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Author Topic:   A Natural History of Rape?
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 6 of 33 (90567)
03-05-2004 2:47 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Parsimonious_Razor
03-05-2004 4:02 AM


quote:
This theory has been hit hard from both sides of the political spectrum but none of the critiques seem to actually bear on any of the content of the studies and only vague naturalistic fallacies.
I have not read the book, but I am looking for what I can find online by them and so far it is none too promising.
Here's some quotes by Palmer on his "theory" from a website discussing their rape theory:
Thornhill and Palmer take aim at the prevailing societal notion that rape isn't about sex but about male power and is "a symptom of an unhealthy society in which men fear and disrespect women."
Palmer and Thornhill say some sociologists advance a view that, they think, incorrectly assumes that rape is "unnatural behavior that has nothing to do with sex and one that has no corollary in the animal world."
They counter that rape is part of the male mental sexual psyche; was at least part of a successful male reproductive strategy in human evolutionary history; and is strong enough to survive today despite strong social sanctions and legal penalties.
But they do not equate "natural" as good and agree that their public mission is to make rape extinct as a trait in human beings.
In an interview, Palmer said the article aims to convince "those who accept evolution but don't see it as applying to the brain and behavior and particularly the behavior of rape.
"We have to convince them that behavior, including sexual, evolved, just like our morphology and anatomy," he said. "The brain evolved along with the rest of the body."
Palmer said they aren't arguing that men who rape are "genetically predisposed to rape" or that there is a rape gene. Rather, they say that all males appear to be genetically capable of rape, and it is an act which can be triggered by environmental conditions or interactions in life.
The two scientists contend that current thinking about what causes rape is so bankrupt that it ignores the reality that by definition rape requires sexual arousal of the rapist.
Thornhill cites his own study of insects called scorpionflies, in which males are equipped with an appendage used solely to grab a female's forewing and prevent her escape during involuntary mating. The "rape clamp" is used when a male scorpionfly fails to attract a female through the alternative reproduction strategy of offering nuptial gifts, such as a dead insect.
Palmer said the argument actually might get greater acceptance among lay people than in some scientific quarters because people instinctively know that men and women are not just biologically different but think differently, have different sexual agendas or goals and "respond to certain behaviors in different ways."
"These differences are what lie at the basis of rape and what made it a possibility in our evolutionary history," he said.
The scientists say this broke a long tradition of professional journals' sidestepping the issue of rape's evolutionary underpinnings as being politically incorrect.
So they admit they are NOT talking about genetics, and yet they have the gall to use the term evolution in discussing their theory? The admit the MOST they are saying is that there is not a genetic break to stop people from raping? Oooooooooo.
They are making extremely strained arguments when they start with those admissions, then say that behvior must be evolved (which at this point hinges on genetics or symbiosis), and to support this claim analogize to an obvious genetic trait of the "rape clamp" in scorpionflies.
I like how they also admit what baloney their theory is by saying it will be more acceptable to lay people that scientists, because... ahem... lay people have some better understanding of human nature? Man, are these guys from the Discovery Institute?
But they make an obvious error by sayng that rape by definition requires sexual arousal of the rapist. In fact, some rapists have been impotent. Some may also never use their own genitals for sexual satisfaction and instead use objects to rape where humiliation is clearly the end goal.
They also seem ignorant of the fact that women also rape, and... as others have mentioned... that the targets of rape those who are patently incapable of reproducing.
This sounds like two guys trying to get some notoriety for themselves and perhaps introduce whatever "fix it" gimmick they have for rape, merely asserting that all others are bankrupt because they do not mention evolution.
Ironically what they don't admit is that they DO mention the very things they themselves say rape comes down to: it is an act which can be triggered by environmental conditions or interactions in life.
Can we say, duh?

