Man, her last work, who seem’d so fair,
Such splendid purpose in his eyes,
Who roll’d the psalm to wintry skies,
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation’s final law?
Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek’d against his creed? – Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H. (LVI)
One of the reasons the “rape is not sexual” myth has such staying power despite its clear absurdity is that it appeals to both men and women; as I said in “The Rape Question”,
… the truth – that rape is a natural, though unfortunate, outgrowth of our sexual programming – is scary to men because it reduces them to the level of animals, and to women because it means there is always the risk of rape in heterosexual relations. By ignoring the 73% of all unwanted sex which isn’t forcible, people of both sexes could pretend there was no elephant in the parlor…
Very often, humans prefer to believe a comfortable lie than to accept the uncomfortable truth that Nature is a bitch goddess who doesn’t give a damn what any of us might want, and if She had Her way human life would be, as Hobbes put it, “nasty, brutish and short.” From Her point of view, we exist for one reason and one reason only: to be fruitful and multiply. And both male sexual aggression and female sexual response evolved to fulfill that one goal, individual health and happiness be damned. This is not to say that natural impulses are “corrupt” or “evil” as the Platonists (and their modern philosophical descendants) would have it, nor that they are “pure” and “good” as the idealists believe; they are amoral, and it is for the human mind, guided by the individual moral compass, to determine when to follow them, when to sublimate them and when to control them. In order to make these determinations the individual needs understanding, and in order to understand he needs knowledge; the reason belief systems and mass movements want sexual knowledge suppressed is so that the faculties of rational decision-making are starved, and many therefore turn to the leaders of those movements for guidance. If people understand the underlying reasons for rape, they can learn how to control it themselves rather than being forced to rely upon the morally bankrupt dogmas and paternalistic, authoritarian non-solutions pushed by governments, feminists, religions and others with a vested interest in controlling the interaction between men and women.
The most important thing to recognize is that, contrary to dogma, rape is neither an asexual act nor a result of “patriarchal culture”: it is a type of reproductive behavior, and occurs in many species that have neither cultures nor hierarchical social interactions. As I explained in “Ice Cream in the Hand”, reproductive success for males depends upon spreading their sperm as widely as possible so as to inseminate as many females as possible; rape can therefore be an effective strategy for a low-status male who might not otherwise be able to pass on his genes in any other way. Remember that concepts like law, fairness and individual autonomy are very recent arrivals on the landscape, and our sexual behaviors evolved in their absence. The fact that we now recognize unwanted sexual contact as a violation of personal rights is no more germane to a discussion of how the behavior evolved than moral stipulations against murder are in considering the feeding habits of carnivora.
When one contemplates the big picture, human females are fortunate: rape did not evolve as a primary mating strategy among the primates, and though it occurs in chimpanzees and some other apes and monkeys it is not the norm in any primate species. That’s not so among ducks and geese, where sex is always violent and apparently coercive, and among a number of species of large herbivores, where it’s usually so; I can even tell you from personal observation that billy goats don’t wait for consent, and if they’re big and strong enough can sometimes force sex even with a nanny who doesn’t seem very happy with the proceedings. Bottlenose dolphin sex is extremely aggressive, and what seem to be gang rape situations are not uncommon (we can’t be sure if they all take turns or if she’s forced to choose one, because dolphins are very averse to copulating within view of humans). But in some species, there is absolutely no courtship at all; instead evolution has produced a sort of “arms race” between their sexes, with males evolving mechanisms to facilitate rape and females evolving mechanisms to make it more difficult. Here’s an example from a recent news article:
A male fish from Mexico has…genitalia…equipped with four hooks…[to] allow him to grab onto a resistant female during mating…Brian Langerhans of North Carolina State University…explained that the male’s hooked genitals may be a counter-response to the female’s own defenses against undesirable mates. “Typically, reproduction is more costly in females, so females favor ways of reducing mating with ‘lower quality’ males, but reproduction is cheap in males and so selection favors ways of mating with as many females as possible”…Females of this species have evolved to have a big ball of tissue that blocks most of the genital pore. This means the female would have to deliberately allow the male to mate with her unless the male evolved a counter-response, Langerhans explained. The four-hooked genitalia could help the males overcome resistance and latch onto a female’s genital pore and deposit sperm inside her…Another…species…recently discovered in Vietnam sports sex parts that jut out of its head and are equipped with a rod and a jagged hook to clasp the female during mating…
One can only imagine the thorny issues of consent and coercion which might arise if a species like this were to evolve high-order intelligence; the “War of the Sexes” would be more than just a metaphor among such creatures. In humans, as in all other animals, conflict arises whenever the reproductive aims of an individual male and an individual female fail to coincide; the key to reducing the number of such incidents, and to mitigating the damage they cause to both parties (and to society as a whole) when they occur despite precautions, is knowledge. Understanding why an organism behaves in the way it does may allow one to halt or divert that behavior, but the lack of understanding which inevitably results from an incorrect theoretical framework empowers nobody but those who want the conflict to continue in order to further their own self-serving agendas.
