point to rape being the result of sexual disenfranchisement of males. If you want to argue “societal disenfranchisement”, feel free. But that then removes your argument form the realm of evolutionary strategy. > [@](#): > > Females very rarely violently coerce sex upon males. Define “very rarely”. 9% is not what I would call “rare”. Uncommon, perhaps. But not rare. > [@](#): > > Rape can result in children and a female impregnated in that way is generally committed to continuing her biologic investment in that child. The male has conversely “spent” little whether a child is produced or not. [More statistics](http://www.rainn.org/statistics.html): > [@](#): > > Of these approximately 248,000 victims, about 87,000 were victims of completed rape, 70,000 were victims of attempted rape, and 91,000 were victims of sexual assault. > > Up to 4,315 pregnancies may have resulted from these attacks. Based on those numbers, rape has less than a 5% of resulting in a pregnancy. Compare that figure with the numbers presented earlier in the fertility link. Rape as a reproductive strategy fails as it is not more advantageous than “normal”, consentual sex. > [@](#): > > Rape is the result of inate predispositions in males in general to coerce sex by violence under circumstances in which such would make evolutionary sense. Those circumstances would only be those in which the potential benefits (to the propagation of the responsible genes) outweigh the potential risks. The risks of rape by someone accepted by the society in which they reside are very great. The risk to someone disenfranchised is low. The risk/cost in warfare situations is low. The individual does not need to conscious of these factors for them to be the cause for males in general to have a tendency to behave in this way; evolution doesn’t care about your motivations or right and wrong. It just selects for that which works to make copies of the genes. And, again, you derail the argument train right there. Natural selection does not “just select” for that which works to make copies of genes. Natural selection works to select that _which works better_ to make copies of those genes. That’s what the “selection” part of “natural selection” is all about! Yet, rape clearly is not “better” than consentual sex when it comes down to the evolutionary requirement of making babies. Rapists will never outcompete non-rapists for mates in the overall population. Furthermore, there must be something upon which natural selection can act. A simple behavior, regardless of the circumstances or reproductive benefit, is invisible to natural selection _unless there is a genetic component_. And here I note that in your facts list, “rape has a genetic component” was not among them. And if it is invisible to natural selection, then whatever the motivation, or lack thereof for the act, it becomes irrelevant in the context of evolution. And viable strategies cannot be said to be “irrelevant”. > [@](#): > > A biologic predisposition does not preclude choice or free will; but it informs and biases it. Humans are biologically predisposed to appreciate music but choose which sort, for example. They are biologically predisposed to learn language, but experience will shape which ones. Choice does not obviate having a particular human nature (to appreciate music, art, salty food, or to do good or evil) and having an inheritable baseline of human nature requires a means to inherit it and necessarily implies selectability. I do not argue against _biological_ predispositions, nor do I argue _for_ any particular ultimate cause. I merely argue _against_ rape being a viable reproductive strategy in evolutionary terms. And, again, I note that in order to be “visible” to natural selection, that “biological predisposition” must be genetic in nature. I am probably sounding like a broken record at this point, but this is not a trivial requirement. **Unless rape is a heritable human baseline, the evolutionary argument fails**. And, even if it were heritable, it must be actively advantageous in order to prevail. Marfan’s Syndrome is heritable, but it is not advantageous. Thus, those who have it remain but a minority of the general population. Same goes for rape: if it isn’t advantageous, it will remain a minority, assuming it is heritable. And if it is such a minority behavior, then it is not in any way an adaptation. > [@](#): > > Therefore an evolutionary basis for rape explains the facts as we have them better than any other current hypothesis and must prevail until new facts either falsify it or make another one more parsimonious with the facts. I disagree. Many facts become utterly baffling under an evolutionary explanation: why are males raped at all? Why are the majority of victims below their reproductive prime? Why are there _any_ victims who are incapable of reproducing at all? Why are family members so prevalent in the statistics, given that inbreeding is itself frequently an evolutionary no-no? Why is its overall success rate in terms of pregnancy lower than consentual sex? And again, I state that I make no claims for what rape _is_. I am only arguing for what, to my eyes, it most assuredly _is not_. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-all-about-power-and-control-or-an-evolutionary-option/254746/58 "2004-07-15T22:31:40Z")
Not enough time now to address point by point but two quick comments. 1. That 9% does not, methinks, refer to females raping males, but males raping males. For example the prison type stuff that immediately followed. 2. You are arguing against rape as either/or with consensual sex. The proposition is that mammals are creatures of flexible behavior. It is not either/or. It is the tendency to behave one way in one circumstance and differently in another. More later. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-all-about-power-and-control-or-an-evolutionary-option/254746/59 "2004-07-16T05:17:37Z")
