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From: scm@gtx.com (Sue Miller)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,soc.men,soc.women,sci.misc
Subject: re: Rape a reproductive advantage?
Message-ID: <517@gtx.com>
Date: 8 Jan 88 00:37:20 GMT
Reply-To: scm@gtx.UUCP (Sue Miller)
Distribution: na
Organization: GTX Corporation, Phoenix, Arizona
Lines: 32


>
>>>>I expect there's an evolutionary advantage.  Rapists probably reproduce
>>>>better than non-rapists.
>>>>
>>>>Keith Doyle
>>>
   Not really.  Not unless you intend "non-rapists" to mean ONLY those
individuals who otherwise have no other way to pass on their DNA.
Otherwise, if it were an advantage that increased one's fitness (a la
Darwin, not Jack LaLanne ;-) ) I would certainly expect it to be exhibited
more frequently.
  As it is, I am not sure that rape as we humans know it
even exists in any other species - although the example of cricket sexual
behavior comes close I guess.  The "fittest" male crickets build little
dens ("lovenests") and chirp in order to attract females for "dates".
The less-fit cricket males don't build dens or chirp in a way that attracts
females.  Some of these (given the entertaining title of "sneaky fuckers"
by a bio TA I had) will hang around hoping to waylay ( :-) ) a female
on her way to a tryst.  Since cricket females are bigger than the males
the "sneaks" are not terribly successful -- but I guess it beats no 
chance at reproduction at all.  This doesn't seem like a very good
parallel to the aggressive power trip that human rapists seem to exhibit.

Any social/behavioral biologists out there care to comment?  I think that
this has been somewhat of a hot topic with them recently.


-- 
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 |  Sue Miller         UUCP: ihnp4!sun!sunburn!gtx!scm |
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