Amen Sister!
I could excerpt the entire blog, but what would be the point? However, I did find this paragraph exceptionally well stated.
This is not to say that natural impulses are “corrupt” or “evil” as the Platonists (and their modern philosophical descendants) would have it, nor that they are “pure” and “good” as the idealists believe; they are amoral, and it is for the human mind, guided by the individual moral compass, to determine when to follow them, when to sublimate them and when to control them. In order to make these determinations the individual needs understanding, and in order to understand he needs knowledge; the reason belief systems and mass movements want sexual knowledge suppressed is so that the faculties of rational decision-making are starved, and many therefore turn to the leaders of those movements for guidance. If people understand the underlying reasons for rape, they can learn how to control it themselves rather than being forced to rely upon the morally bankrupt dogmas and paternalistic, authoritarian non-solutions pushed by governments, feminists, religions and others with a vested interest in controlling the interaction between men and women.
It’s understanding like this that made Camille Paglia such a breath of fresh air. To acknowledge that humans have a nature in the social construction environment of todays intelligentsia was radical indeed. And you are providing a different perspective on the same topic, derived primarily from experience as opposed to Paglia’s literary context. (Not denigrating either approach here, just pointing out that the different methods come to similar conclusions.)
Ayn Rand wrote an essay titled “The Metaphysical Versus the Man-Made” in which she makes similar points.
Man’s faculty of volition as such is not a contradiction of nature, but it opens the way for a host of contradictions—when and if men do not grasp the crucial difference between the metaphysically given and any object, institution, procedure, or rule of conduct made by man.
It is the metaphysically given that must be accepted: it cannot be changed. It is the man-made that must never be accepted uncritically: it must be judged, then accepted or rejected and changed when necessary. Man is not omniscient or infallible: he can make innocent errors through lack of knowledge, or he can lie, cheat and fake. The manmade may be a product of genius, perceptiveness, ingenuity—or it may be a product of stupidity, deception, malice, evil. One man may be right and everyone else wrong, or vice versa (or any numerical division in between). Nature does not give man any automatic guarantee of the truth of his judgments (and this is a metaphysically given fact, which must be accepted). Who, then, is to judge? Each man, to the best of his ability and honesty. What is his standard of judgment? The metaphysically given.
The metaphysically given cannot be true or false, it simply is—and man determines the truth or falsehood of his judgments by whether they correspond to or contradict the facts of reality. The metaphysically given cannot be right or wrong—it is the standard of right or wrong, by which a (rational) man judges his goals, his values, his choices. The metaphysically given is, was, will be, and had to be. Nothing made by man had to be: it was made by choice.
A similar observation could be made about all sorts of knowledge that is suppressed by widespread disinformation. For example, the common habit of labeling cronyism and even fascism as capitalism pushes people to turn to the political and intellectual classes for economic guidance.
I don’t quite buy into all this.
Maybe it’s because I am a male who’s never had the slightest inclination or fantasy flash through his mind that involves rape. If it’s an evolutionary outgrowth – then why doesn’t it affect me. Fifty years of life and counting here so when does this rape monster in my head reveal himself?
