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Instinct: A Natural History of Rape By Summer Killian Okay boys, the truth is out: The potential to rape is not just in your blue jeans anymore. It's in your other genes, too. So say two University of New Mexico researchers, co-authors of a forthcoming book called A Natural History of Rape: A Biological Basis for Sexual Coercion. Why write such a book? Says author Randy Thornhill, "[rape] must be viewed as a natural biological phenomenon for which there's some evolutionary explanation." And as an evolutionary biologist, Thornhill's job includes investigating transformations of life over time. Add to his area of expertise a brand new field of scientific study, that of evolutionary psychology, and here's where it gets interesting. Evolutionary psychology attempts to understand contemporary human behavior by exploring the animal kingdom and prehistoric humans. One of the major themes of the research is that, through all ages, rape has been used by men as a strategy for passing on genes. When a prehistoric man could not find a willing partner to propagate the species with, well, he had only to use force. And so, over time, rape became part of man's biological makeup. Therefore, the authors tell us, the urge to rape is in men's genes, and all men are biologically "wired" to be potential rapists. Here is where some questioning inevitably begins, if
it hasn't already. First, using the word "urge" here is extremely problematic
and has some major implications. Are we to assume then that all men
who do not rape are simply good at ignoring their innate desire to do
so? To the contrary, are we to believe that all men who do in fact rape
just need a bit more help resisting such impulses? Using "urge" here--as
a word and as a metaphor--does no good. In fact, it simplifies the authors'
argument to a dangerous degree. Think about it: Using this frame of
mind, the authors liken a man who rapes on biologically wired impulse
to a person on a diet who sneaks that last piece of chocolate cake.
They can't help it: It's an urge. To the dieter, the urge has few consequences.
To a society who understands rape as an uncontrollable urge that affects
half its population, those consequences are endless. The idea that rape is an urge upholds some very old
and very common ideology about power and control as well. Thornhill
and his co-author, Craig Palmer, use a patriarchal analysis in their
argument: Women are still at the mercy of men, whether they are raped
or not, according to the book. If you are not raped, the book seems
to be telling women, some man is doing you a favor. If you are, however,
please understand that it cannot be helped. Of course, this is not stated
overtly, but it only takes a few minutes of thinking to realize that
understanding rape scientifically--something that the authors think
is extremely important--is yet another way to maintain a hierarchy of
sexual violence and dominance. Looking for answers to rape should provide
a solution. Instead, Thornhill and Palmer offer a terrible excuse.
The excuse is further supported when the authors tell us on national television and in their book that women should not dress provacatively. "We inform women of the fact that there are costs associated with dressing provacatively," says Thornhill, "and that cost stems from evolved male sexual psychology to pursue women in vulnerable situations." Thank you, gentlemen, another horribly dangerous point, again with its own set of implications. Women have long been faulted for wearing clothes that "provoke" men, that are "too sexy", or that seem to "ask for" rape. The power is still with males who accept the hierarchy then, when they use this excuse to their advantage. Rape then becomes the victim's problem. This issue was faced a number of years ago, and some women decided that they could wear whatever they wanted to and know that being raped could never be their fault. A Natural History of Rape, then, offers us a dressed-up version of a tired excuse, but it's one that many women haven't bought for a while now. Again, consider the implications of a piece of "scientific" evidence that attempts to affect even the clothes that women wear. Thornhill and Palmer's book is stirring up a great deal of controversy before it has even been released, and the authors say that they expected as much. Consider another source of this controversy: Thornhill's research on forced sex was done not on humans, or even mammals, but on scorpion flies. In studying patterns of "survival of the sexual fittest" in these insects, he was seemingly able to draw conclusions about human behavior. Although prehistoric human mating patterns were also considered, there seems to be little evidence that Thornhill gathered data from humans alive today. In fact, data on rape in the book that is collected from humans is 25 years old in some cases. Another glitch in the theory is that the authors use the processes of procreation and the spreading of genes as a motive for rape (as in the aforementioned example of the prehistoric man unable to find a willing partner). Of the 400,000 reported rapes per year, 32,130 are attacks on males over the age of twelve. One in six rapes happen to children under the age of twelve. No propagation of the human species is biologically possible in these situations. We are left with over a quarter of rapes that even Thornhill and Palmer cannot explain. Rape is clearly not about sex, or reproduction. It is about violence, and though that seems to be a catch phrase these days, we know it to be true. Sex is the weapon that offenders use, in place of a gun or a knife. Rape is a sickness of a society--a world--that has not taught its people a thing or two about power. Or it has chosen to teach the wrong things. We will not find the answer to rape in men's genes, nor will we find it in A Natural History of Rape. We may find interesting facts about evolution in this book, and we may even buy it because it bothers us so much. It just might become a bestseller. Read with care, friends. Summer Killian is a junior sociology major at Ithaca College. |