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Parsimonious_Razor, posted 03-05-2004 4:02 AM Parsimonious_Razor has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 7 by Parsimonious_Razor, posted 03-05-2004 3:13 PM Silent H has not replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 8 of 33 (90604)
03-05-2004 3:48 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by Parsimonious_Razor
03-05-2004 2:33 PM


quote:
Jon and Tiffany Gottschall did a study that found rape victims were twice as likely to become pregnant as women having a consensual one night stand.
Could this be because women having one night stands are able to control that sexual encounter's procreative results, rather than someone who is raped? I think a study comparing these two things are comparing apples and oranges.
If the point was sex or sexual reproduction, it seems that they should have been examining the results of rape versus a couple trying to get pregnant. I think a steady partner (or partners) over a course of time would result in more chances at reproduction, than hit and miss single encounters.
quote:
The reproductive advantage to rape is potentially about eliminating the commitment, time and energy involved in raising offspring as well just the sexual access.
What about survival advantages, and costs of the hunt advantages, in that NOT raping means less competitors out to capture/kill you, and all the time and energy involved with trying not to be caught after the fact?
quote:
Sexual behavior and sexual preferences are clearly evolutionarily defined and can be "passed" down through heritable mechanisms.
I'll check out your other thread, but I know in a thread on sexual orientation this idea has already been somewhat smashed. It is not CLEARLY evolutionarily anything.
quote:
1) The vast majority of rapes are of reproductive age females.
Another similar study found that the likelihood a woman or women are rapped after a robbery is HIGHLY correlated with whether the woman is of reproductive age. If they are post or pre the robber is likely to just rob the house, rarely to you get rape. Reproductive age females suffer significantly more in robbery/rape crime.
This just makes sense. A person goes to rob a house, he finds someone inside sexually attractive so he "takes" that as well. This also makes sense for those who commit rapes without regard to robbery... generally a person will go after someone he finds attractive. Is it unusual to suspect that most people find women between 13-50 most attractive? That happens to be a pretty huge chunk of most women's lives as well as the general range of people commiting rape.
I might add on the sheer statistics side. Outside of home invasion rapes, women pre and post sexual reproductive age are generally not out at times and in locations where rapes are likely to take place (due to advantages for a rapist).
quote:
2) 90-99% of all rapes victims are female.
This tends to suggest men are the ones most likely commiting rape, but hardly WHY they are doing so. It also does not deal with the other instances of rape (against men), and woman on woman rape.
quote:
3) Forced penile-vaginal intercourse is more likely in sexual assaults of reproductive age females. And these younger women are more likely to be subjected to multiple episodes.
This also makes practical sense. Rapists are more likely to use vaginal intercourse as there are no TEETH, vaginal penetration is considered more personal and so humiliating than oral penetration, and anal penetration may have unintended consequences many rapists may not be interested in having done to themselves.
I would point out that "multiple episodes" in a on hit and run encounter is not really going to enhance reproductive chances that much. This tends to indicate that some other interest is the driving force.
quote:
4) Rape has been found in every culture studied. For example the Yanamamo Indians essentially every female has been raped at least once.
This does not suggest anything other than rape is an option all humans have with regard to behavior... there are no barriers to it.
quote:
1) At the peak fertility of their cycle women are more likely to go out to and meet new people BUT they take MANY more precautions when not at peak fertility.
How is this an anti-rape strategy? Why is this not simply saying that women at the peak of their cycle are more aggressive, due to hormones, than at other times? They are certainly more likely to desire partners and seek them out.
quote:
2) When reading accounts of sexual coercion women at peak fertility have a double or triple increase in grip strength.
This one is particularly not conclusive. As I said, during the peak of their cycle women are more aggressive in general, the fact that their grip strength would increase is not surprising... and what that has to do with rape is beyond me.
quote:
3) And the big sub field here is the post-traumatic stress of the rape... Physical abuse, have been shown to independently correlate highly with the amount of post-traumatic stress. This fits in perfectly to the view that the dangers of rape are removal of reproductive choice (age, type of rape) and damage to existing relationships (marital status, signs of physical abuse). If rape were purely about power or humiliation I would imagine you would see the opposite pattern.
You will have to explain this one a little better, I do not see your conclusion coming from the evidence.
Just to be clear... I have no vested interest one way or the other on the issue of whether rape is a product of evolution. However, I have a vested interest in not doing sloppy science and the growing popularity of assigning all human behavior to a product of evolution is sloppy science.
There are many ranges of action open to humans. Just because something is possible for humans to do, does not mean it was programmed in, or passed down because of "advantages". That's what's wonderful of the evolution of the brain, it has freed us from hardwired action/reaction (like say insects have, and which Thornhill appears to make so many of his dubious analogies to human behavior).
We have to be careful of "reading into" behaviors to find advantages and then say that may be why. It is also dubious to then look at statistics using that projection. Yeah, I guess it could be true, but it is less likely than the more direct/simple reason a human chooses to do something.
[This message has been edited by holmes, 03-05-2004]