I think rape is a part of human deviancy. When I say “deviancy” – I’m talking about deviation from the norm – and not deviation from “societal norms”. I think it comes from the same, sick place as incest – where a father would force himself on one of his own offspring.
And it’s not just my upbringing that makes me abhor the idea of forcing myself on a woman either. Learned moral through one’s upbringing act as “brakes” often to stop offending conduct. For instance – I HAVE thought about robbing banks, but my moral upbringing has prevented me from acting on it.
I’ve never had the slightest thought of raping a woman – not the slightest. If this were in our evolutionary programming I’d have felt it.
And I’m no beta male with whimsical notions of romance either. I’m a hunter of women, for sure and my drive is almost predatory – but it would never allow me to force myself on someone. Hell – my shit wouldn’t even work if I tried to do that.
Strike that – maybe I did think about rape once – if only for a fleeting millisecond. It was six hours of “foreplay” with a woman, which started out drinking wine in an old Tennessee cemetery in the early fall. All a seductive dance between she and I and this had been blooming for weeks. Eleven o’clock at night, and we’ve been on the floor of her living room for an hour, each with nothing on above the waist.
Then she says to me … “I want you inside” … and I’m thinking … “Okay this fish is in the bag” so I move to remove her jeans. She doesn’t cooperate in helping getting them off so I sense something wrong. “What’s wrong?” I say … and she says “I’m scared”. Well, we were both married to other people and she was trying to get back into the church – it was shitty luck for me for sure. So … like a flash of lightning … I get this thought … “Hey, I’m in her house, we’ve been together all evening, and she told me she wanted it … so why not just take it?”
It only took a millisecond to squash that thought in my mind. And I remember the thought that killed it and it was … “That’s not how WE play this game, Krulac”.
So maybe I’m wrong … what do I know? Evolution confuses me when it gets into patterning human behavior.
Here here Krulac (your self doubts in the second comment to one side). The “sperm is cheap” and “men will do what they can get away with” idea of the evolution of sex is as wrong as the “rape isn’t about sex” nonsense. Most men don’t rape, don’t want to rape, and can’t rape. You have to get an erection to copulate, and erections don’t respond to the will. They happen, they go away, depending on mood. The display of fear by a woman has a profound impact on many men (including me) that switches off the sexual equipment. Some men (again me) get turned off with a passive-submissive woman too – so a woman going limp would turn us limp as well. It’s similar with young girls. Many men (like me) can see young teenage girls as beautiful and arousing in the abstract, but in their presence paternal protectiveness is to the fore, and the sex button is switched off. Some men, of course are different. Some men get off on domination, like to exploit the vulnerable, and enjoy causing fear. SOME men. Reading this blog, it is as if most men are able to rape, but for a few Shining Armour types. But not, some men can rape, some can’t. Some can’t even imagine doing it without their minds flinching in sympathetic pain. I don’t see these facts about men in anything written here.
Evolutionarily, the way to look at it is in turns of their being multiple strategies. Even in animals with simpler lives their are fighters and sneakers, faithfuls and cheaters etc. In human males, it is the same, multiple types. Understanding why some men turn out to be rapists, why their lust for sex remains in the face of female fear and pain – THAT is the challenge. Probably, though, it is no different from understanding violence as such. Some men won’t steal a cent, some men will murder for money. The point isn’t that rape isn’t about sex (of course it is, and the point is well made) but that some men will get it and are psychologically/physiologically able to get it/take it with violence ,but some men wont’ and can’t.
And while we are at it, sperm is cheap, babies aren’t. Again, some men may sire bastards left and right (or risk doing so) and abandon them. Some men may not care either way. Some men may care a less about being responsible for a thousand abortions.But not all or even most men. Sperm is cheap – we wank it out every day. Babies are not cheap. Men going crazy trying to see their children that are denied them. These are gross facts that should not be ignored. we are mammals yes, but we are complicated mammals and we have very big brains and a very big capacity to love our kids.
Maggie, I just discovered your blog via mistress matisse and I love it. Thank you for your work! I just want to add another thought to above discussion, that might contribute to explaining why a majority of men have a barrier to associating female fear with lust, at least in “normal” circumstances (excluding chaotic war zones, for example).
