Xref: utzoo sci.bio:865 soc.men:2508 soc.women:9102 Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bbn!rochester!udel!gatech!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!throopw From: throopw@xyzzy.UUCP (Wayne A. Throop) Newsgroups: sci.bio,soc.men,soc.women Subject: Re: Rape: a genetic catastrophe Message-ID: <586@xyzzy.UUCP> Date: 29 Jan 88 17:36:41 GMT References: <517@gtx.com> <5129@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> <2201@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <3755@aw.sei.cmu.edu> <361@rruxa.UUCP> <5159@c <1932@bsu-cs.UUCP> <574@xyzzy.UUCP> <2594@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> Organization: Data General, RTP NC. Lines: 45 > lazarus@athena.mit.edu (Michael Friedman) >> throopw@xyzzy.UUCP (Wayne A. Throop) > I don't think that rape today is a major reproductive advantage. I > think that it is an example of another trait that does have a > reproductive advantage and which also has many 'side effects'. Yes, right. There is an obvious adaptation to wanting to engage in sexual intercourse. But it seems much more plausible that this set of behaviors is "borrowed" for a dominance display than that the behavior of rape as we know it in humans is an attempt at reproduction. > [...] the reason that men commit rape is simple - it is > pleasurable. The reason that the majority of us do not do this is that > we are not animals - we can forego pleasure because we know it is 'wrong'. The fact that sexual stimulation is pleasurable doesn't fully explain things. For example, why is it more pleasurable than alternative forms of pseudo-sexual behavior? >>These behaviors are simply not tuned as they "ought" to be if there were >>a significant, heritable advantage to them as a reproductive [...] strategy. > I'm curious. How would you fine tune rape to make it a reproductive > advantage? By inhibiting choice of targets that can't conceive, and by limiting the violence to that necessary to acheive impregnation. What reproductive advantage is gained by the rape and beating of an 80-year-old woman? Even if she could have been impregnated, the gratuitous beating compromises the viability of the resultant fetus. If the behavior were selfish-gene-regulated, one would expect a little better fit of action to hypothesized result. Rather like saying that the human hand is an adaptation to swimming, because swimmers can make some pretty efficent and complex use of the hand in the australian crawl. But the point is, the human hand is really not well adapted to swimming, so the hypothesis that its reason for existing is swimming is remarkably poor. So it is with rape and reproduction. -- "You think this is a trap, then?" the Count asked. "I think everything is a trap until proven otherwise," the Prince answered. "Which is why I'm still alive." --- from "The Princess Bride" by William Goldman -- Wayne Throop !mcnc!rti!xyzzy!throopw