Talk:Sociobiological theories of rape

message: This section appears to be slapped together, and is extremely poorly written. Can you please provide some specific references of who posseses these opinions, and what sort of credentials they might have? Sam [Spade] 18:17, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arguments against sociobiological theories of rape 

message: I'd like it if you guys cooled down a bit. I didn't write this article, and my POV (as a married non-rapist w kids) is anti-rape. I just don't like the way you have been hacking info out of the article. So what if some of this is covered elsewhere? It’s perfectly valid to briefly reiterate important concepts. We should not assume the reader has read anything in particular on the subject ahead of time. Regardless of their expertise, a brief (were talking about a paragraph or 2) refresher is a good thing. Lets try to keep it clear we are discussing a concept, not the idea of some specific person going out and raping somebody. Sam [Spade] 21:55, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I would have no problem with this if (1) the text weren't so shitty and WRONG, and (2) if there weren't so much unattributed speculation and (3) the text didn't cover extremely basic concepts, like SELECTION, for god's sake. Text should be short - information is better conveyed if it's to-the-point, and conveying information is our purpose. Brevity is the soul of wit. Long text is boring text, and I don't want to have to read through pages of unrelated explanation before I get to the actual subject at hand. The REASON we have wikilinks is so that we don't have to duplicate redundant information (except in overview articles, which this is NOT). I don't think either side of this argument should be construed as "pro-rape", incidentally. Graft 22:15, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Alrightey then! (a brief overview of the basics is handy in EVERY article, BTW ;) Sam [Spade] 22:18, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Assume good faith|Assumptions]] 

message: ' Even the distinguished proponent of evolutionary psychology Edward H. Hagen states that there is no clear evidence for the hypothesis that rape is adaptive.  '
:This was a very good edit. I appreciate citations, they are pro-wiki :D Sam [Spade] 21:58, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: You're welcome, Sam. -- The Anome 22:38, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good edit 

message: Is the argument that all males attempt wide dispersal of their genes, or that there's a subset of males that employ this strategy? I seem to remember Steven Pinker (who goes in for these theories) saying the latter in his lectures. Graft 23:04, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: According to Pinker "Geneticists have found that the diversity of the DNA in the mitochondria of different people (which men and women inherit from their mothers) is far greater than the diversity of the DNA in Y chromosomes (which men inherit from their fathers).  This suggests that for tens of millennia men had greater variation in their reproductive success than women.  Some men had many descendants and others had none (leaving us with a small number of distinct Y chromosomes), whereas a larger number of women had a more evenly distributed number of descendants (leaving us with a larger number of distinct mitochondrial genomes).  These are precisely the conditions that cause sexual selection, in which males compete for opportunities to mate and females choose the best quality mates," (The Blank Slate, pg 347).  Matt Gozel 23:58, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Mating strategy

message: I can see this is a highly controversial page, so I didn't want to contribute without discussion on the talk page first. The section on forced animal sex mentions geese and ducks, which is interesting, but I think that the observed occurances of rape, near-rape, and gang-rape in higher intelligence species, (like non-human primates and in dolphins), are more interesting and would be more pertinent to the article... but then again, maybe using geese and ducks helps to avoid POV. Any thoughts? AdmN 16:42, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  "This cage, this menagerie..." 

