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Rape is usually about sex drive

ApostateAbe

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If you have been to college any time after the year 2000, then you have heard the slogan, "Rape is not about sex, it is about power," or something similar. It means that rapists rape mainly because men, as foot soldiers of the powerful patriarchy, are trying to oppress women, and a man's sex drive does not have much to do with rape. The popularity of that slogan on campuses is bad enough, but you probably never heard anybody respectable disagree with it. Even those who disagreed with it don't want to come off as pro-rape, nor do they want to supply any rhetorical points in favor of the rape culture.

The absurdity isn't just scientifically wrong. It has destructive consequences, namely that any advice to women to protect themselves from rapey men is denounced as blaming the victim. Not that such denouncements would follow even within this theory, but the thinking goes: what we really should be doing is teaching men not to rape. It seems to make sense, because rape is a learned behavior, and we only need to undo that bad teaching. That would be a more efficient use of our opportunities to communicate.

You really have to go out of your way to know how the theory contrasts not just with any lay fool's grasp of reality but also with the body of data on the matter. It is not enough to know that theory was constructed on anecdotes selected by activist authors and reinforced by a lot of bad arguments (see ). A pretty good rundown was provided by John Alcock, 2001, The Triumph of Sociobiology, pages 206 to 211. I supplied the text below, along with Figure 9.5 and the footnotes.

The most unpleasant and damaging manifestation of the conflict between the sexes lies in the area of rape and other forms of coercive sex. Here too I believe that evolutionary theory has something important and practical to tell us about the phenomenon, if only we can put aside ideological blinders and a belief in the naturalistic fallacy [311]. These requirements will not be easily met, given the tendency of many to invoke the naturalistic fallacy when reacting to evolutionary analyses of coercive sex. Let a biologist attempt to explain why men rape and he can be guaranteed to hear that the hypothesis is not only dangerous but morally repugnant. And they will be told so in high dudgeon, as in "it seems quite clear that the biologicization of rape and the dismissal of social or 'moral' factors will... tend to legitimate rape" (p. 383 in [112]) and "it is reductive and reactionary to isolate rape from other forms of violent antisocial behavior and dignify it with adaptive significance" (p. 382 in [54]). Outbursts of this sort occur because the commentators believe that if rape were shown to be adaptive, as defined in evolutionary terms, then it would also be morally legitimate and socially defensible. Although the distinction in meaning between "evolved" and "moral" evidently is not easily grasped, nothing commands us to believe that biologically adaptive traits are necessarily socially desirable.

Furthermore, the standard feminist position on coercive sex is founded on ideological, as opposed to evidentiary, grounds. Inspired by Susan Brownmiller's Against Our Will, where she writes, "all rape is an exercise in power" (p. 256) and "is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear" (p. 15), the basic feminist argument has become that coercive sex is about power rather than sex. According to this view, rapists and their ilk are motivated purely by the proximate desire to dominate and intimidate women, a desire that stems from the influences of a patriarchal society dedicated to the preservation of male control [53]. According to this view, the idea that rape has anything to do with sex is a myth, pure and simple.

Although many versions of the standard argument exist among the many feminist factions, when college students are asked about their understanding of rape, most have heard of and many accept the Brownmillerian viewpoint. Familiarity with the "rape has nothing to do with sex" hypothesis stems from the energetic efforts of many feminists to educate others on the feminist position vis-a-vis the causes of rape. As a result, documents containing the "myths about rape" are widely available on the Internet. The "rape myths" presented to students at the University of Wisconsin, Texas A & M, Tulane University, and Monash University in Australia, to pick a few, contain statements like the following: "Since sexual assault is all about power, not sex, the age or appearance of the victim is irrelevant" and "Rape is not about sexual orientation or sexual desire. It is an act of power and control in which the victim is brutalized and humiliated" (see, for example, www.med.monash.edu.au/secasa/html/rape-myths.html).

