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Evolutionary Psychology of Rape
The last 30 years have witnessed considerable progress in revising how the crime of rape if defined and reviled. Rape has always been viewed as a loathsome act that carries with it harsh punishment, but in many cases the crime was defined very narrowly; the victim was required to show evidence of having resisted, physically, his or her attacker, and so in many cases individuals who were forced to have sex against his or her will not thought to have been raped. Since the 1970s, however, the nature of rape has been redefined both legally and socially. Protection of rape was not, for example, extended to spouses until fairly recently, but now a husband or wife can now resist the pressures of their spouses. Direct physical force is no longer a necessary condition for a crime of rape, for at least in Virginia the state emphasizes an act “against the complaining witness’s will, by force, threat or intimidation”. Rape in the context of a dating relationship, previously overlooked almost entirely, is now recognized as date rape, and falls under the legal and social definition of rape. Sexual violence, during wartime, is also now recognized as a war crime, and forbidden by international treaty.Much of this progress is the result of active advocacy on the part of men and women in support of fair treatment of women, and the publication of a number of important works that have sought to clarify the horrendous consequences of this crime and the blatant sexist biases that sustained it. One of the most influential analyses, written by Susan Brownmiller and titled Against our Will, defined rape to be “a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear” (1975). Brownmiller, and other feminist advocates, convinced the world that rape was more an act of violence and oppression than a sexual behavior. Rape was, according to Brownmiller, “man's basic weapon of force against woman, the principal agent of his will and her fear.”
Recently, and somewhat unwittingly, evolutionary psychology has been used to support an alternative interpretation of rape. Just as evolutionary psychology suggests that murder is an adaptation designed to increase the fitness of the murderer and altruism is an adaptation that likely benefits the inclusive fitness of the helper, some evolutionary psychologist have begun to consider the instinctive bases of rape. Such an analysis is is controversial because it generally assumes that rape is a sexual, mating function more than a subjugation function, and therefore is often met with skepticism (at best) and denoucement (at worse).
Thornhill and Palmer’s 2001 book, A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion, was the lightning rod for much of this controversy. Thornhill and Palmer use evolutionary theory to examine rape, and in so doing suggest that it is a “natural” aspect of human behavior. They note that, given the nature of the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness, rape may have been a means on increasing one’s inclusive fitness: an adaptation that increased the likelihood one’s genes were represented in future generations. They note, however, that more likely rape is a by-product of other adaptations. That men have evolved to be more easily sexually stimulated, to be highly attracted to healthy women, to seek multiple mates, to misinterpret indications of rejection as ambivalence, and so on, and as a result these direct adaptations lead to the by-product of rape propensity in males.
This perspective raises a number of controversies, not the least of which is the suggestion that rape is instinctive; the action of a “normal” male rather than one who is mentally imbalanced. Thornhill and Palmer were also roundly condemned, for by explaining rape in these biological terms, they were viewed as condoning rape.
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