Evolution of Sexual Violence

INTRODUCTION

Genetically and biologically male and female were once very similar, but something has happened over the course of time that has caused the differences we know and recognize today. This asymmetry of our co-evolution can be seen in humans across genders and cultures. The cause of these differences has been argued by attributing them to either nature or nature. Sexual violence is one example of “a reflection of an asymmetry in the way the sexes treat each other.”

There is a long history of sexual violence towards women by men. This is most greatly seen in times of war, but can also happen in married relationships.  Scientists are trying to scientifically justify the reasons for rape while some scholars persist that, “there must be an underlying evolutionary thread that reflects a fundamental difference in gender identity and sexual strategy, encoded in behavioral predispositions.”

Scientific Justification for Rape

       Biologist Randi Thornhill and cultural anthropologist Craig T. Palmer argue in their book A Natural History of Rape that “rape is a complex crime with strong roots in human evolution” (Scientific Study). While most feminists, sociologists, law enforcement officers and rape survivor advocates content that rape is about male domination rather than sexual arousal, Thornhill and Palmer suggest that rape is a reproductive strategy learned during men’s evolutionary history. This is why, despite legal and social sanctions against rape, rape continues to be a societal issue.

        They suggest two potential causes for the rape proneness of men. One hypothesis is the “indirect selection for rape” during human evolution meaning that rape is a byproduct of the differences in women’s and men’s sexualities (Thornhill).  Some of these differences include men’s greater visual sexual arousal, autonomous sex drive, desire for sexual variety, willingness to engage in impersonal sex, and reduced ability to abstain from sexual activity. These behaviors were favored in human evolution because they allowed men to access different sexual partners and increase their potential for having viable offspring. This evolutionary history has created a strong libido in men and “when it is combined with evolved female mate choice, rape arises as an incidental effect” (Thornhill). Thornhill and Palmer also hypothesize that rape itself is an adaptation. According to their research, a rape proneness is present in all men but only expresses itself when conditions suggest it would be beneficial. All men understand that rape is a reproductive strategy that they can use but Thornhill and Palmer caution that men are not “genetically predisposed to rape” or that a rape gene exists (Scientific Study).

        In order to prevent men for utilizing rape as reproductive strategy, Thornhill and Palmer suggest that we improve the conditions in which young people, especially young men, learn about sexuality and development. They believe that evolutionary informed sex education courses rather than rape prevention strategies would allow young people to learn about differences in sexuality for men and women. For example, when young women say no they are actually expressing disinterest that will never shift into interest. These courses could also provide young men with information that will help them avoid situations in which they may rape and help them distinguished perceived sexual signals from sexual rejections.

Sexual Violence in Marriage

      Sexual violence, according to the article “An Evolutionary Psychological Perspective on Male Sexual Proprietariness and Violence Against Wives” by Margo Wilson and Martin Daly, can be found in marriages around the world. This kind of violence is physical violence done to the wife in the marriage by the husband. The article cited evidence from all over the world of husbands physically abusing their wives. They claim that this kind of violence, among other things, reflects evolution (110). Citing Darwin’s theory on survival of the fittest, Wilson and Daly claim that “sexual proprietariness is a psychological adaptation of the human male,” (114).  
      “Proprietariness”, according to these authors, means basically that men are inclined to claim women as their property, “as songbirds lay claim to territories, as lions lay claim to a kill,” (114). This also involves a sense of entitlement where the male feels hostility and grievance for any “trespasses” against his territory. In this way, for example, a male would feel hostile towards rivals (for his love with “his” female) while also feeling grievance for his woman having cheated on him in any way. This grievance would allow him, in a community, to gain support from onlookers in the way of justification or punishing those involved in the so-called wrongdoing. The “injured” or cheated-on male would then be allowed, rightly in the eyes of the community, to take out his aggression on not only the other male but also his wife.
        The article claims that this kind of violent behavior came from a time when there were limited resources, i.e. limited females. Because of this, males were automatically placed “in an arena of actual or potential conflicts of interest,” (115). In order to reproduce and pass on their genes, they had to be very territorial over their females. Those males who did not pose a threat to their rivals or to their females often did not reproduce. The article claims that violence against the wife reduces “her likelihood of imminent departure” because she is afraid of the repercussions (120). This then allows the husband to have complete control of the reproduction of the wife and therefore increase his chances at reproduction. Violence against the rivals keeps the rivals from mating with the wife and thereby increasing the husband’s chances for mating with her. The article goes into depth about what exactly this kind of relationship brings about in both males and females and just how much community has an effect on this, but it is very explicit in saying that evolution is one of the key driving factors behind sexual abuse in the marriage.

See the video below for more information:

  

While this video takes a different route in the end of it’s presentation than does this post, the first half is still very interesting and educational for the purposes of this blog. 

Rape/Sexual Assault During Times of War 

During times of war the codes of conduct that are socially acceptable in society are often neglected and traded in for those that will maintain survival.  In the article The Evolution of War and its Cognitive Foundations by John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, the evolution of war is analyzed.  While a fight is a violent conflict between two individuals, a war is a violent conflict between two coalitions of individuals that can only function with the cooperation of many people.  When taking this into consideration, it is then important to note that the action of War is something that is only perceived among the human species, and therefore is a subject of fascination for evolutionary scientists as they often look for a means of explaining it’s roots. This is due to the fact that war has been associated with the evolution and history of the human species as well as the masculanization of males in society. Those who fight the war, however, while important are often not the most affected by this neglect of social norms, but rather it is the people left behind that are terrorized and impacted.  When considering rape and sexual assault during times of war, such violence, which is normally purposefully hidden from the obvious eyes of society but never-the-less present, is visible in its raw, brutal form.