Now the idea that sexual motivation plays no part in rape seems decidedly counterintuitive, given that the vast majority of rapists are sufficiently sexually aroused to achieve an erection and to ejaculate in their victims. Yet many persons have no doubt about it; sexual desire is not an issue in the rapist's behavior. The appeal of this assertion must stem from the fact that most people consider sexual desire a "natural" phenomenon, which some feminists fear will make the public more willing to excuse the rapist, at least in part, on the grounds that rape is in some sense "natural." In contrast, if rape is said to be violence pure and simple driven by a criminal desire to brutalize and humiliate, then no one would be tempted to forgive the rapist or be more understanding of his behavior. In other words, acceptance of the naturalistic fallacy provides the impetus to insist that there is nothing "natural" about the causes of rape.

To this end, it is also valuable to claim that rape is a purely human phenomenon, not part of the sexuality of other species: "No zoologist, as far as I know, has ever observed that animals rape in their natural habitat, the wild" (p. 12 in [53]). Moreover, why not assert that rape is a purely cultural phenomenon, the invention of some men in some warped societies. If true, then one need "only" educate the members of that society in order to change the ruling male ideology of rape, which will eliminate the problem. To this end, many feminists assert that rape is not a universal feature of all societies but rather a manifestation of just those societies in which a particularly unfortunate ideological perspective has come to shape male attitudes and behavior.

The advocates of the "rape has nothing to do with sex" hypothesis have been circumspect in dealing with the relevant data. For example, with respect to the so-called uniqueness of rape, even when Brownmiller wrote her book in 1975, ample evidence existed that males from a very wide range of animals sometimes force themselves on females that struggle to prevent copulation from occurring. Over the years, much more information has been assembled on the practice of forced matings in everything from insects to chimpanzees, orangutans, and other primate relatives of man [295, 311].

For example, I have on occasion seen a male of the desert beetle Tegrodera aloga run to a female and wrestle violently with her in an attempt to throw her on her side (fig. 9.4). If successful, the male probes the female's genital opening with his everted aedeagus (the entomological label for "penis") and he sometimes is able to achieve insertion of same, despite the female's attempts to break free. What makes this behavior so striking is that male Tegrodera aloga are perfectly capable of courting potential partners in a decorous manner. In these nonviolent interactions, a male cautiously moves in front of female, often one that is feeding on a tiny desert plant of some sort, and uses his antennae to sweep her antennae into two grooves in the front of his head (fig. 9.4). The two may stand facing one another for many minutes while the female feeds and the male strokes her antennae over and over again.

Judging from what is known of a somewhat similar beetle [117], the male's courtship maneuvers probably permit the female to assess the concentration of cantharidin in the male's blood via analysis of odors emanating from pores in the grooves in his head. Cantharidin is a toxic biochemical manufactured by males of some beetles for transfer to their mates during copulation; females safely store the material for later use in coating their eggs, the better to repel ants and other egg eaters after the eggs are laid in the soil. In other words, courting males communicate their capacity to provide their mates with a useful nuptial gift. If a female perceives her suitor to be in possession of valuable resources that she will receive, she may eventually permit him to mount and copulate sedately. If not, she pulls her antennae free and walks away. Males that attempt to short-circuit the female choice mechanism in this species probably lack the qualities, especially high levels of transferable cantharidin, that motivate females to become sexually receptive, although this prediction remains untested. Under these circumstances, males may have the conditional capacity to try to inseminate females forcibly, reducing female reproductive success to some extent in the process, which is why females of this species resist. The idea that forced copulation only happens in humans is therefore simply untrue.

And what about the claim that rape is haphazardly distributed among human cultures, present here, absent there, thanks to arbitrary variation in cultural histories and influences? You will remember Margaret Mead's incorrect assertion that rape was absent in traditional Samoan society. Analysis of similar claims about other groups has shown them to be equally erroneous [246]. Rape is a cultural universal.

These findings are part of the reason why some sociobiologists think that the "rape has nothing to do with sex" hypothesis is not only implausible but untrue. One sociobiological alternative is that rape is partly the product of evolved male psychological mechanisms, including those that promote ease of sexual arousal, the capacity for impersonal sex, the desire for sexual variety for variety's sake, a desire to control the sexuality of potential partners, and a willingness to employ coercive tactics to achieve copulations under some conditions. Why would these: proximate mechanisms have spread through ancestral hominid populations? Because they almost certainly contributed to an increase in the number of females inseminated by some ancestral males with a consequent increase in the number of offspring produced.