While rape is obviously a reproduction strategy it is, at best, a mediocre one. Considering that the offspring is highly dependant on a dedicated caretaker (most often the mother) for at least 8 or more years after birth, it seems highly risky (in terms of aiming for successful reproduction) to force a pregnancy on a women, abandon her (psychologically und possibly physically injured) and then expect her to raise this offspring in a nourishing enviroment for YEARS to come.
This touches on so many interesting and highly relevant topics I would love to hear your opinion about
1) mother instinct: There is no such thing. Instinct is defined as “the innate capacity of an animal to respond to a given stimulus in a relatively fixed way, inborn intuitive power, a natural and apparently innate aptitude”. Even with cursory consideration it is obvious there is far too much variation (whether it be caused by culture, character or situation or most probably by a mix of all three) in motherly behaviour worldwide for there to be an innate “mother instinct”. And don’t get me started on the fact that in all cultures and all of known human history and even under threat of torture and death women did, do and will continue to abort pregancy).
Therefore a rapist cannot just plant his semen and expect a viable offspring to be carried to term and raised in a way to be able to carry his gene forth successfully- he might even by the mere fact of raping a women DECREASE its chances of survival.
This is an obvious trade off that might explain, as you said in your column, why rape does not come naturally to all, or even to most, men and may be a reproduction strategy only used when no other options are available.
The percentage of men who rape even though they have other options available are another topic indeed……
2) psychopaths/sociopaths/empathy
If for us as the human species it would be “normal” (meaning natural) to live in societies full of unpredictable violence and daily threat, we would be physiologically and neurologically equipped to thrive in that enviroment. We are not. Actually stress, especially chronic stress, has devastating effects on our psyche and our bodies – and via the placenta on unborn fetuses. Still there is a percentage of the population (estimated stable by 2%, see in “Sociopath next door”) with no capacity for empathy, no “mirrow neurons” in their brain to enable them to feel emotions of other sentient beings. They thrive in violent enviroments. If that would be such an advantageous state evolutionarily, wouldn’t the percentage be much much higher over the course of thousands of years? It is not – probably because empathy, reciprocity and social behavior is so much more advantageous, especially in raising viable offspring.
Just think about it: A men with sociopathic tendencies is probably more likely to rape more women, hence spreading his genes, but also more likely to abandon his offspring and not care for it appropriately. Also one aspect of both full blown and tendency to sociopathy is proneness to boredom, weaker impulse controll and compulsive sensation seeking – hence these men are risk takers, susceptible to all kinds of addictions, they tend to die earlier than average, get into some kind of legal trouble etc. It might be that all these disadvantages, at least in semi-stable societies, might level out the reproductive advantage of “spreading semen left and right”.
Sorry fo this long comment, I just found this column and the discussion very inspiring and more honest and frank than what is ususally written about this topic.
Did you miss this bit?
Since when have you ever been a low-status male? Men who CAN’T get it by other means are the ones most strongly tempted to rape. You’re also ignoring the powerful role of socialization in suppressing violent desires. I think that’s the think that infuriates me most about the “rape culture” myth; culture provides the structure by which rape is decreased, not vice-versa.
I believe that the powerful role of socializationin suppressing violent (sexual) desires is more important than being a low status male with no other options to spread his seed and have progeny in suppressing men’s sexual desires to rape, and thank God for that!!! Consider the two most prolific men in human history are Ghengis Khan whom I’m sure virtually all of this blog’s readership knows and Niall of the Nine Hostages, the High King of Ireland who enslaved Romano-Briton(Welsh) St. Patrick(He was not ethnicly Irish.) who later became known as the patron saint of Ireland. Both men had many wives and were notorious historical rapists. It is believed that the overwhelming majority of these men’s descendants came to exist because of rape. Mongolian Ghengis Khan and Irish Niall of the Nine Hostages personally have 16 million male descendants and 3 million male descendants respectively today. Niall of the Nine Hostages is allegedly a progenitor of the surnames O’Neill, McNeill(I could not avoid that one.) Neill, O’Reilly, Reilly, McGovern, McManus, McLoughlin, McGee, Devlin, Donnelly, Quinn, Gormley etc. These numbers do not reflect what their soldiers under them did when they raided or conquered.
