NEW YORK TIMES
April 2, 2000
Survival of the Rapist
---------------------------------------------------------------
Two scientists argue that plain old evolution explains why men rape.

By FRANS B. M. DE WAAL

---------------------------------------------------------------
A NATURAL HISTORY OF RAPE
Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion.
By Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer.
251 pp. Cambridge, Mass.:
The MIT Press. $28.95.

---------------------------------------------------------------

When the cook of a primatologist in Indonesia was raped by an orangutan, her
husband said it was nothing to be concerned about because the perpetrator
wasn't human. This peculiar incident is one of the very few real-life
descriptions of rape in ''A Natural History of Rape.'' Strikingly, it is the
husband's opinion rather than the victim's that is cited. This is
symptomatic: in this book, female and feminist voices are dismissed as
ideological; scientists -- like the authors -- engage in the objective search
for the truth.

Full text:
http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/04/02/reviews/000402.002waalt.html
First Chapter:
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/t/thornhill-rape.html

_____

A Natural History of Rape : Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion
by Randy Thornhill, Craig T. Palmer
Hardcover - 272 pages (February 1, 2000)
MIT Press; ISBN: 0262201259
Editorial Reviews (3) Customer Reviews (40)
AMAZON - US
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262201259/darwinanddarwini/
AMAZON - UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262201259/humannaturecom/

Evolutionary psychology often stomps where other branches of science fear to
tread. Case in point: A Natural History of Rape. Randy Thornhill, a
biologist, and Craig T. Palmer, an anthropologist, have attempted to apply
evolutionary principles to one of the most disgusting of human behaviors, and
the result is a guaranteed storm of media hype and debate. The book's central
argument is that rape is a genetically developed strategy sustained over
generations of human life because it is a kind of sexual selection--a
successful reproductive strategy. This runs directly counter to the
prevailing notion--that rape is predominantly about violent power, and only
secondarily about sex.

The authors base their argument partly on statistics showing that in the
United States, most rape victims are of childbearing age. But disturbingly
large numbers of rapes of children, elderly women, and other men are never
adequately explained. And the actual reproductive success of rape is not
clear. Thornhill and Palmer's biological interpretation is just that--an
interpretation, one that won't withstand tough scientific scrutiny. They
further claim that the mental trauma of rape is greater for women of
childbearing age (especially married women) than it is for elderly women or
children. The data supporting these assertions come from a single
psychological study, done by Thornhill in the 1970s, that mixes first-person
interviews with caretaker's interpretations of children's reactions.

While Thornhill and Palmer claim that they are trying to look objectively at
the root causes of rape, they focus almost entirely on data that support
their thesis, forcing them to write an evolutionary "just-so" story. The
central problem is evident in this quote, from the chapter "The Pain and
Anguish of Rape":


We feel that the woman's perspective on rape can be best understood by
considering the negative influences of rape on female reproductive
success.... It is also highly possible that selection favored the outward
manifestations of psychological pain because it communicated the female's
strong negative attitude about the rapist to her husband and/or her
relatives.
Women are disturbed by rape mostly because they are worried about what their
husbands might think? In statements like this, the authors repeatedly
discount the psychological aspects of rape, such as fear, humiliation, loss
of autonomy, and powerlessness, and focus solely on personal shame.

A Natural History of Rape will no doubt have people talking about rape and
its causes, and perhaps thinking about real ways of preventing it. In fact,
the authors suggest that all young men be educated frankly about their
(theoretical) genetic desire to rape. And it reopens the debate about the
role of sex in rape. But without more and better data supporting their
conclusions, Thornhill and Palmer are doing the very thing they criticize
feminists and social scientists of doing: just talking. --Therese Littleton

Book Description
In this sure-to-be-controversial book, Randy Thornhill and Craig Palmer use
evolutionary biology to explain the causes of rape and to recommend new
approaches to its prevention. According to Thornhill and Palmer, evolved
adaptation of some sort gives rise to rape; the main evolutionary question is
whether rape is an adaptation itself or a by-product of other adaptations.
Regardless of the answer, Thornhill and Palmer note, rape circumvents a
central feature of women's reproductive strategy: mate... read more

Reviews
Amazon.co.uk
In the past three decades the notion that rape is a crime of misogynistic
violence rather than of misguided lust has gone from being a cutting-edge
feminist theory to being an accepted criminological fact. So widespread and
pervasive is this view of rape, accepted by politicians, judges and educators
alike, to challenge it is to risk academic ostracism.
Now two American biologists, Randy Thornhill and Craig Palmer, have risked
precisely that. Their carefully weighed thesis is that rape is not the
culturally learned behaviour of conditioned woman-haters, rather it is a
Darwinian adaptation, an instinctive behaviourism typical of males (of many
species) seeking to mate and propagate with otherwise unavailable fertile
young females. In other words, rape IS sexual.

Predictably, this theory has caused outrage. Feminist lawyers says it gives
rapists a "genetic excuse"; feminist academics say it ignores male-on-male
rape, and rape of non-fertile females. In response to such expected critiques
Thornhill and Palmer have adduced a persuasive mass of evidence from fields
as diverse as zoology, psychology and haute couture. And the facts are truly
curious. Did you know that women dress more skimpily during ovulation?

This is not a flawless text. It is too reductive. The writing is thick with
scientific jargon: you should know the meanings of 'morphological' and
'phenotype' before you start. And sometimes the book becomes a bit of a rant
against the "closed minds" of its politically correct opponents. But maybe
that is to quibble too much: this is still an exhilarating and exciting book;
it is also a very courageous attempt to throw some scientific light on a
treacherously murky subject. --Sean Thomas

Synopsis
This work uses evolutionary biology to explain the causes of rape and to
recommend approaches to its prevention. It includes a summary of evolutionary
theory and a comparison of evolutionary biology's and social science's
explanations of human behaviour.


About the Author
Randy Thornhill is Regents' Professor and Professor of Biology at the
University of New Mexico. Craig T. Palmer is Instructor of Anthropology at
the University of Colorado.