According to this approach, rape itself could either be a maladaptive side effect of sexual psychological mechanisms that have other generally adaptive outcomes or rape could be one of the tactics controlled by a conditional strategy that enables an individual to select the option with the highest fitness payoff given his particular circumstances. Note that these are two separate hypotheses, each of which generates distinctive predictions, so that either one or the other or both could potentially be rejected via standard scientific testing. The maladaptive byproduct hypothesis is plausible because it is clear that in humans and other species, the intense sex drive of males sometimes motivates them to perform acts that cannot possibly result in offspring. Male elephant seals not uncommonly attempt to copulate with young pups only a month or two old while males of some species of bees work themselves into a sexual frenzy over a deceased female or even a part of her body. Human males engage in masturbation, oral and anal sex, homosexual sex, and sex with children, to name just a few of the sexual activities that no one has ever claimed will generate surviving offspring.

On the other hand, the adaptive conditional tactic hypothesis for rape is also plausible because rape appears to be associated with both low socioeconomic status and low risk of punishment, two conditions that would tend to increase the fitness benefit to fitness cost ratio of rape for certain individuals acting under certain circumstances. For example, poor men may have much less opportunity to engage in successful courtship because women favor wealthier individuals; rape could enable some in this category to gain sexual access to women. The mean fitness benefit from rape need not be great for individuals who have little or no chance of forming a partnership with a willing woman. Likewise, when rape occurs with little risk of punishment, as has traditionally been the case for soldiers in combat, then the fitness benefit need not be great to outweigh the relatively low costs associated with the behavior, which is indeed widespread in times of war.

Debate continues on these alternatives because definitive tests needed to discriminate between them have yet to be carried out. But both hypotheses are based on the premise that rape is linked to evolved psychological mechanisms that contributed more, not less, to the chances of successful reproduction by men in the ancestral hominid environment. This premise is testable. For example, both hypotheses could be dismissed if it were shown that raped women in the past could not have borne children as a result of the assault. However, even in modern populations where birth control and abortion are available, some rape victims do become pregnant and bear the rapist's child.

In addition, both hypotheses yield the prediction that rapists will especially target women of reproductive age. Tests of this prediction have also been positive (fig. 9.5) with the age distribution of raped women heavily skewed toward the years of peak fertility. Yes, a small proportion of the victim population consists of women either too young or too old to bear children, but the chance that a twenty-four-year-old will be raped is somewhere between four and twenty times greater than the risk that a fifty-four-year-old will be sexually assaulted [312], And note that the age distribution of women subject to homicidal attack is quite different from that of rape victims, a result that further reduces whatever residual attraction might be associated with the rape has nothing to do with sex hypothesis. If rape were unadulterated violence designed to brutalize women, one would expect convergence in the age distributions of rape and homicide victims. The convergence does not exist.​

Footnotes:

Code:
53. Brownmiller, S. 1975. [i]Against Our Wil[/i]. New York: Simon & Schuster.
54. Brownmiller, S., and B. Merhof. 1992. A feminist response to rape as an adaptation in men. [i]Brain and Behavioral Sciences[/i] 15: 381-382.
76. Coyne, J. 2000. Of vice and men. [i]New Republic[/i] 222: 27-34.
112. Dupre", J. 1992. Blinded by "science": How not to think about social problems. [i]Behavioral and Brain Sciences[/i] 15: 382-383.
115. Ehrenreich, B. 2000. How "natural" is rape? [i]Time[/i] 155 (4): 88.
117. Eisner, T., et al. 1996. Chemical basis of courtship in a beetle (Neopyrochroa flabellata): Cantharidin as precopulatory "enticing" agent. [/i]Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences[i] 93: 6494-6498.
246. Palmer, C. T. 1989. [i]Is rape a cultural universal? A re-examination of the ethnographic data[/i]. Ethnology 28: 1-16.
295. Smuts, B. B., and R. W. Smuts. 1993. Male aggression and sexual coercion of females in nonhuman primates and other mammals: Evidence and theoretical implications. [i]Advances in the Study of Behavior[/i] 22: 1-63.
311. Thornhill, R., and C. T. Palmer. 2000. [i]A Natural History of Rape: The Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion[/i]. Cambridge: MIT Press.
312. Thornhill, R., and N. W. Thornhill. 1983. [i]Human rape: An evolutionary analysis[/i]. Ethology and Sociobiology 4: 137-173.
 

