Now, let’s say that neither really has any interesting in making children - they just want sex. Renders the whole point moot. Which do you think happens more often where humans are concerned: sex for pleasure, or sex with the specific intent of making babies?
Even if they do both specifically want children, there is no guarantee that violent sex will increase his chances of anything. Stress can cause miscarriages, the woman get get an abortion, the violence of the act can render the woman incapable of having children, the woman can simply dump the kid, and so on. Indeed, unless the male sticks around, there is no guarantee at all for him one way or the other. Humans are not typical of “mate mulitple times, and leave the children to their fate” reproductive strategy.
The act of an individual reproducing is not the sole key to evolutionary success. Multiple generations of reproduction are necessary for your lineage to be considered “successful”. If you have sex with 60 women, and they all bear children, and all those children fail to reproduce for whatever reason, you are an evolutionary failure.
Yes, I would. Ever heard of “emergent proprties”? Our brains may be the product of genetic programming, but what happens to produce a “mind” - one capable of abstract thought - is more than the mere sum of firing neurons. No, I’m not trying to get metaphysical here, I’m pointing out that properties of the mind are such that every behavior canot be traced back directly to a genetic origin. There is no gene, or combination of genes, that has “made” me study evolution, or to generate to these posts. Some very basic behaviors - the desire to eat, and to reproduce, for example - are rooted in genetics. The means by which we fulfill those needs, however, are not. I can choose to eat a chocoloate cake, or kill a bison, or eat a plate of brussell sprouts to sate my hunger. I can opt to either have consentual sex, masturbate, or go out and rape someone to fulfill my sexual desires. But genetics themselves do not dictate the choices I make.
I’ve already exlained this above. And the question was not “under specific circumstances…”, it was an implied “in general…”. There may well be theoretical possibilites where rape might be be the favorable method of ensuring progeny, but I see no evidence that any of them manifest themselves in reality. Show me that the primary motivation behind rape is reproduction.
There ya go. You can’t have it both ways: either we are programmed to rape, or we are programmed not to rape. Which is it?
None of which satsifies the first sentence. Simple rape does nothing to ensure that the female invests anything in the caring of whatever children may result.
Why do we go to such lengths to not cause pregnancy when having sex? Presumably that’s in our genes as well, eh?
Again, you want it both ways. If you’re going to argue that ALL behvaiors are evolutionary in origin, then I anxiosuly await your explanation for sexual prophylactics.
I would first of all like to point out that the OP presents a false dilemma. There’s no contradiction between rape evolving as a procreation option and the psychological motivation of rapists being about power rather than sex. After all, the primary motivation for more usual forms of sex have nothing to do with procreation either. Basically, everything that’s hardwired into our psychology is there because it contributes to inclusive fitness, from involuntary positive reactions to cute kids to propensities to fall in love to an inclination to organize ourselves into larger groups, it’s all about making babies in the end. However, virtually none of those hardwired motivations are directly conscious of that evolutionary end. Why should they be? We get hungry because if we didn’t, we’d be less likely to reproduce. Does that mean that we eat because we want to have children? Well, I guess I can’t speak for everyone, but I certainly don’t.
As to the more substantive question in the OP, I just don’t know. I’m not completely convinced by the arguments against the supposition presented here, though, and it seems to me at least possible that the link between general aggression and forcible sex we see in chimps might exist in humans for the same reason. The prevalence of rape in the wake of war is not all that dissimilar.
Yes it is. Read the description of what happens in chimps again, in the OP’s link. Now consider the average human rape scenario. The two are nothing alike, except that, eventually, sex is involved.
I dunno, man. I’d like to believe it, myself, but I’m not so sure. So far as I can tell, it’s a time-honoured tradition that when you raid the neighbouring tribe, you not only kill a few warriors and carry off a few slaves, but you also rape any women you come across as well. A link between aggression and sex doesn’t seem far-fetched to me at all. Is the group that rapes when raiding more likely to pass genes on to subsequent generations than the group that doesn’t? Probably.
