echidna

This point seems to keep coming up, but I still dont understand why it's at all relevant. Surely the likelihood to rape is the sole important factor here. The motivation could be boredom for all it was worth, but the fact remains that a usually reproductive event (but not always of course) has occurred, and offspring may be born with the rapist's DNA contribution.

Historically rape seems to regularly play an important part of some ethnic cleansing processes such as violent conquest & subjugation. But that doesn't automatically link rape to a biological adaptation. Consider Japanese WWII Rape of China. Yes the Japanese were militarily superior, but does that then mean there was a genetic difference to cause this mass rape of one group over another ? Of course not, there were far more complex social, geo-political and historical differences which reduced any biological differences to zero. So GFA, how on earth can you consider mass rape to be a biological adaptation ? The biology of such behaviour is by far overridden by culture and other factors.

To acknowledge where we've come from culturally, one needs to assess how much modern peoples owe their ancestery to the success of violent conquest as well as the many virtues of peaceful cohabitation. And most if not all of us, owe our ancestry to both to some extent.

Xeluan

Very interesting thread.

Rape as a solely an evolutionary adaption bothers me (as does most sociobiology). One comment I have is the obvious how rape as a evolutionary adaption explains homesexual rape?

Also, IIRC, animals that indulge in rape do when the female is in a fertile period. They do not rape when not mating I think. As best as I can work out, rapists do not care if a woman is ovulating or not.

pz

Not necessarily. Not even likely.

You have to consider that rape/pillage is a fairly high risk strategy. Not only are you less likely to fertilize a woman, but the mothers are likely to be socially stigmatized and less able to raise those children, and the children of rape are going to be handicapped in their upbringing...so it's going to have a low chance of success. Most damning, though, is that running out to rape and pillage is a good way to get killed. Sweet jebus, no. Not this again.

There is no good evidence that complex behavioral traits, like criminality, are genetic in any significant way. Especially when those traits are as poorly defined and subject to bias as "intelligence", "personality", or "criminality". Human heritability studies are appalling chunks of pseudoscientific crap.

cricket

Let's say you're adopting a child and choosing between two. All you know is that one ("A") was fathered by a man with a history of violent sex crimes, and the other ("B") was fathered by a man with no such history.

Which would you choose?

I would choose child "B" over child "A". Whether or not child "A" was conceived as a result of rape, I would choose "B."

Would you? or would you have no preference?

ma1939

We speak of rapists having a lack of empathy for the victim. Think about male sexuality for a moment. Lack of empathy is not exclusive to rapists. Take, for example, men who are out to "score" and will tell every lie known to man to cajole a woman into going to bed with him. There are probably millions of men in this country that do this. Some of these men will date a woman for months, convince the woman there is some sort of emotional connection, sleep with her one night, then dump her. Why? They don't want emotional baggage; they purely want sexual satisfaction. Technically, this is not rape. In my definition, it is a form of rape; the end result is that the woman still feels humiliated, though perhaps not traumatized as in a real rape. Do these men care if the woman feels victimized? No, otherwise they would not have maneuvered her into the bedroom. Or perhaps they are capable of empathy, but their ability to empathize has been overcome by pure lust. I'm not claiming that most rapists don't have a pathological desire to hurt their victim, but some of you are denying the sexual aspect completely.

cricket

"Rape is not about sex" is like saying bank robbery is not about greed.

Must run, but tonight I'll look that up; it's in Blank Slate

pz

No preference, at least with respect to those conditions. I suspect the belief that children of criminals tend to be criminals is fostered by exactly this kind of bias.

You know, the idea that crimes are carried in the body of subsequent generations is rather biblical.

Dr Rick

..."Rape is an evolutionary behavour" is like saying bank robbery is also.

Dr Rick

It predicts that females would be the only victims of rape. And not just any female, but only ones of reproductive capability.

The sociobiologic theory of rape doesn't predict or explain forced sodomy, rape of pre-pubescent and post-menopausal women, or rape of men. The sociobiologic theory of rape does not predict or explain the rape of spouses. The sociobiologic theory of rape does not predict or explain why rapists would be psychologically similar to other violent criminals. The sociobiologic theory of rape does not explain why most rapes do not involve intravaginal ejaculation.

Sociobiologic theory predicts that rape is an adaptive and heritable trait that may produce a reproductive advantage, except that it doesn't.

Rick

cricket

My understanding of the theory is that “the desire to rape” is what matters, and that rapists do prefer young women, but their drive to rape does (sometimes) result in them “settling” for men, old women, etc.

Couldn’t it still be a reproductive advantage, even if the targets are sometimes not in line with what evolution would “want”?

(Throw enough sperm and something will stick... or whatever that saying is.)