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Thurlor

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Yes, rape (by a male) requires sexual arousal. This implies that all prison rape is carried out by homosexuals or bisexuals.

Why do you think rape is a learned behaviour? It seems more likely that not raping is a learned behaviour. Non-human animals rape, implying it is a natural behaviour.

If rape were about power and not arousal why don't we see straight people raping just to exert dominance?
 

Haim

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There are definitely people that rape in order to feel powerful or that feeling powerful give sex drive for that people. When you have rapist that have much more attractive girlfriend or wife, him raping only because of being horny does not make sense.
Of course that sometimes it is just someone being horny .

Anyway why does the cause matter to you?
 

ZenRaiden

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People usually rape because they feel like it. The complex they have or don't doesn't really matter. Its harmful and should not be done.
Same action does not always require same reasons or motives.
 

redbaron

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If rape were about power and not arousal why don't we see straight people raping just to exert dominance?

We do see that.
 

Puffy

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Eh, pattern I've observed in OP's posts is that he seems to be attracted to defending positions of controversy, or positions that he believes will be received as controversial, over other factors. It's close enough in my mind to a definition of a troll that I conclude he's not worth engaging with.
 

peoplesuck

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Eh, pattern I've observed in OP's posts is that he seems to be attracted to defending positions of controversy, or positions that he believes will be received as controversial, over other factors. It's close enough in my mind to a definition of a troll that I conclude he's not worth engaging with.
Ive been around the internet, I believe this is whats known as an edgelord.
"edgelord
A poster on an Internet forum, (particularly 4chan) who expresses opinions which are either strongly nihilistic, ("life has no meaning," or Tyler Durden's special snowflake speech from the film Fight Club being probably the two main examples) or contain references to Hitler, Nazism, fascism, or other taboo topics which are deliberately intended to shock or offend readers."
 

Daddy

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But humans aren't lizards.
 

ApostateAbe

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Yes, rape (by a male) requires sexual arousal. This implies that all prison rape is carried out by homosexuals or bisexuals.

Why do you think rape is a learned behaviour? It seems more likely that not raping is a learned behaviour. Non-human animals rape, implying it is a natural behaviour.

If rape were about power and not arousal why don't we see straight people raping just to exert dominance?
Your thoughts are all over the place. Maybe you are still making up your mind? Don't get the wrong idea about my opinion. I don't think rape is a learned behavior. That would require at least a few rape teachers. That isn't a thing.

The men who rape other men in prison are generally heterosexuals, in my estimate. They are men with a strong sex drive who have no female outlets. I used to think prison rape was the only type of rape that would confirm the theory that "rape is about power, not about sex," but now I think even that is unlikely.
 

ApostateAbe

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There are definitely people that rape in order to feel powerful or that feeling powerful give sex drive for that people. When you have rapist that have much more attractive girlfriend or wife, him raping only because of being horny does not make sense.
Of course that sometimes it is just someone being horny .

Anyway why does the cause matter to you?
The topic came up in another thread. I brought it up in passing as an example of an absurd thing that American sociologists believe because they deny the biology of human nature, and then other posters indicated that they actually believed it. The whole field of sociology (and related fields) is stuck in a ideological swamp, whereas other sciences have built modern civilization. That is a very big deal. It is the science of our own species.
 

ApostateAbe

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But humans aren't lizards.
Yes, but humans are mammals, and a vast diversity of mammal species have used rape as a means of reproduction, including the closest kin to the human species.
 

