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From: web@ssyx.UUCP
Newsgroups: soc.men,soc.women,sci.misc
Subject: Re: Rape a reproductive advantage?
Message-ID: <1617@saturn.ucsc.edu>
Date: 15 Jan 88 23:57:03 GMT
References: <511@gtx.com> <2544@dasys1.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@saturn.ucsc.edu
Reply-To: web@ssyx.ucsc.edu (Wendy)
Organization: UC Santa Cruz; Division of Social Sciences
Lines: 28
Posted: Fri Jan 15 18:57:03 1988

In article <2544@dasys1.UUCP> gf@dasys1.UUCP (G Fitch) writes:
>
>An additional point in reference to this discussion: in primates,
>especially humans, sex (voluntary) is supposed to be used to bring
>about the social cohesion required to support, among other things,
>the very long process of bringing up the young.  The offspring of
>rapists would presumably have a poorer chance of survival during
>childhood.  I wonder if this has ever been studied.

No one so far seems to have mentioned the fact that pregnancies
caused by rape are very likely to be aborted. I don't want to
start an abortion discussion here, since it's inappropriate, but
it seems very unlikely that most women would be willing to give
birth to the child of a rape - therefore, it's not a reproductive
advantage, except in marital rape. 

According to the head of the rape prevention program here, there
have been societies where rape didn't occur at all, as well as 
socities in which it's quite high (such as ours.) This suggests
that social forces are pretty important. Someone asked if there
was any evidence AGAINST it being a genetic trait - I'd say there's
probably much more evidence against it than for it.


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