message: I have been reading through yur conversations about rape.  The one most specific I was looking for is long term effects of rape.  I, personally am a victim of marrital rape.  I have since been divorced from the man for 6 years now but I still suffer from long term affects of what happen to me.  I'm sure that there are other women and men out there that are too afraid to talk about these things that still go on in our heads; bad relatonship, loss of libito, having trust issues, ect.  I know that there are outward signs to, ones that we don't even recogize.  That have to be pointed out to us by a doctor.  No where have I ever found a listing or even suggested listing of what all these outward signs might be.  I'm sure that other women and men of rape would be of interest to these obscure facts.
What I would like to see is something about the long term affects fo rape, how it can obsure the mind and think that the person can easily become a victum again.  
Forget about argueing about, people like me want to know these things so that maby we can help ourselve.
Epiphany
how did you manage to avoid signing or autosigning your talk edit(I'd like to know how to do this lol) I you glance at the talk page you will quickly see why there is little refinement of the information on rape. There is a knee jerk impulse to suppress research and inquiry on it as an actual phenomenon in any way that suggests it could be anything more than just isolated deranged unnatural individuals/monsters/mutants and their helpless innocent victims(ever heard of rape-bait kinks?) The bury the head in the and approach has held sway in any topic related to sex deviance and persists in the modern era. That being said you should look to other articles for questions related to victimology of rape because this one is about a specific theory related to a specific and debated kind of causation for the phenomenon/behavior of the perpetrators across species. I'd suspect that if the inquiry continues it probably will expand to study human "rape baiter" psychology/sociology as well which would involve victim response/trauma research but that doesn't appear relevant to this line of theory as of yet. Though I imagine there may be some literature,testimonials, and forums, perhaps beyond scientific research, available on those subjects. I know for sure there is plenty of literature and resources for victim therapy and counseling and some may be available in any given local community..but if not you may need to search in  communities such as those in the more "developed" parts of the world where women's advocacy movements have made significant progress.SoNetMedia's Alfred O. Mega (talk) 15:02, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  needs to be more refined 

message: We have a style manual. Read it sometime, fellow editors! One of the major problems with this article could have been avoided if a clear explanation of the phrase "biopsychological theories of rape" was given at the beginning, as the style manual dictates. Most of this article seems to be treating the phrase like it's a standardized complete ideology. Various soc-bio theories of rape contradict eachother. We can't lump advocates of every possible soc-bio theory of rape into one big group and imply they all believe foo, bar, and baz. Is it so hard to say "some"? Or, if you think it's an especially common view, how about "many"?
Or even better, find an actual person who believes in the thing you're typing and quote him. Virtually everyone in the ev-psych loop has said something about this, so qualified opinions aren't that scarce. I'll try to mop this up as best I can, but I fear this will eventually boil down to wiping out most of the unattributed claims present now and adding in new opinions and quotes from qualified researchers. The authors of the unattributed material in "Arguments for..." that's on there now should go back and provide sources for what they wrote if at all possible. -- Schaefer 10:47, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Usage of terms 

message: I'm removing the lengthy Roughgarden quote and the POV criticism that follows it. Joan Roughgarden may have arguments against sociobiological theories of rape, but they are not mentioned in this rant against evolutionary psychology in general and its practitioners personally. She only claims that EPists have 'corrupted and misused' biology and that Buss's writings 'distort sexual selection theory' before going off on a rant that A Natural History of Rape is homophobic, and that right-wing institutes agree with EP theories. She's arguing from ad hominem in the first case and guilt-by-association in the second.
Furthermore, Joan Roughgarden's disagreement isn't just with sociobiological theories of rape, but with EP in general. This article is about a specific topic in the field of evolutionary psychology. If she thinks that EP is bunk, her criticisms belong in a more general article than this one. -- Schaefer 05:37, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Joan Roughgarden 

