Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!lll-tis!ames!ll-xn!husc6!hao!gatech!mcnc!xanth!kent
From: kent@xanth.cs.odu.edu (Kent Paul Dolan)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Rape: a genetic catastrophe
Message-ID: <3891@xanth.cs.odu.edu>
Date: 4 Feb 88 12:00:28 GMT
References: <517@gtx.com> <5129@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> <2201@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <1966@bsu-cs.UUCP> <373@rruxa.UUCP> <4371@watdcsu.waterloo.edu>
Reply-To: kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan)
Organization: Old Dominion University, Norfolk Va.
Lines: 46


I took soc.men and soc.women off the newsgroups line; people who
bother to read and post in those two groups will waste each other's
and the net's time to infinity injecting their sexual politics beliefs
into every discussion, on every subject, barring reason from ever
entering the discussion.  Seeing all the political arguments in
sci.bio, to the complete elimination of any competent biological
inquiry, is rather revolting.

It also amuses me endlessly to see rapists described as consciously
acting to promote the cause of male supremacy.  The rapists I have
read of wouldn't even be capable of understanding the concept, much
less of acting to the benefit of anyone but themselves.

Enough; to the sociobiological point.

Why is everyone assuming that there is even any chance that
procreation mediated by rape would offer an increased chance of
surviving progeny to the rapist?  The human species has operated in
family groups for as long as we can follow the evidence, presumably
because the bonded pair has a superior chance of passing genes to
surviving offspring.  A female left to bear and nurture a child
without the presence of the child's father has a limited chance of
either surviving herself, or of raising the child to sexual maturity,
as compared to a female who has the help and assistance of the male
parent.  It seems to me that over the duration of the human species,
rape, if anything, would distract the male parent from the role of
provider and protector, and thus would offer a genetic competitive
disadvantage compared to pair bonding, and would be selected against.
I offer as evidence that the instance of rapists in society is fairly
small compared to the non-rapists, whereas it would be expected to be
large if it were a trait promoting successful genetic survival,
because the rapist (male) parent has the opportunity to pass on genes
to many more offspring than the pair bonding male parent.

Also missing from the discussion has been any consideration of rape in
the aftermath of conquest, where it seems to provide the function of
an extreme kind of exogamy, and has been documented repeatedly in
history.  This would (at first glance) seem to serve the biologically
useful process of quickly mixing isolated reproductive groups, albeit
at high cost in suffering on the part of the victims.  Does this
provide a genetic edge, and perhaps "explain" the survival of the rape
impulse at all?

Comments?

Kent, the man from xanth.