ApostateAbe

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Eh, pattern I've observed in OP's posts is that he seems to be attracted to defending positions of controversy, or positions that he believes will be received as controversial, over other factors. It's close enough in my mind to a definition of a troll that I conclude he's not worth engaging with.
I mostly agree. Only a few such people are worth engaging with, in my opinion. (I have a high opinion of myself.)
 

ApostateAbe

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When you have rapist that have much more attractive girlfriend or wife, him raping only because of being horny does not make sense.
Men cheat even when each such man has an attractive girlfriend or wife, but do we then argue that the cheating behavior has non-sexual motivation? Generally, no. That is because obviously a man's sex drive is not satisfied except by a countless diversity of beautiful young women. Genghis Kahn and barely any other man in history satisfied his own sex drive.
 

ApostateAbe

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When I wrote, "It is not enough to know that theory was constructed on anecdotes selected by activist authors and reinforced by a lot of bad arguments (see )," I mistakenly omitted the citation. It should have been Craig T. Palmer, 1988, "Twelve Reasons Why Rape is not Sexually Motivated: A Skeptical Examination" via http://www.profkramer.com/assets/palmer-1988.pdf. It is a great article, much-needed.
 

Daddy

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But humans aren't lizards.
Yes, but humans are mammals, and a vast diversity of mammal species have used rape as a means of reproduction, including the closest kin to the human species.

Not to say that you are necessarily wrong,
but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that most people wouldn't enjoy raping someone, including men, even if on some instinctive level the desire lingers; humans seemed to have developed the potential for empathy and sex usually comes with sharing emotions and intimacy, which is probably related to "love". And most people enjoy pleasing their partner as much as getting their own pleasure.

So to be frank, I can only believe that someone who asserts rape as a natural instinct to reproduction might have an empathy deficit and only see sex as a form of pleasure. And that's fine because we are all different, but that's what I would think. And that's what I do think.
 

peoplesuck

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I went through a brief period of having an extremely high sex drive, I think I came off of a medication too fast, I didn't rape anyone, I didnt even consider it.
EDIT: to be clear I was talking about mental levels of sex drive, gym bro high on test, levels of sex drive.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.

You wouldnt rape, for the same reason you wouldnt steal from a small family owned bookstore. Rape is clearly much worse than shorting someone a few dollars, yet most people are decent enough not to steal from small family owned stores.
Rape is probably a mixture of bitterness, and lack of empathy.

If I ever get raped, I will be sure to investigate and pry into their motives. for science
 

ApostateAbe

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You wouldnt rape, for the same reason you wouldnt steal from a small family owned bookstore.

This point may lead to an answer to the puzzle. We are judging the whole human species based on our own selves. True, I would not steal from a small family-owned bookstore, and neither would you. And yet all types of businesses get robbed, without exception. What is going on? Answer: not everyone is like us. Similarly, not all of those beetles rape, but only those beetles who lack the chemical sufficient to seduce the females.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk
 

Black Rose

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Dolphins are rapists

Ducks are rapists

Tentacles are rapists
cHQhcHs.jpg
 

peoplesuck

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The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
You wouldnt rape, for the same reason you wouldnt steal from a small family owned bookstore.

This point may lead to an answer to the puzzle. We are judging the whole human species based on our own selves. True, I would not steal from a small family-owned bookstore, and neither would you. And yet all types of businesses get robbed, without exception. What is going on? Answer: not everyone is like us. Similarly, not all of those beetles rape, but only those beetles who lack the chemical sufficient to seduce the females.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
stop ignoring counterpoints
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
The difference, as our boi ^ just said, is compassion/empathy.
 

Puffy

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Eh, pattern I've observed in OP's posts is that he seems to be attracted to defending positions of controversy, or positions that he believes will be received as controversial, over other factors. It's close enough in my mind to a definition of a troll that I conclude he's not worth engaging with.
I mostly agree. Only a few such people are worth engaging with, in my opinion. (I have a high opinion of myself.)

Fair enough. With this one I'm unsure I quite get the punch line. Is it to draw comparisons between human males and monkeys in a zoo?