Now, this is quite admittedly a rather different scenario from your usual case of rape in modern society. But that’s rather beside the point, isn’t it? What psychological hardwiring we have (and I quite agree with you that not nearly all of it is hardwired) is “designed” for life as tribal hunter-gatherers. We just haven’t lived in civilized settings long enough to have adapted away from the tribal nature. So if there is a link between aggression and sex, it won’t go away in non-tribal settings, but it may well express itself in radically different ways (even ways which are in fact deleterious to inclusive fitness) when people are placed within the strictures of a more structured society.
Obviously this is hardly conclusive, and I am certainly not trying to say I’ve demonstrated a case here. But I remain unconvinced by your arguments on the other side, as well.
This debate reminds me of a review of a book written, if I remember right, by a biologist, grounded in Darwinian theory, who argued that rape was essentially biological, rather than socio-cultural. He (I think it was a man) also felt that a better understanding of the “rape” drive (for want of a better word) might enable us to develop better ways of preventing rape over time.
I’ll ask around and see if I can come up with the title.
Could someone explain to me why rape evolved as a procreation strategy in some hominids, but not in others?
Yeah, I can see that becoming a captain of industry is an indirect product of evolution, like rape is an indirect product of evolution.
A lot of behavioral evolution bothers me. A very complicated action or attitude is said to be a direct product of evolution. Again, I think it’s reasonable, and provable, that broad-based behaviors like aggression or cooperation can be said to have evolved, but I am just not convinced that the motivation for rape is a direct result of the evolved urge to procreate. It’s just way too great a leap of logic.
Yes, but it’s also about seeking pleasurable sensations. Aren’t we programmed (I hate that word) to seek pleasurable sensations, like sweet tastes? This seeking of pleasurable sensations is not the same as the urge to procreate (although it might lead to procreative acts), but anyway, it explains why we masturbate and have oral sex and eat chocolate cake.
Bolding mine.
I read this far and realised that I was reading pure tripe. Where have you made the case against psychological/sociological basis for rape? Where have you provided a sound platform for a biological basis for rape?
You indicate little understanding of any of psychology, biology or evolution (maladaptive? Christ, poetic license is not a driver’s permit). The splashes you make when floundering around in this topic suggests you are well out of your depth.
I’m guessing, then, that you have no desire to be convinced, given that there is ZERO evidence that rape is evolutionarily motivated, yet you have no trouble at all accepting that premise.
The cases described for chimpanzees are, again, not rape. Not even close. Read the descriptions of the behavior again until you see that. If anything, it’s more similar to an abusive, co-dependent relationship among humans. But that’s still not rape. Contact between the male and female chimps is prolonged, and violence serves to convince the females that the male is “worthy”. Over time, the female willingly submits. Sex is not forced.
Rape, on the other hand, by definition, involves an unwilling partner. Sex is forced. I honestly don’t see why this distinction is lost here.
It’s very simple: there are certain prerequisites that must be met before a behavior can be the result of natural selection. First and foremost, it must be heritable, which usually means it must be genetic in origin. Not have deep roots, such as the desire to have sex in the first, but the specific behavior is the result of genetics - it’s instinctive, in other words. Second, there must be a definite advantage to the behavior, in that it leads to you being more likely to mate, and/or more of your offspring surviving. That’s how adaptation works: the frequency of a trait in the overall population increases because those individuals with that trait are differentially preferred when it comes to mating. Such has not been demonstrated AT ALL with respect to rape behavior.
Nonsense. I am not convinced because you have provided no evidence that rape isn’t evolutionarily motivated - just some conjecture based on a few general principles that may not be as widely applicable as you are suggesting.
Well, since my vague suggestion wasn’t specifically about particular rape behaviour, but about a general tendency for there to be a link between aggression and sex, you’re looking for too specific of a programmed behaviour in the first place.
During our evolutionarily formative years, humans were tribal, agreed?
And humans have a strong tendency towards aggression between tribes, agreed?
There is a possibility that this aggression does have some genetic basis, yes? As in, more aggressive tribes tended to gain resource advantages that translated into more and healthier offspring.
Why then is it so impossible to imagine that some of this aggression might tend to be expressed sexually? And why isn’t it plausible to suppose that tribes that not only raided neighbouring tribes but raped the neighbouring tribes’ women as well should have more success in passing on genetic material?