message: I just came across this text, the bulk of which was added in this edit:
"Supporters of sociobiological theories of rape argue that this is consistent with rape being considered a high crime in almost all cultures, second only to murder, as this is consistent with the interests of living things. From an evolutionary perspective, the only thing more undesirable than forcing an organism's reproductive destiny is ending its life."
This does not appear to make any sense whatever in the context.  From a personal perspective, yes, the worst thing to happen to an individual short of its life ending may be having its evolutionary destiny forcibly dictated by another.  But from an evolutionary perspective, it is not even necessarily a bad thing, let alone the second-worst possible thing that could happen.  Anyone clinging to the idea that evolutionary interests are likely to be "consistent with the interests of living things" is exhibiting either a profound misunderstanding or a willful misinterpretation of evolutionary theory.
Let us remember that the male insect who mates with a genetically-fit female, has his head bitten off in the middle of the act, and who is then eaten in order to provide nutrients to the children he just sired, is extremely evolutionarily successful -- even if from the personal perspective, the worst possible thing just happened to him, or so we would anthropomorphize.  In the same vein, a female is extremely evolutionarily successful if she bears the children of a genetically-fit, well-adapted male.  There is no general argument with the principle that a male's adaptation and fitness are tested by his competition against the environment; if a male has survived to mating age despite predators, famines, diseases and other hazards, it serves as inductive evidence that he was probably better, in those qualities required to survive in his environment, than the males who did not survive to mating age.  It is also fairly accepted that males may engage in fairly direct competition with other males for mating rights; we do not deny the obvious that if a male proves himself to be stronger or faster than other males, that these traits may make him "fitter" than the others, even if the others were still fit enough to survive until mating.
However, too many people mistakenly or willfully attribute our personal repugnance for the act of rape to the unthinking, amoral engine of evolution, and they refuse to consider the simple fact that if a male's qualities can be tested by physical competition with other males, so too can they be tested by physical competition with the female he is trying to mate with.  Evolution does not care whether the experience is traumatic for the female, any more than it cares about the life of a male spider whose life is snuffed out for following his desire to mate.  If a female is unselective about the father of her children, she will most likely have children with a mediocre father.  If she is selective about the father of her children, she will most likely have children with a far more successful father.  If she is even more selective about the father of her children, such that she does not choose him but he instead chooses her despite all the resistance she can provide, she will most likely have children with a father whose physical prowess is not only proven, but which exceeds hers.  Anyone still thinking that this must be evolutionarily undesirable because it is personally undesirable for her is misrepresenting evolutionary theory. 
And I've got a little experiment for you. You get yourself (however you wanna do it, maybe let's say by raping a woman) locked up in state prison. Actually, it might not even take that long, it could happen in county jail, but you just get yourself locked up. You wait a few days; it won't take long, my friend, it won't take long. And you will find out everything there is to know, in exquisite detail, about rape. Then when you get out, (providing you're not by this time a cringing psychological bowl of human jelly) you can write a book about the "evolutionary advantage" of rape. That is, if you still haven't changed your mind.   — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.51.145.197 (talk) 08:25, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: If a rapist declines to offer support for his ill-begotten children, then it would not be as evolutionarily desirable. That rape is a minor part of human mating rituals speaks for itself. Pendragon39 23:20, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "From an evolutionary perspective" 

message: I think it is a fine article but as someone who is a researcher in the field I feel that there is one glaringly false statement that is harmful to keep and should immediately be deleted.
"Females that draw attention are more likely to be raped. For example: dressing attractively."
There is no evidence to support that statement.  It is a myth.  And just anecdotally, I have been to enough hospitals and police stations to support women who had just been sexually assaulted to argue the opposite.  I'd say 90% of the time the women were wearing jeans and t-shirts.  The statement that a women is bringing attention to herself and getting raped is blaming the survivor and reducing the malicious behavior of the perpetrator.
above is unsigned --SoNetMedia's Alfred O. Mega (talk) 19:04, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: False statement

message: It's great to have a bibliography at the end, but not one of the amazing and specific claims made in this article is linked to a source.  Therefore, the article is unverifiable.  BTW, I was not aware that the reproductive act among ducks and geese involved penetration.  I thought they were biologically unable to penetrate.  Long story short:  This article is long overdue for a severe prune-down, if no effort is made at substantiation. NuclearWinner 19:44, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The entire article is lacking specific citations

message: The article states that Thornhill and Palmer "note that since the human brain itself, and thus all capacities for any kind of action whatsoever, evolved from natural selection, the only point of dispute is whether rape is only a by-product of some other unrelated adaptation (such as a desire for aggression, domination, etc.) or if rape itself is an adaptation favored because it increases the number of descendants of rapists. They argue that the latter case is true."
The last sentence is wrong.  They do not argue that the latter case is true.  They are, in fact, in disagreement about whether rape is an adaptation or by-product.  In their own words "We will now examine the evidence concerning whether human rape is a product of adaptations designed specifically to increase a male's reproductive success or whether it is a by-product of adaptations designed for attaining sexual access to consenting partners.  Although we two authors disagree as to which of these two ultimate explanations of rape we expect to be confirmed by evidence, we are now in agreement with the statement that 'whether their exist psychological adaptations specifically for sexual coercion [or rape], adaptations that entail something more than the simultaneous arousal of sexual and coercive inclinations, has yet to be elucidated' (Wilson et al. 1997, p453)."  That is from Thornhill and Palmer's A Natural History of Rape, pg 60-61.  In light of this fact I am editing the sentence to reflect the authors' actual views on the subject. Matt Gozel 17:43, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Adaptation vs. By-Product