---

It seems common sense that someone would commit rape in order to fulfil a sexual desire or fantasy of some kind. But I don't see why that would be inseparable to a psychological motivation of power and having dominance over others (as a possible lens among others). It seems like an instance where physiological and psychological motivations could overlap without much contradiction.

Power fantasies, for example, are quite common among males even if the majority wouldn't consider acting them out in as extreme a form as that. You only have to randomly pick a selection of modern pornography videos to see the evidence of that.

Rape is quite a specific act. I don't think we can generalise sexual desire so that rape and making passionate love to your partner, for example, are mutual and equatable means of fulfilling the same desire or sex drive. They have fundamentally different motivations, and I think if we purely reduce those motivations to the sex drive itself that we miss out on the nuance of why someone chooses to express it in a loving or destructive way.

Which, to me at least, is the most important part of the conversation - how and why we choose to express this common sexual instinct. Rape can't only be to fulfil sex drive in my mind or the rapist could have chosen an option of mutual benefit, without a grossly destructive outcome, and of much less risk to themselves in order to satisfy that. That appears too much like an excuse.

So why was the rapist unable to fulfil (or unable to choose to fulfil) their sex drive through an option of mutual benefit? Insecurity? Sexual frustration as they can't attract a partner (why?)? Fear of intimacy? Revenge? A means of feeling powerful and superior? Taking out suppressed pain on another? Lack of empathy or compassion? Sadistic pleasure? Loathing? Traumatic upbringing? Mummy issues?

It likely varies from person to person - but this questioning digs closer to the reality, at least in my opinion. My concern is that if we reduce it all to a generic animalistic instinct that we negate and carpet over a lot of important social issues that need to be brought into discussion in order to understand a serious problem which ultimately destroys a lot of lives.
 

ApostateAbe

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stop ignoring counterpoints
Maybe I need to spell this out clearly for you: some members of the human species lack sufficient compassion/empathy. On the extreme end, they are psychopaths. And a bunch of people are just somewhere further along the psychopath spectrum. Those are the people who will rape and just not give a damn. And, even the non-psychopaths may rape and rationalize it as though it is not harmful for the victim.
 

peoplesuck

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stop ignoring counterpoints
Maybe I need to spell this out clearly for you: some members of the human species lack sufficient compassion/empathy. On the extreme end, they are psychopaths. And a bunch of people are just somewhere further along the psychopath spectrum. Those are the people who will rape and just not give a damn. And, even the non-psychopaths may rape and rationalize it as though it is not harmful for the victim.
waow did you repeat what I said back to me, as if I didnt just say it?
10/10 trolling friend
I have a very high opinion of u as well, 10/10 celver gurl ur are fren
let me guess your next thread: women arent as smart as men
amirigte?
and the next one is nobody is as smart as I am
lol u got me, I fell for your trap. the oldest trick in the internet book.
Next time I will be more wise, and I will not say anything, because you have taught me well, master one kenobi.
Sincerely ya boi
 

ApostateAbe

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Eh, pattern I've observed in OP's posts is that he seems to be attracted to defending positions of controversy, or positions that he believes will be received as controversial, over other factors. It's close enough in my mind to a definition of a troll that I conclude he's not worth engaging with.
I mostly agree. Only a few such people are worth engaging with, in my opinion. (I have a high opinion of myself.)

Fair enough. With this one I'm unsure I quite get the punch line. Is it to draw comparisons between human males and monkeys in a zoo?

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It seems common sense that someone would commit rape in order to fulfil a sexual desire or fantasy of some kind. But I don't see why that would be inseparable to a psychological motivation of power and having dominance over others (as a possible lens among others). It seems like an instance where physiological and psychological motivations could overlap without much contradiction.

Power fantasies, for example, are quite common among males even if the majority wouldn't consider acting them out in as extreme a form as that. You only have to randomly pick a selection of modern pornography videos to see the evidence of that.

Rape is quite a specific act. I don't think we can generalise sexual desire so that rape and making passionate love to your partner, for example, are mutual and equatable means of fulfilling the same desire or sex drive. They have fundamentally different motivations, and I think if we purely reduce those motivations to the sex drive itself that we miss out on the nuance of why someone chooses to express it in a loving or destructive way.