Heck, I’m not wedded to the thesis. It’s just that violence and forced sex are so very often linked throughout human history that I think your dismissal of any possible genetic connection is a tad abrupt. It’s a theme that extends across all cultures that I’m aware of. Rape in the wake of war is nearly universal. What’s the explanation for that, if I’m completely wrong in my conjecture?
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.
That’s true only if you believe the woman is weaker than the man to the point she can’t injure the rapist in her attempts to fight him off. How many attempted rapists today are injured by their intended victims? I’m sure there are a few. And I think our pre-historic female ancestors were at least as tough (if not much tougher) than females today.
For rape to make evolutionary sense, the risks of getting fatally injured during or after the rape would have to be smaller than the probability of impregnating the woman and the resulting child surviving to reproductive age. Also, even a non fatal injury could hurt the man’s reproductive chances in the near term. Those would have to be figured in as well.
Certainly there are men physically capable of overpowering a woman (or we’d have very few rapes), but I don’t think you can go so far as to say there’s “very little risk to the rapist.”
And, again, I note that you accept the OP’s premise, which is based on as much, if not more conjecture. I have stated what must be true for rape to be the product of evolution. Show me that it is true. If you cannot, what basis do you, or anyone else, have for sticking to the claim? Do you also believe in unicorns because no one has proven they don’t exist?
Evolution is not a mysterious process. There are theories and predictions involved, you know. If what I have said is “just” so much conjecture, it should be easy to refute, what with all the contrary evidence available, right? So, go on and give it a whirl - refute away.
All fine so far…
…And here’s where the train derails. I’m not interested in what one can “imagine”. I can imagine six-limbed vertebrates, but guess what: there aren’t any. And there’s a good evolutionary reason why. Don’t tell me what “could be”, show me what is. Show me that the primary motivation of rapists, in their own words, is not merely sex, not power, but reproduction. Show me that primitive tribes raped opposing women for the same purpose.
Here’s a good reason why they “might not” have: they’re the enemy. You hate them, that’s why you attacked their village in the first place. What could possibly be gained evolutionarily by allowing their genes to mix with yours? You will recall, of course, that the female contributes half of the genetic material. The object is not simply to sow your seed willy-nilly – it’s to mate with someone who you deem sufficiently “fit”; otherwise, again, the whole adaptation argument breaks down. Nowadays, genes aren’t all the rage, since we tend to go for superficialities like appearance (which can be easily modified) and money. So instances where the conquered are specifically turned into baby-factories occur far more often now than I would wager they did in the past (that and wars are fought on much larger scales, necessitating more troops than were necessary in the past). But, even in such baby-factory cases, the emphasis is not on spreading one’s genes – it’s to make grist for the mill, which is decidely anti-evolutionary.
First, show me were I have denied a connection between sex and violence. I even pointed out that the chimp example demonstrates just such a connection. Just not in the way you think. That such a connection may exist does not equate to a connection between rape and evolution.
Second, a non-evolutionary explanation for rape in war is not difficult to come by: testosterone-laden men, without access to women for often-long periods of time, take out their sexual frustrations / desires on the conquered. Once societal restrictions are removed (you are, after all, violating all sorts of typical societal rules by participating in a war, anyway), hey, it’s free sex! Why do you think hookers are so popular with servicemen (except, perhaps, for the “free” part…)? But guess what: consentual sex encounters, even marriages often result from the same situations. So it is not a given that for all (or even necessarily the majority of) men, war and rape go hand-in-hand.
Again, show me that the foremost thought on a rapists mind is making babies, and I will readily concede the point. If, however, it’s just an incidental side-effect, then it cannot be argued that it’s an evolutionary adaptation. Contrary to what you might think, that’s not how natural selection works.
Incidently, here’s some information on fertility. You will note that the highest probabilities of pregnancy only occur after prolonged sexual activity. A single “wham-bam-thank you ma’am” does diddly-squat for a male’s chances of spreading his seed. It makes good evolutionary sense, given this data, that long-term consentual relationships are going to net a male far more than brief, violent sex ever will.
Unless he plans on getting around a hell of a lot.
I have explicitly stated that I do not accept the OP’s premise, but merely have not ruled it out.
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.
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. 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. 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.
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.
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.