Xref: utzoo sci.bio:986 soc.men:3050 soc.women:10177
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!bbn!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!saturn!chromo!kevin
From: kevin@chromo.ucsc.edu (Kevin McLoughlin)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,soc.men,soc.women
Subject: Re: Rape: a genetic catastrophe
Message-ID: <2401@saturn.ucsc.edu>
Date: 17 Mar 88 04:39:33 GMT
References: <517@gtx.com> <5129@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> <2201@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <1966@bsu-cs.UUCP> <1687@rtech.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@saturn.ucsc.edu
Reply-To: kevin@chromo.UUCP (Susan Nordmark)
Organization: Physics Asylum, University of California, Santa Cruz
Lines: 43

In article <1687@rtech.UUCP> linda@rtech.UUCP (Linda Mundy) writes:
>> opposed to the hypothesis that rape reflects our genetic make-up?  I

>me a minute, I'm sure I can think of one...)  Here's one:  why is it that
>no other "animal" besides Man (generic of course!?) exhibits the behavior of
>organized warfare?  

As an aside--of all the primates (our closest relatives), only
adult male orangutans occasionally behave in a manner that might be
described as rape, ie violently forcing sexual intercourse. It
seems relevant to point out the peculiarities of the orang's social
adaptation. Orangs range in grouping patterns of mom + baby and
sometimes adolescent, and solitary adult males. Ie, individuals
stay with mom until adolescence, then (as I recall) they gradually spend less
time ranging together until the adolescent (male or female)is
on his/her own. While I don't recall whether females spend time
with mom after she (the teen) has mated for the first time and given
birth herself, a male in particular leaves and becomes totally solitary
after adolescence. I mean he doesn't intentionally meet 
and interact with other orangs for the rest of his life--except
when he meets up with a female in estrus and wants to have
sex with her (and if he meets up with another male--but 
territory-wise they tend to avoid each other). So these male
orangs are, shall we say, super-nonsocial. Antisocial. My 
guess is that they just forget and/or disregard the rules of
polite orang interaction after a while, and under the stress of
hormonal activation let themselves get violently carried away.

Orangs are, as primates, weird, because they turn the whole primate
adaptation--social life--on its head. Only in such a non-society
can rape-like behavior be gotten away with, it appears.
You just can't have that kind of behavior. Theory suggests, 
anyhow, that females do the choosing and that such behavior isn't
real appreciated by the ladies.
Anyhow, what this all says to me is that rape is real antisocial,
just not something that social-type primates (like us) can
develop except under real pathological conditions (such as most
current human societies)??
solitary.
-----------
Susan Nordmark
Internet: kevin@chromo.UCSC.edu			
UUCP: ...ucbvax!ucscc!chromo.kevin		Santa Cruz, CA