Addresses the debate among scholars over whether rape is the result of an evolutionary adaptation or a perverse behavior that combines sexuality and psychological factors, and explains the different perspectives.
In a population with many different variations, when certain variations (traits) are better suited to the environment than others, individuals with those traits are more likely to survive. This is a common form of evolution in nature. For example, animals that evolved to use thorns as weapons are more likely to survive in areas with lots of thorny trees, so traits that are adapted to the environment have a big impact on an individual’s survival and reproduction. If it’s a trait that’s inherited, it’s passed down and becomes a common feature of the population. This is what Darwin called natural selection. Natural selection is one of the core principles of biological evolution, an important concept that explains how organisms adapt to their environment. Scholars refer to these products of natural selection as “adaptations.
Behavioral ecologist Thornhill’s book The Natural History of Rape – The Biological Basis of Sexual Coercive Behavior sparked a debate about whether rape is an adaptation. This debate has two sides. One side is composed of adaptationists who believe that rape is an adaptation, and the other side is composed of anti-adaptationists who believe that rape is a byproduct of sexuality. This debate has sparked in-depth discussions about many aspects of human morality, ethics, and social behavior beyond just biological evolution.
Adaptationist arguments include Rape is committed by men who have difficulty reproducing, given that their victims are primarily women of childbearing age. Therefore, rape is an adaptive behavior that helps men be more successful in reproduction, and is fundamentally sexual rather than violent. Calling rape an adaptation doesn’t mean it’s fateful or ethically right. It’s just that it’s justified on a first-principles basis. They further justify rape by pointing out that the males of an insect called an undulid have adapted to have an anatomy specialized for rape. In addition to the insect example, they cite many other examples of similar behavior in the animal kingdom to bolster their argument that rape is the result of natural selection.
Anti-adaptationists refer to evolutionary biology as an “adaptationist program” for producing adaptations so easily, and mock adaptationists for seeing anything at all as an adaptation. They refute Thornhill’s book and the evidence of adaptationists. They cite the fact that the victims are mostly women of childbearing age, between 12 and 44. This, they argue, is because those who are more beautiful are more likely to be targeted. Rapists are not acting to reproduce. While some sex offenders do commit crimes for sexual gratification, it is often not the primary motivation for rapists. It’s more likely to be dominance and anger. Also, according to the book, 30% of child victims are under the age of 12, and there is no way to explain this.
To explain extreme behaviors like rape, we need to go beyond the biological perspective and consider psychological and social factors. Rapists often have abnormal psychological conditions. They suffer from low self-esteem, distorted ideas about sexuality, and a lack of learning about other people’s boundaries. In addition, rapists fall into four main categories. First, the violence-oriented, who want to prove their power; second, the violence-enhanced, who want to use violence and see the other person frightened; third, the anger retaliation, who want to release their inferiority and anger towards women through violence; and fourth, the anger arousal, who enjoy seeing the other person suffer through violence. Based on this, we cannot conclude that normal men never rape, but we can infer that rapists are not normal. So it’s hard to see rape as a natural evolutionary consequence of reproduction. As the book puts it, rape is a byproduct of sexuality expressed in a distorted way.
Sexual behavior can take many forms. Consensual heterosexual sex and masturbation are the most common. Only a small percentage of consensual heterosexual sex is aimed at procreation. In this way, rape is one of its many forms. However, this is based on only one factor: sexual desire. The sexual act of rape is a secondary phenomenon that occurs as a result of a number of psychological and mental factors.
It could be argued that although rape is a “libido+α” behavior, its primary purpose is the realization of libido, and the other psychological factors are optional. However, the rest of the psychological factors are not at all conducive to survival, so even if their argument is correct, the behavior of rape under the influence of these factors is not an adaptation. Rather, rape has a negative effect on offspring. It may slightly increase your chances of spreading your own offspring, but it doesn’t help you continue your lineage, especially nowadays. According to the book Geekonomics, laws that legalize abortion and discourage people from having unwanted children help reduce crime rates significantly. Women who become pregnant through rape have unwanted children, and those children are less likely to be successfully raised. This might not be a problem for animals, but humans are much different. We don’t just need to spread our offspring, we need to raise them to be successful individuals in society. Human societies have complex social structures and norms, so simply aiming to reproduce can be counterproductive. It’s hard to understand the argument that animals only reproduce.
The debate over whether rape is an evolutionary adaptation shows that it’s a complex issue that goes beyond a biological perspective and involves human moral, ethical, and social factors. We need to take a multidisciplinary approach when dealing with these issues.