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 4 by Parsimonious_Razor, posted 03-05-2004 2:33 PM Parsimonious_Razor has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 9 by Trixie, posted 03-05-2004 4:03 PM Silent H has not replied
 Message 10 by Parsimonious_Razor, posted 03-05-2004 4:21 PM Silent H has replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 18 of 33 (90693)
03-05-2004 9:17 PM
Reply to: Message 10 by Parsimonious_Razor
03-05-2004 4:21 PM


I see from the other thread that you are into Evopsych, and it appears from answers in this thread that you are in close with at least one of the authors of this rape adaptation theory. So let me start by making some general critiques...
In my opinion evopsych has a tendency towards equivocation which is not useful for either psychology or biology.
How about defining what evolution and adaptation and advantage mean to evopsych. From looking at your posts I see you using those terms in the most general way, and not how they are used in the scientific theory of evolution. Yet at the same time trying to gain credibility by sounding like that's what you are talking about.
For example I could talk about the evolution of my next movie. It can be posed as a process of adaptation to new circumstances, with some decisions based on advantages they held for success... This does not make my movie a product of evolution.
We can then step backward to talk about the evolution of cinema as an artform. Again, we use the same kind of terms... This does not make the state of cinema a product of evolution.
We can then talk about art as a form of expression used for reproductive advantage. Again, with the same terms... This does not make art itself a product of evolution (though we are at least getting closer).
What you (and authors such as Thornhill) are doing is deconstructing particular human action using terms ANALOGOUS to the mechanisms of biological evolution, and backing up this deconstruction with scientific statistics to decorate it with a plausibility it does not have in reality.
quote:
Actually the women in Gotschall study were not taking any precautions of birth control and had expressed interest in having a baby.
I will now try and find this specific study. It sounds rather strange: a study that somehow compared pregnancy rates between women being raped, with women going out to get pregnant during one night stands (are you for real?), and stranger still to make conclusions regarding the motivation of men commiting rapes from such a study. This is very suspect, and if you have a link I'd appreciate it.
quote:
under the right situations there is significant advantage that can be gained.
Just because YOU can see an advantage does not make it so. In fact, I am sort of dumbfounded how this became an inheritable behavioral mechanism because of advantage in reproduction, when there would have been no way for early rapists (when the mechanism formed?) to know if they succeeded or not.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but your theory kind of hinges on their knowing that statistical advantage, unless yours is a lamarckian theory that because a guy produced a kid during a rape, the kid inherited some rape behavior proclivity?
To me it seems pretty simple. Humans are driven to engage in sexual activity. Evolution has produced this drive this for reproductive success. It may also have driven visual and hormonal cues for sexual attraction... undoubtedly the state of being able to reproduce would contain a larger number of those cues.
But RAPE is a form of human activity. Some men driven by desire to engage in sexual activity, and frustrated in their goal, may take it by force.
Yet that is the same for any other biologically motivated pursuit (ex. food, air, shelter). Force is simply an optional behavior, or tool, applied by an individual given the situation. Choosing to apply force in a sexual situation does not make it evolutionarily different than applying it elsewhere... and certainly talking about longterm advantages, rather than short term (gratification) is superfluous.