message: Thornhill and Palmer argue that it is possible that the underlying motivations of rapists evolved because they were at one time conducive to reproduction.
Do they give an estimate as to when this was? 5000 years ago? When humans were living as hunter-gatherers? Pre-history? Pendragon39 02:42, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Timeline 

message: The following content has been in the article without attribution for over a year. I believe at least some of it is not original research, but in fact arguments presented in A Natural History of Rape, though I can't be certain what's what. I'm moving it here in case anyone else can identify sources for the content presented.
==== Other sociobiological theories of rape ====
Other proponents of various sociobiological theories of rape have expressed the views described here, which may or may not represent Thornhill and Palmer's.
Viviparous females, and human females in particular, whose offspring remain dependent upon their parents for many years, must invest significant time and bodily resources in pregnancy in order to reproduce and raise their offspring, whereas males can biologically father considerably more offspring with much less of a bodily investment (see Bateman's principle). Many sociobiologists argue that this causes females to be more likely to scrutinize their mates, whereas males are more likely to be motivated simply to have many mates. (This theory is contested by many biologists who claim that humans are a pair-bonding species, and that other situations are deviations.) These strategies are known as K-selection and r-selection, respectively. Proponents of the view that rape is genetically adaptive see rape as a male attempt to violently remove the female's decision making power regarding reproduction. Occasionally there is a deliberate attempt to impregnate the female victim; this is thought to have often been the case when hundreds or thousands of Darfur women were raped during the last eruption of the Sudanese Civil War in 2003-2004.
Proponents of this theory have also stated that during the most fertile part of the female menstrual cycle, women are more likely to pursue potential mates while simultaneously avoiding situations conducive to the possibility of rape. Reports appear to show a higher incidence of rape occurring during the less fertile points in the menstrual cycle of the victim with one exception: those on birth control medication (such as "the pill") do not report rape with any bias towards a specific period of their cycles--birth control inhibits ovulation on some level.
According to these theories, males who attempt rape are considered more desperate to mate, and one result of this desperation could be endemic misinterpretation of a female's signals. This could illustrate why many rapists justify their actions with "she said no but meant yes". Variations of this theme are common. For example, there is no clear, objective delineation between sexual touch and non-sexual touch. Holding hands may be considered by one side to be a sexual touch whereas the other considers it completely platonic. Human sexual behavior and Date Rape describe these issues further.
====Human behaviour regarding rape====
Some supporters of these theories argue that many common attitudes and practices regarding sexuality and rape have origins as rape-preventative measures.
Females tend to be more cautious about rape in young adulthood. They are also more likely to resist rape, or resist more forcefully, during young adulthood, although this is explicable somewhat in that younger women may be quantitatively stronger and more able to resist forcefully than older women.
Proponents of these theories have also claimed that fathers' protectiveness of their daughters is caused by an instinct, not only to protect their genes in the form of their offspring, but to ensure the genetic "quality" of future grandchildren by protecting the daughter from rape. 
Public showers, public restrooms, locker rooms, and fitting rooms often have separate male and female sections in many countries. This gender segregation, according to some sociobiologists,  reduces the likelihood that a woman will find herself alone with a man (to wit, a potential rapist) in an environment that is sexually suggestive and/or in which she is especially vulnerable, such as being unclothed and in a small room (note also the typical warmth and humidity of such places; such conditions in the weather lead to increased reports of rape). Dormitory arrangements are often gender segregated as well. In some countries, more privacy tends to be afforded for females than for males in gender-segregated areas such as showers and fitting rooms. There may be more curtains, visibility screens, etc. in the women's sections.
Also, in some countries, women are forbidden to leave the house with any amount of skin showing (see for example Hijab). Some sociobiologists see this as a way to reduce the female's likelihood of attracting attention and (by extension) rape. However, since it is usually the woman's husband who does not allow her to leave without being completely covered, it is more likely that the custom's function is simply to prevent her from attracting sexual attention from other men.
[End of removed material.] -- Schaefer (talk) 11:32, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed content 