I forgot to add that Niall of the Nine Hostages allegedly has 8% of the irish males in Ireland as his descendants, 21% of the males of the province of Ulster are his descendants, and his gentiec descendants can be found not only among the genetic ethnic Irish, but the genetic ethnic Scottish, Welsh, English and French as well. Ghengis Khan’s descendants can be found not only among ethnic Mongolians, but also among ethnic Chinese, Koreans, Kyrgyzstanis, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Hazaras(Central Afghanistan), Uigurs(Northwestern China), Kazakistanis etc.
Niall of the Nine Hostages is allegedly a progenitor of the surnames O’Neill, McNeill (I could not avoid that one.)…
My mother’s maiden name was O’Neill. Perhaps I am a distant relative of Maggie’s?
If it’s an evolutionary outgrowth – then why doesn’t it affect me.
Two possibilities –
1) If rape is a kind of last resort mechanism for reproductive access, then desperation might have to be very great to trigger that inclination.
2) Some men might simply lack this mechanism completely, just like some men feel no attraction to women at all.
Obviously the idea of rape turns on a lot of men, or why would there be so damned much rape-themed porn? Strange thing is, it appeals to a lot of women as well (if not the videos, then a TON of romance novels). Now, obviously, most of the women who enjoy this stuff do not Not NOT want ever to be raped, and in truth a lot of men watching rape-themed porn don’t want it to actually happen to anybody.
But as fantasy material, it is hugely popular.
A friend of mine…who is male…said he threw the book Tamsman of Gor by John Norman against the wall once he realized the protagonist had accepted the truth that everyone on the barbarian planet of Gor was trying to him—that “real” women wanted to be raped. Another better known example of this in a book written for women is Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell. Everyone remember the scene where Rhett Butler carries Scarlett up the stairs to rape her?
Yeah. Give me a good tentacle rape hentai any day over that crap.
The sub-field of rape proclivity generates alarming estimates of the proportion of men who (by self-report) would be willing to engage in rape if they were certain not to be caught (~35% on average across studies). Not normative, but hardly rare either. Old review paper below…
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/comm/malamuth/pdf/81Jsi37.pdf
Precisely. Yet we are asked to believe that all of this is due to “rape culture”. And I’m Wonder Woman.
Heterosexual (and even bisexual) men want sex from women. I beleive that the overwhelming majority of these men want sex in this order from women. They are:
1) Voluntary Seduction Sex(VSS) or simply Seduction. Women volunteer to give men sex either through romantic relationships which may or may not include marriage or sport sex(friends with benefits or one night stands). Men are expected to woo women but not directly pay for a time slot and and certain sexual services. Progeny often occur from this.
2) Prostitution. Men pay directly for a time slot and the kinds of sexual services offered by a women either through bartering or through monetary or financial means directly. Progeny rarely occur from this as the prostitute usually is wise enough and lucky enough in this order for it not to occur.Most people don’t think of it this way but even marriage can be included in this in many respects. Modern Western marriages especially in the USA are no longer the kinds of marriages that they were in the past and operate much like romantic relationships with a license or certificate as Maggie McNeill, author of this blog, pointed out a long time back in one of her articles.I hope she can find the link because I can’t. Marriage usually results in progeny. It may or may not involve seduction, but in the West especially the USA, it usually involves seduction. Note that marriage straddles the world between Seduction and Prostitution no matter whether it is voluntary seduction with a certificate and/or license of the West especially the USA without well known and followed privleges, rights, obligations and responsibilities,.. or it is an arranged marriage with well known and followed certain rights privleges, obligations and responsibilities followed by both the man and woman. In my opinion which are more strongly supported by the facts than the opposite arguement, modern 1st world marriages which includes the West especially the USA saddles men with more obligations and responsiblities and less rights and privleges than women.
