I have been a victim of a date rape, at the hands of my (at the time) long term boyfriend.
I did not report it, although I still felt victimized, I also knew that it would be an uphill battle to prove anything. He hadn’t seen it as rape, until I explained it to him, using another guy’s name in place of his own. Although it eventually broke us up (I couldn’t trust him anymore), I don’t think of him as a rapist and don’t believe he would’ve ever done it again.
I think all are the physical ability to rape. Most are stronger and men are usually more aggressive, however not all men are capable of rape.
I think the solution to rape does lie with better education to not only the women, but also the men. Women should be taught not be ashamed or feel guilty if they are victimized. Men should be shown the different ways a woman may see the same situation.
One more opnion - rape fantasies. We have had a lot of people jump on each other for bringing these up. I think that we need to remeber here that no woman wants to be raped, but the idea of being able to be “overpowered” by not the man, but our desire for him, is a heady idea. Women, especially nowadays are told that they have to be tough, strong and in control, giving that up, willingly to a trusted lover is not rape, it’s just a fantasy.
Regarding whether or not rape is the ‘best’ strategy: Actually, it depends. In some situations, it makes sense to keep moving and impregnante as many women as possible. In others, it makes sense to find a genetically superior wife/harem, and keep them pregnant and care for your children.
And no, I wasn’t drunk. Call me naive, but I think that a significant portion of rapes could be prevented by the application of a forehead to some section of a guy’s face.
There’s a big difference between “love 'em and leave 'em” and “rape 'em and run away”. The former may in some circumstances be advantageous, but the latter is unlikely ever to be so. A rapist would need to rape a large number of women before he stood a reasonable chance of impregnating even one, and given the trouble involved in carrying out many violent assaults and the ever-present risk of death at the hands of the intended victim or one of her defenders, I’d say that this is not a cost-effective reproductive strategy.
Very well. Let us posit that while a rapist with no other way of relating to women would not be selective. On the other hand, if a person happens on a woman whom he will doubtfully ever meet again, it makes sense from an evolutionary perspective not to leave her unfertilized.
This is a really, really depressing thread.
Stupid hamsters. Okay, here’s the Cliff’s Notes version of my previous longer but tragically unsaved reply:
Any one random sex encounter carries very little chance of a successful term delivery. This was even more true in ancient times than it is today. (In ancient times it was also unlikely that two people would ever meet just once.) In rape cases the chances are even smaller, as the woman may sustain injuries that make childbearing impossible, and she is more likely than a woman who became pregnant through consensual sex to attempt to get rid of the resulting fetus or newborn.
At the same time, rape carries far greater risk for the man than consensual sex, as he must both forcibly overpower his victim and then escape retribution from her and her friends/family/tribe.
So from an evolutionary standpoint it does make sense to “leave a woman unfertilized” if the only alternative is raping her. Evolution does not favor difficult, high-risk behavior that provides no benefit to the well-being of the individual or his existing family and carries only a tiny chance of providing him with new genetic offspring.
That rape has little or nothing to do with the biological drive to reproduce can be seen by examining male-on-male rape. This form of rape is obviously non-reproductive, and almost always occurs only in situations where the rapist wishes to assert his dominance over his victim. Contrary to what Surreal may think, this has historically been seen in prisoner-of-war situations and is common in prisons even today. Male-on-male rape or the threat of such has also long been used as an unofficial form of punishment for men who fail to properly conform to social gender roles. As all these motivations can apply equally well to male-on-female rape I see no reason to go looking for a reproductive explanation, especially since the biology of the situation makes it unlikely that one could exist.