A bit more … Not just the chimps. The orangatans too. And I also know about several bird species. I think that you have a different concept of a fertile age and reproductive peaks than was functional for most of the time span relevant on an evolutionary scale (and even now, where do you get 30 as the reproductive peak?). From a male’s gene’s POV a young woman 15 to 21 is exactly right. 30 is not more fertile and by then, in most of this time span, women were quite old or dead. And probably already had a few kids. Even a thousand years ago people did not live too long. Even a generation ago and today in many portions of our society a 30 year old is closer to being a grandmother than to becoming a mother for the first time! The male gene benefits from being in the woman’s firstborn and early: the most likely to have the mother around to care for it up to the age of passing on the genes to the next generation and the most likely to gain from the mothers resources after her death. Yes, males lecherously ogling those “barely legal” sites is the result of evolutionary pressures too. According to Pinker, sexual abuse by family members are more often not blood relations but step relations. Now attacks on prepubertal children is another story. I would agree that such falls out of an evolutionary perspective. It is hard to explain under any model. As to why rape fails so often. We have been discussing the evolutionary pressure to select for males who would rape under particular circumstances. The female side is under the exact opposite set of pressures. The female has a large investment to make by becoming pregnant. Also within a recent period of history many woman would die from pregnancy complications. Protecting her ability to decide how to invest her egg and thus her substantial input into the child is of foremost importance. She is under great evolutionary pressure to be able to choose the investment that is the best one overall, not only for that child, but for the future opportunity to attract a quality mate for future children and partnership to bring them all to reproductive age. That women have developed protective mechanism to decrease the cost of rape to them is, in fact, good evidence for how endemic rape is as an evolutionary strategy on the male part. Again, evolutionary psychology doesn’t argue for traits like blue vs brown eyes. Behavioral predispositions can be complex. Altruism for one well worn example. Altruism involves choice. Altruism varies according to circumstance with individuals being altruistic under some circumstances but not others. And yet many evolutionary models of altruism exist and none include an explicit calculation by the altruist that his/her act will increase his/her reproductive success. The altruist is doing it because it feels right. But the ultimate cause is that it is an selfish act for any genes involved. As to non-reproductive sex of any sort: All sex results from evolutionary pressure. Evolutionary pressure is why we have a sex drive. The fact that we have developed oral sex, and that some people are uninterested in reproductive sex at all (eg gay relationships) does not mean that sex did not evolve as a means to propagate genes and that a sex drive is strong for that reason. That in no way means that all sex is had with the intention to reproduce. We also have developed means to not have children from sex and some of those means have also been the result of evolutionary forces. Full analyses have been done, but the short of it is that the human strategy is often to raise fewer children but benefit by having enough to go around to not only keep them alive til reproductive age, but to be able to put them in a competitive position to attract high quality mates. Females in particular historically have an interest in this regard because they have a larger investment obligated upon them by the nature of pregnency. The cognitive capacity evolved for many reasons helped women have some control over reproduction while maintaining a sex drive. And ultimately to get more copies passed along to future generations. Again, it isn’t enough just to say what you don’t like about a hypothesis, unless you can clearly falsify it. Provide a competing hypothesis that makes sense, that does not include an explanation based on inherent male human nature (and anything in an inherent human nature is ultimately inheritiable). It may be that another hypothesis can be presented that fits the data better. But until it does, the evolutionary perspective has to be the working hypothesis for any thinking person. Rape is wrong. It is an act of violence. It is not the result of an individual making a conscious choice that this is a good reproductive strategy. There is nothing about something being based on biologic predispositions that in any way discounts the evilness of the act. Our evolved cognition and developed moral capacity allows us to override our predispositions. ---
**Author:** ![Call\_me\_Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Call\_me\_Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Call_me_Frank)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-all-about-power-and-control-or-an-evolutionary-option/254746/60 "2004-07-16T05:46:59Z")
**Darwin** , I have a few questions for you… Admittedly, I tend to disagree with your stance on this debate, but as I am one of the ignorant masses (in regards to this topic) I won’t presume to say you are wrong, I will simply state that I disagree. My point is that I’m not trying to be overly adversarial. You have said that natural selection only chooses what is best and that in order for a trait to succeed in natural selection it must work better than all of the other traits. How does the scenario described in **Tigers2B1** ’s quote regarding chimps affect that statement? It seems that the orangutans have developed _two_ successful methods of reproduction. Would you agree that the urge to mate is the _mechanism_ for facilitating reproduction? IE, the instinct people have is to have sex and sex is what leads to reproduction? This seems reasonable to me, because the males of a species don’t immediately know if their sexual relations result in a pregnancy. So it seems that the ‘real’ instinct is simply to engage in behaviors that result in orgasm and that would explain (in so far as supporting the OP’s premise of it being an evolutionary option) the instances of rape where impregnation is impossible (oral/anal/same-sex). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-all-about-power-and-control-or-an-evolutionary-option/254746.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-all-about-power-and-control-or-an-evolutionary-option/254746.md?page=4)