3) Masturbation. Technically men aren’t getting sex from women, but their imagination and physical act allows them fantasy sex to the extreme.
4) Rape. We all know what this is. Try not to let the neo-feminists redfine this. Ways they try are to give an example of saying that she was drunk and could not consent to sex. Try telling a police officer that if you get arrested for a DUI or assault and battery while under the influence, and you see how fallacious their arguement is. Drinking alcohol and voluntarily using mind altering drugs is completely and utterly one’s choice which means you get to choose how much or how little you imbibe. Genuine rape involves extreme coercion or threat of coercion or one person being unconscious or under mind altering medication for an ailment or one person being deemed to be completely delusional in a clinical medical and usually certified by the government.
I forgot to note that i believe that Masturbation, Prostitution and Seduction forms of sex significantly reduce the likelihood of rape and sexual assault sex unlike what many neo-feminists(not all feminists are senseless) on the left and senseless moral do-gooders(not all moral do gooders are senseless) on the right will tell you, and realize that they are allies in many things and want too much control and have little wisdom when it comes to sex. Increasing levels of pornography have shown a very high correalation to declining percentages of rape. I believe prostitution can do the same, but I haven’t seen any studies to confirm or deny this. The problem with pornography and prostitution is is that these women are better looking and present the image of being easier to deal with which leads men to ignore uglier and more disagreeable women. They do not lead men to sexually assault or rape women as the senseless moral do-gooders and neofeminists would have you believe. If men increasingly ignore women they don’t like and don’t support them even when trying not to cause harm to women then the neo-feminist paradigm of the 1st World especially the West and more in particular the USA collapses. The neofeminists and their junior partner servile lap dog senseless moral do-gooders don’t want that. .
Dear M&M
A pleasure happening upon you when researching the book The Honest Courtesan and its film, Dangerous Beauty…ah what a woman Veronica Franco may have been! You appear to share her desire to uncover the truth of things (yes, intended–look up “aletheia”, one of my favorite ancient words) and I salute you. Larking with the famous candy, you melt in the mind rather than in the mouth: meaning not empty words but full thoughts pointing to real things. Keep up the work of the good!
BTW, if you have time and interest, how about giving me and your public your understanding of Francis Bacon’s master key to unlocking the evolutionary knowledge of humans: “Nature to be commanded, must be obeyed.” Your article above and the few others I have quickly skimmed, hint that his key lays well in your hand.
Cheers from China!
How did you get the information to write this post?
The debate here so far has slipped past a key point: long before we had language, the rise of intellect and moralisong citified society, we had our unfettered instincts.
Each of us, as individuals, has differing degrees of innate response to our three primary drives : the sexual impulse (to any sexual act), the social impulse (with others) and the place where they meet, the sociosexual impulse (with mates).
Given that genders feel these impulses differently in the general case (sperm vs egg as commented above) and as individuals as well, a naturally emergent behaviour appears in our uncivilised ancestors.
This emergent behaviour gives rise to sexually promiscuous humans, asexual humans, humans that mate and bond exclusively and nonexclusively, as well as those with a “nannying” response that surpasses their urge to mate. It even explains the urge towards what we would call sexual orgies.
This behaviour is tribalism; a means of bonding a group of disparate humans using sexuality and social bonds. In this social form, all responses to the three impulses are valid; the natural “whores” moderate the unchecked sexual urges of unpartnered males, preventing societal disruption; the breeding partnerships find their own natural equilibrium; the “creche parents” nurture the orphaned or unwanted children; the collective is enhanced by the participation of *all* the individuals, according to their instinctive responses. Even our “Monkey See, Monkey Do” instinct works with this to create a sexually charged environment where mixing the genepool in a random way ocurrs without fracturing social bonds (collective sexual activity).
This collective behaviour *massively* enhances the survivablity, net fertility and unity of the group; neither morals or even language would be needed.
These instincts are still in us, after 12500 human generations since we left Africa.
And that’s what’s giving us so much anguish : they have become, by increasingly intrusive societal pressure against more and more of the model, deemed “bad”. This model, though, worked for 250,000 years.
Nature doesn’t junk what works.