Evolution and rape

@Setanta,

Setanta: I 've noted that some violence may have occurred in chance encounters--that's a far cry from organized warfare.
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Are you nuts, Set. The "peaceful" USA has been warring for more than 3/4s of its existence.

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@maxdancona,

Max: Men with great power often force women within their communities to have sex with them. You see this in all sorts of cultures.
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You see it in all the illegal invasions that the USA has been involved which number over 200!! You see it encouraged by high USA officials.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

I'm done talking to you, Thomas,

Works for me.

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@Thomas,

I was also responding to Setanta. If you define "rape" as any coerced sex, then then a lot of rape can happen within a community and some rape is even condoned by the communities where it takes place.

I think that Sentanta is talking about a very specific type of coerced sex that only happens in context of war. When you broaden the definition of "rape" to mean any coerced sex, his arguments don't make any sense since the children of coerced sex in many instances (for example a powerful man forcing women to bear his children in the community he controls) the offspring will be very well cared for.

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@Thomas,

And, for what is worth, I am not done talking to you.

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@maxdancona,

The name is Setanta, it's a small enough courtesy to get it right. The problem i have with what you have been posting, and what Thomas has been posting recently is that you two seem to be channeling Susan Brownmiller, as though any sexual relations between men and women constitute rape. I not only was not referring solely to the context of war, i have addressed rape which might have occurred in ancient times which was not in the context of war. Without a firm definition of rape, this discussion will always break down. As the paper is published in the 21st century, i have been assuming a simple, 21st century definition of rape--coerced sexual assault, without the consent of one of the parties concerned. Your speculations (and that's all they have been) about what may or may not have happened in cultures in the past have such a broad definition of what rape is as to be meaningless.

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@Setanta,

This is a strawman Setanta. Neither Thomas nor I have been saying anything close to "any sexual relations between men and women constitute rape".

The definition of rape I have been using is "coerced sex" without the consent of one of the parties concerned. I think this is a perfectly good definition (I think the word "assault" makes the definition less clear, but ok).

This definition makes it really simple to distinguish between rape and consensual sex.

- Sex between a man and a woman where neither party is forced is not rape
- Coerced sex is rape.

This is a lot different your Brownmiller strawman. Sex where neither party is coerced is quite common.

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@maxdancona,

You need to tell Thomas that sex without coercion is common--he doesn't seem to know that.

You have been alleging (without evidence) that arranged marriages are coerced sex, and therefore rape, and that a "strong man" (i don't remember the exact term you used, and don't care) having sex with women in his group is coerced sex, and therefore rape. Small wonder i think you're channeling Susan Brownmiller. How doe you know that such situations automatically entail coercion? More to the point, what evidence do you have that this was always true, or often true, or even just sometimes true?

Once again, i'm not arguing that the thesis of the authors is incorrect. I'm arguing that they haven't made their case, and you're not helping it. Which is why i continually revert to that special verdict Scottish juries can return, "not proven."

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@Setanta,

Quote:

The name is Setanta, it's a small enough courtesy to get it right.

In the grade school I attended that would have been good for two fights a day...

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@gungasnake,

Which fights i would have won, beginning with kicking your sorry ass.

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@Setanta,

Setanta: which fights i would have won, beginning with kicking your sorry ass for making fun of my big fat ass.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

And, for what is worth, I am not done talking to you.

Glad to hear it. Smile

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@Setanta,

Sentanta: I'm done talking to you, Thomas, ... .

A Typical whiny reaction from Set. And what a hypocrite! He does three paragraphs then says he's done.

Why oh why would a seemingly sensible lady like Beth take on such an emotional cripple?

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

This is a strawman Setanta. Neither Thomas nor I have been saying anything close to "any sexual relations between men and women constitute rape".

I agree. The point, rather, is that any sexual relations between men and women have a statistical tendency to impregnate women, and thereby to confer a selective advantage over people who don't have sex. (They especially confer it on the men, because a male's reproduction is not limited by pregnancy and is limited by their rate of sexual intercourse. For women it's almost the opposite.) This is true whether the sexual relations are coerced or not. Natural selection does not favor rapists in particular; it just doesn't exclude them from it selecting for them, just as it selects for any other kind of copulator.

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Yet another evolutionite success story...

http://ktla.com/2013/10/25/serial-rapist-to-be-released-in-l-a-county-location-to-be-decided/#axzz2ul9yIRqk

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@Thomas,

While i exaggerated the case for emphasis, this is what you wrote:

Quote:

That's right. Access for your sperm to a womb sometimes produces a child, even if the access takes a heinous form such as rape. By contrast, declining to access a fertile womb never produces a child, even if you decline it for noble reasons such as respect for women. Accessing the womb, then, is always more likely to produce a child than not accessing it --- including in the case of rape.

Declining to rape cannot reasonably be said to be equivalent to declining to "access a womb." If you're going to hold me to high rhetorical standards, perhaps you ought to meet equally high standards. You had already posted numbers to show how the "rape" crowd's numbers would grow exponentially in comparison to the "don't rape" crowd, which means you were assuming that there is an evolutionary advantage conferred by rape, which is begging the question. Furthermore, the evolutionary impulse could equally well be a product of a tendency to exploit opportunity and/or an evolutionary tendency to violence. This is why i said you were moving off into surreal realms--you were exaggerating cases (and numbers) simply in order to support an argument which assumes an evolutionary compulsion to rape, which begs the question of whether or not there is such an evolutionary advantage.

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@Setanta,

This is "I'm done talking with you, Thomas"?

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@Setanta,

Quote:

Declining to rape cannot reasonably be said to be equivalent to declining to "access a womb."

Of course it can. It is a simple mathematical fact.

It seems obvious that a male who is able to coerce sex (in addition to any consensual sex) will have access to more wombs than a male who will only engage in consensual sex.

If a male has the ability to coerce sex from an unwilling female, but chooses not to, he is clearly denying himself access to a womb. A male who coerces sex from females has access to both willing and unwilling females, meaning he has access to more wombs.

This is a mathematical fact, nothing else.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Quote:
Declining to rape cannot reasonably be said to be equivalent to declining to "access a womb."

Of course it can. It is a simple mathematical fact.

This is a mathematical fact, nothing else.

This is some of the most utter nonsense i've recently seen. I wasn't talking about the math (which is dubious as a prop for the claim that rape provides an evolutionary advantage). I simply pointed out that declining to rape is not the equivalent to declining to access a womb (a thoroughly disgusting turn of phrase). No matter what you allege about the "math," it remains true that declining to rape does not mean that those who decline to rape are therefore declining the opportunity to sexually reproduce. You're confusing method with (putative) results.

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@Setanta,

Quote:

it remains true that declining to rape does not mean that those who decline to rape are therefore declining the opportunity to sexually reproduce.

This is so clearly wrong that I am not even sure how to respond.

If there is an unwilling fertile female and a male has the ability to coerce sex from her, the male has an opportunity to sexually reproduce.

If in this case the male declines to coerce sex, then he is declining the opportunity to sexually reproduce.

I don't know how this can be any simpler.

1 Reply

Evolution and rape

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