Newsgroups: sci.bio
Path: utzoo!rising
From: rising@utzoo.uucp (Jim Rising)
Subject: More on Forced Copulation
Message-ID: <1988Jan19.094531.8703@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Date: Tue, 19-Jan-88 09:45:24 EST


Forced copulations are well documented in waterfowl.  A fairly
recent summary is McKinney, Derrickson, and Mineau, "Forced 
copulation in waterfowl."  Behaviour, 1983 (pp. 250-293).  I believe that
I have read that on occasion the male(s) drown the female.  By human standards,
that would be against her will.  Although it is not a subject about which I 
know a great deal, I also know of apparent forced copulations in amphipods,
frogs, anoles, and many different kinds of birds and mammals.  I suspect
that it occurs, at least occasionally, in any species in which the males have
an intromittant organ, or amphexis occurs.  I suspect that it is generally
misdirected and ineffective reproductive behavior of no adaptive significance
to males--but that would have to be studied.

In humans females sometimes become pregnant as a consequence of rape.  Thus,
it is potentially selectively advantageous for males to rape.  If there is
heritably-based variance in the tendency to rape (which I doubt), and if males
do enhance their fitness through rape, the behavior would increase in human
populations.  As others have pointed out, this is independent of whether or
not rape is "good" for the species, or, for that matter, females.

--Jim Rising
-- 
Name:   Jim Rising
Mail:   Dept. Zoology, Univ. Toronto
        Toronto, Ontario, Canada    M5S 1A1
UUCP:   {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!rising