In Maria B. Ojulic’s article Embodiment of Terror: Gendered Violence in Peacetime and Wartime in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, the topic of rape during the time of war is analyzed as reflecting the gendered violence of peaceful times. The political background of the situation in which the war took place was such: Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina (all republics of socialist Yugoslavia) declared their independence, leading to the wars between the different areas to maintain control. During the war, as well as after the areas were under Serbian occupation, and it was at these times that such violence occurred. Contrary to popular belief, the presence of gendered violence is not something that merely appears during times of war but rather something that is formed by drawing on the meaning of sexuality created during peacetime.. As Ojulic stated, “To understand the public violence in former Yugoslavia requires insight not only of a wartime ‘culture of violence,’ but also o the ‘culture of peacetime.The two are inextricably interlinked.” In the society, the woman represented marriage, family, and village and thus held both the family’s honor and it’s shame. When the rape’s took place during war it signified humility throughout the society. The rapist were able to situate physical and moral control over the women  and dishonor their male family members for being unable to protect them.  Ojulic also comments on how rape and “play rape” have been a historical part of marriage and courtship in southeastern Europe. Then, with the beginning of the war, jokes and songs were formed within the population showing the tension placed on sexual violence that was to come. 

View the Video below to further information on these victims

 

The evolution of rape during the time of war seems to have gone through different stages to its creation. First, rape was used as a reward to the conquerors of a war in ancient times. This is contested in many forms, including the Old Testament and Roman scriptures, which both describe women being raped from conquered tribes/armies by the victors habitually. In this same context, foreign women were kidnapped and raped as spoils of war and then forced to marry their captors.  In more recent times, including wars such as the War of Bosnia and Herzegovina (previously mentioned), wars in Peru, and the Genocide Wars in Rwanda, rape has been used to show dominance over the conquered/targeted group.  Rape, in this sense, is also used to breed out these groups as well. But the last stage, which has seemed to gain popularity among warring countries within the last few decades utilizes rape as a systematic, structured weapon of war in order to intentionally inflict terror.

In a website focused (noted in sources) on the rape of African women during the genocides within the last decades states, "Rape was a weapon of terror as the German Hun marched through Belgium in World War I. It was a weapon of revenge as the Russian Army marched to Berlin in World War II, it was used when the Japanese raped Chinese women in the city of Nanking, when the Pakistani Army battled Bangladesh, and when the American G.I.s made rape in Vietnam a 'standard operating procedure aimed at terrorizing the population into submission'." In this way rape was used as a means to force a society into submission as well as terrorize the people, as women are seen as the faction of life and honor. By systematizing the rape of the part of human society that can create the future generations (and in a sense possibly impregnating them) these conquering armies are able to cause shame on these women while keeping the populations in a constant state of terror. In this same way, conquered or imprisoned sections of society are often raped as a form of punishment and shame during times of war as well, whether they are men or women as the same intent is achieved. 
Click the link below to further information of rape as a weapon of war: 
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4356720n&tag=related;photovideo 

Sexual Assault as Evolution

Sexual assault or coercion is explained by multiple theories, evolution being one of them. The evolutionary theory explains how sexual assault may be explained by natural selection. According to natural selection, men invest less energy in sexual reproduction and therefore tend to have/want multiple partners so as to increase their chances of adaptive success. Women on the other hand, require time and energy for the reproductive process and therefore are selectively given the right to choose their partners. Men with more partners are also considered more successful and therefore the woman’s right to choose yet again goes against a man’s evolutionary advantage. Rape in essence takes a woman’s right to choose her partner away from her in favor of the man’s reproductive success. This may have come by because it becomes harder for men to be reproductively successful and therefore they must take the choice away from women. Women on the other hand, are adapted to resist sexual advances from males they do not view as reproductively favorable. Therefore rape is a adaptively a drawback for women as it does not allow them to ensure paternity certainty or fitness in their mates and decreases their reproductive success and therefore their ability to pass on their genetic code. The evolutionary gap between a man’s need to have multiple partners and a woman’s need to choose their partners is the vacuum which rape evolutionarily fills in.
        However, this evolutionary justification of rape or the rape adaptation hypothesis as posited by Thornhill and Palmer almost seems to justify the ‘boys will be boys’ reasoning and many theorists criticize it. Other offender related theories imply physiological and neurological aspects such as hormones and trauma that often leads to an increase in violent behavior and assault. Alcohol is also an important factor as alcohol tends to influence perception of sexual behavior. Certain psychopathological traits like aggression are more highly linked to rape but they are not mutually exclusive and there are many other environmental, genetic, social and personality traits that may be influence the behavior of a potential rapist. Socially, the history of rape affects the chances of further behavior as violence within the family structure, the media’s portrayal of sexual relations and sexuality, culturally acceptable sexual mores and notions of what a relationship should be influence how a society views rape. Marital rape for instance in considered the norm in societies where women are perceived as being the property of their husbands or dependent on their husbands even. In conclusion, rape and other sexually violent behavior is attributed to evolution, individual characteristics or socio-cultural mores. There are multiple causes for it but at the end of the day, what must be taken away from any analysis of rape is that rape only serves to further divide the society and is something that both men and women must come together to fight.