And what's more, human minds have developed the ability to desire more than simple sexual activity, not to mention using sexual gratification (or conquest) to replace "success" in other endeavours.
Thus while evolutionary cues may certainly influence who a person finds attractive, and so targets, the fact that a person chooses sex as an instrument of achieving pyschological dominance over another, or for psychological gratification in place of something else, is NOT linked to evolutionary strategems for creating reproductive mechanisms.
I think it is to hold too hard to a pet theory when one plays down the reality that many rapists had no immediate interest in the sex so much as the end humiliation or dominance, and some went on to torture and murder those victims, in order to focus on the choice of who they find attractive.
Yes, evolution may dictate that those within reproductive cycles are the most attractive, and so who a person is likely to target, but it is not evolutionary mechanisms regarding reproduction which say to go and use force to gain sex... and further to torture and kill.
quote:
Again rape is a circumstance dependent adaptation. It is most frequently found in raids and wars where these effects are least likely to be significant.
I find this particularly questionable. Raids and wars are the removal of social norms. In that state it is not surprising to find gratification of all sorts of desires at the business end of a weapon.
You are correct to point out that rape is circumstance dependent. That means it is a choice defined by a situation. But adaptational? Only to the situation.
quote:
Why would a woman feel more humiliated with vaginal intercourse and not anal or oral? Women do suffer significantly more post-traumatic stress after vaginal rapes than other forms. This correlates with a large number of other factors that indicate that variables that increase the likely hood of conception are the major intensifiers of a rape.
I have not disputed that women feel there reproductive organs are more personal and so an invasion of them would be more personal. What I do not understand is how that in any way shape or form implies that reproductive advantage is the motive for rape. If anything it seems to underscore why rapists hoping to humiliate their victim, in order to address power issues, would use vaginal sex.
quote:
But if all of these societies have similar or even identical trigger events for when, how and to who the rape is committed it suggest a functional adaptation. The fact that most people have hands does not simply imply that there is a barrier to developing fins.
I do not believe that across cultures it has been shown that who gets raped is the same, as even within this country rapists will have their own particular differences with regard to choosing victims.
Generally women of reproductive age? Okay. Attraction to people of reproductive age may be driven by evolutionary mechanisms, but the fact that people choose to victimize (particularly in a sexual way) people they find attractive does not seem to require that level of mechanism.
quote:
The grip strength is only seen after reading scenarios or watching scenarios of sexual coercion. You don’t just have it all the time, or simply by watching a boxing match. If it were only aggression why would it be so specific?
Okay I really need a way to find this study. So you are saying that there is a study which shows that the grip strength of women is increased ONLY when reading or watching scenes of sexual coercion and when AT their sexual peak?
I'd still say that doesn't suggest anything about the nature of rape. In fact if it is such a reproductive advantage, why wouldn't women have adapted to NOT resist rape? If reproduction is the end goal of sex, and your statement about reproduction with one night stands is correct, then rape is an advantage for women just as much as for men.

