Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!athena.mit.edu!joe
From: joe@athena.mit.edu (Joseph C Wang)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Comments on rape, and biology.
Message-ID: <2284@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Date: 15 Jan 88 21:28:15 GMT
References: <1988Jan14.105712.26089@utzoo.uucp>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: joe@athena.mit.edu (Joseph C Wang)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lines: 27

In article <1988Jan14.105712.26089@utzoo.uucp> rising@utzoo.uucp (Jim Rising) writes to David Muller:

[lines deleted]

>I have grown to concur with you that it is unwise to use the word "rape"
>as a synonym of "forced copulation."  I think that scientists who have
>used the word "rape" in talking of non-human animals have simply been 
>referring to instances of forced copulation--in an hypothesis-free way,
>but obviously there is unnecessary confusion on this point. 

[lines deleted]

>Wang writes that "Humans DO NOT engage in forced copulations for the same
>reason ducks do."  How does he know?  I suspect that in both there are many
>different ultimate reasons why some individuals engage in forced copulation.
>In some instances in both duck and people a rapist may increase his/her
>Darwinian fitness, although that may or may not have anything to do with
>"why" the individual "rapes."

I still believe that humans and ducks by and large engage in forced
copulations for the same reasons; however, that was not the main point of my
article.  I merely objected to the use of the word "rape" for much the same
reason you seem to - it presupposes a hypothesis.
--------------------------------
Joseph Wang (joe@athena.mit.edu) 
450 Memorial Drive C-111
Cambridge, MA 02139