message: Some supporters of these theories argue that many common attitudes and practices regarding sexuality and rape have origins as rape-preventative measures.
Females tend to be more cautious about rape in young adulthood. They are also more likely to resist rape, or resist more forcefully, during young adulthood, although this is explicable somewhat in that younger women may be quantitatively stronger and more able to resist forcefully than older women.
Proponents of these theories have also claimed that fathers' protectiveness of their daughters is caused by an instinct, not only to protect their genes in the form of their offspring, but to ensure the genetic "quality" of future grandchildren by protecting the daughter from rape. 
Public showers, public restrooms, locker rooms, and fitting rooms often have separate male and female sections in many countries. This gender segregation, according to some sociobiologists,  reduces the likelihood that a woman will find herself alone with a man (to wit, a potential rapist) in an environment that is sexually suggestive and/or in which she is especially vulnerable, such as being unclothed and in a small room (note also the typical warmth and humidity of such places; such conditions in the weather lead to increased reports of rape). Dormitory arrangements are often gender segregated as well. In some countries, more privacy tends to be afforded for females than for males in gender-segregated areas such as showers and fitting rooms. There may be more curtains, visibility screens, etc. in the women's sections.
Also, in some countries, women are forbidden to leave the house with any amount of skin showing (see for example Hijab). Some sociobiologists see this as a way to reduce the female's likelihood of attracting attention and (by extension) rape. However, since it is usually the woman's husband who does not allow her to leave without being completely covered, it is more likely that the custom's function is simply to prevent her from attracting sexual attention from other men.
</blockquote>
[End of removed material.] -- Schaefer (talk) 11:32, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Human behaviour regarding rape

message: Studies show that many women fantasize about certain kinds of rape. Is there a possible evolutionary reason for that?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.87.2.8 (talk) 07:06, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Women's rape fantasies

message: Perhaps one might mention BDSM in humans as being a possible extension etc. to #Animal coercive sex. Jidanni (talk) 16:30, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  BDSM 

message: In the "Naturalistic fallacy" section it must be made clear that what the researchers are referring to is in fact the FALLACIOUS APPEAL TO NATURE. NOT the "naturalistic fallacy" which is known as the "is-ought problem" in philosophy. Although the researchers may apply the term "naturalistic fallacy" to their opponents' arguments, it must be made clear that they ARE DOING SO INCORRECTLY. Their opponents' arguments are more correctly described by the phrase: fallacious appeal to nature.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:6000:6B50:BA00:4D1E:7659:2FA8:DBF8 (talk) 01:41, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fallacious appeal to nature 

message: The last sentence of the "Criticism" section doesn't make sense at all. Here is what is said: " Hamilton has argued that evolutionary psychology fails to explain rape because, by evolutionary psychology's own criteria, an adaptation to rape children or men, or non-vaginal rape, would have been eliminated in the course of evolution because it did not confer reproductive advantage on our ancestors"
Hamilton totally fails at understanding how evolution works. Evolution is all about perpetuating all sorts of behaviors regardless of their purpose. In evolution, every action is a test to see if it improves the chances of survival of that individual. The reason why rape is still around even though it has a negative impact on the victim is that life doesn't consist of only one parameter. Rape doesn't affect a person enough to kill him/her or to have its chances of survival reduced to zero. You do not have to be the absolute best to survive, a group of winners reproduce, not just the absolute best fitted individual.
Is there anything that can be done to remove this sentence because it is not a legitimate criticism, it's basically a misunderstanding of how evolution works.
--Ṗḯƥỡȵẘẩ (talk) 10:19, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Validity of the argument in "Criticism" 

message: A statement in this article uses www.heretical.com as a reference.  This is a white supremicist site run by convicted Holocaust-denier Simon_Sheppard_(activist), which among other things blames Jews and feminism for just about everything wrong with western society.  I've recently removed a large chunk of text from the Suffragette article that made wild claims and was sourced solely to this site.  In this article, there are other references as well, so I recommend someone who knows more about the subject have a look and make sure the claims are supported by more reliable sources.  This applies to Sociobiological_theories_of_rape, Evolutionary_psychology and New_Orphan_Houses,_Ashley_Down,_Bristol. Iapetus (talk) 10:08, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dubious source 

message: Someone removed it from the talk section, a certain crossroads, said it was vandalism
--51.9.225.192 (talk) 18:07, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Length of talk sections as a metric