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 10 by Parsimonious_Razor, posted 03-05-2004 4:21 PM Parsimonious_Razor has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 23 by Parsimonious_Razor, posted 03-06-2004 3:38 AM Silent H has replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 27 of 33 (90882)
03-06-2004 11:36 PM
Reply to: Message 23 by Parsimonious_Razor
03-06-2004 3:38 AM


quote:
An adaptation is a trait that increases survival or reproductive success. In order for an adaptation to be qualified as most likely evolved it must also exhibit a functional design.
It also has to be something that can be passed on. You are arguing that it is evolved because it gives a reproductive advantage. So how does the choice of the use of force get passed on as a trait to its offspring?
In fact, how did the first being rape a partner? If it was choice then, why would it not be the same choice now?
The Tiger Salamander example, assuming it is an inherited trait, could very well be an example of adapted inhibition. So perhaps the salamanders started as cannibals, but developed sensitivities (taste or smell?) to NOT eat each other (that would tend to be an advantage), and only under certain circumstances can this be overcome.
Actually I am uncertain why you cannot put humans into a rape experiment. As long as you had controls to stop a rape before it occurs, why could humans not be put into "trigger" situations?
That Gottshall study seems terribly problematic, and your use of the phrase "wanting to get pregnant" was unfortunate as it was dead wrong. One night stands are not the same as couples trying to get pregnant.
quote:
This demonstrates that rape is ATLEAST if not more of an effective mating strategy than single one-night stands or extra-pair copulations. And these behaviors have an even richer literature about their cross-cultural occurrences... So rape can offer a reproductive advantage.
You are moving way too quickly from results of a random phone survey to conclusions of reproductive advantage, especially ones so significant that it would be "selected for" by evolutionary processes.
quote:
(why does everyone keep placing this age range at 12-50 it is MUCH smaller primarily 18-25 with tails declining rapidly off of that, at 35 women have lost a significant amount of their potential fertility)
The reason why I mentioned that range is because you were talking about men being attracted to females during heights of their cycles, and choice driven by desire to reproduce. If these are true then we should see a spread across the full reproductive cycle of women.
If you are correct that the actual range seen is 18-25, then I'd say culture has a lot to do with it, more so in fact than reproductive desire. Girls between 13-18 have extremely high hormonal outputs, I would think more so than around 25.
The idea that girls become sexual objects at 18 is purely cultural.
quote:
If it were an adaptive trait you would expect to see men raping women at peak fertility. They would rape most frequently when the chances of being caught, or the ability of family/loved ones to retaliate is limited.
I'm sorry but men would also rape women at peak fertility and when the ability to be caught is limited, whether it was adaptive or not.
I think crashfrog hit this on the head when he asked what you thought rape would look like if it was not a product of evolution. I don't see why it would be any different.
quote:
This is why most rapes performed in the world and through out history have been during times of war. Conquered groups lack the ability to retaliate against the rapist actions. And the rapist certainly are focusing on reproductive age females.
All sorts of power trips are worked out during wars. The people involved are juiced up on adrenaline and the consciousness of imminent death, as well as being in a state with few if any moral restraints, and as you point out anyone to stand in their way.
I guess what I would like to see is a study which shows that pregnancy rates of those raped during an invasion are higher than the wives of those same men who commited the rapes when they were back at home, and that the offspring of rapes engaged in increased rates of rape.
I think the war-rape connection is extremely flawed as you have currently outlined it.
quote:
You keep talking like the fact that men are raping women that they find attractive is a meaningless statement, why in the social/power/humiliation theory would there be such a strong emphasis on this attraction? Unless of course a large component of the rape is about sex and sexual excitement.
Sexual attraction may very well be regulated by evolutionary mechanisms. But why would the power-humiliation theory require anything but that. They want to make the unobtainable objects of their desire suffer, or submit to their will.
Yeah, I'll bet sexual attraction may help a burglar decide to rape one girl rather than another, but that does not mean the rape itself was decided by an evolutionary mechanism to heighten reproductive success.
quote:
You seem to suggest that men need to beware of the statistical advantage of rape in order to reap its advantage? No organism needs to know that a behavior has a statistical advantage in order for the trait to evolve.
They do not need to "know" if what we were talking about is a physical change that is passed down to the offspring that gives that child a reproductive advantage. But what physical change occured and was passed on?
What you are discussing appears to be an adaptation of choice, this versus that, for increased advantage. But how is choice passed on other than intellectually?
quote:
Rape circumvents the reproductive advantages of the greatest tool women have. It offers NO advantage and has huge costs.
I hate to say this but this seems contradictory to your theory. So rape is an advantage to men, but NOT to women? If its going to be a trait selected because of reproductive advantage that means a REAL reproductive advantage and so everyone... especially if your point is that women conceive at greater rates when they don't have a choice in the matter.
quote:
I am still at a lost for how you guys really think a power/humiliation model of rape necessitates the kind of patterns we see in how rapes are performed.
Heheheh. The power/humiliation model fits perfectly with HOW they are performed. The only thing it does not automatically determine is WHO will be raped. That can be decided by rules of attraction.
I do not understand why you feel that rape must necessitate anything beyond how an individual reacts to a specific situation. Use of force to obtain what one desires is always an option, why is force used for sex any different than the other uses of force? And why can people not use sexual gratification for other than reproductive purposes?
quote:
hell sperm competition
As an aside, that could make a great title for a porno.

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 23 by Parsimonious_Razor, posted 03-06-2004 3:38 AM Parsimonious_Razor has not replied

  
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