Which, to me at least, is the most important part of the conversation - how and why we choose to express this common sexual instinct. Rape can't only be to fulfil sex drive in my mind or the rapist could have chosen an option of mutual benefit, without a grossly destructive outcome, and of much less risk to themselves in order to satisfy that. That appears too much like an excuse.

So why was the rapist unable to fulfil (or unable to choose to fulfil) their sex drive through an option of mutual benefit? Insecurity? Sexual frustration as they can't attract a partner (why?)? Fear of intimacy? Revenge? A means of feeling powerful and superior? Taking out suppressed pain on another? Lack of empathy or compassion? Sadistic pleasure? Loathing? Traumatic upbringing? Mummy issues?

It likely varies from person to person - but this questioning digs closer to the reality, at least in my opinion. My concern is that if we reduce it all to a generic animalistic instinct that we negate and carpet over a lot of important social issues that need to be brought into discussion in order to understand a serious problem which ultimately destroys a lot of lives.
I certainly would not want to paper over the complexity. The case of Bill Cosby is interesting to me. He is a man who could have had the consent of almost any woman he wanted, and yet he raped them by the dozens with knock-out drugs in their drinks. An attempt at rape without knock-out drugs would tend to just be consensual sex! I expect that rape is his fetish. Probably not rape for the sake of oppressing women, but just another variant of sexual fulfillment.

A bunch of generalizations are wrong, but some are correct, and they are necessary for making sense of our own species, for navigating the world, and making probabilistic inferences of individuals. The sex drive hypothesis is how we know that young men are much more likely to rape than old men, young women are much more likely to be victims than old women, and we can evaluate risks from that. So, advise your teenage daughters to go easy on the drinking at fraternity parties. Some loud activists are denouncing such common-sense advice.
 

Marbles

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A rapey disposition stems from a deep-rooted, subconscious desire for, yet revulsion to, your mother; due to repressed childhood memories of her strapping you into your baby stroller. In your impotent bondage you perceived your father's vigor and autonomy from the confines of your infantile prison. You longed to break the chains of maternal oppression through achievement of mature, masculine potency. Growing older this desire for patriarchal dominance remained trapped in your Id, where it fueled your climb through the dominance hierarchy. By the time you were physically a lobst... I mean... man, your failure to assert dominance among your peers caused a regression to the mind of the child in the stroller, and your ego lashed out in the most primal fashion possible, imposing your bondage and sexual confusion on any female specimen in your vicinity. I am man, hear me roar.

Or men are just rapey assholes, driven to procreate by any means. Did you know a duck's vagina is shaped like a maze to deter rape? I kid you not. I doubt male ducks are soldiers of the toxic patriarchy, they are just horny, but in either case, watch out Daisey Duck.
 

Black Rose

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Men hate women because of their relationship with their mother. Marbles is a genius.
 

Marbles

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Men hate women because of their relationship with their mother. Marbles is a genius.
And also, ducks.

Edit: Oooh, I just saw your post and realized you're duck woke. Those videos were hilarious. Except the story of the suiciding dolphin in love. That was heartbreaking.
 

Puffy

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I know Marbles is being tongue in cheek but I do wonder if there's something to that. Our Mother's are the original female archetype in our lives, so it makes sense to me that our relationship to her goes on to inform our relationship to other women in our lives. I'd guess that someone is more likely to go on to have very troubled sexual relations if they have an unhealthy relationship with their Mother.

I'm thinking of an admittedly extreme example like Ted Bundy. He discovered that the person he had grown up to believe was his sister was actually his Mother, and then a year later he started the rampage that he was famous for. It's not that difficult to see his sexual violence in part as a mirror of the hatred he had for his Mother.

I don't know much about Bill Cosby at all. I'm just saying there's likely a specific reason why he chose to express his sex drive the way he did. If we just say "he's fulfilling his sexual drive" a) I feel like we're giving him an excuse like we would to a gang of ducks and b) I feel we're only describing what happened on a surface level, where if people like him were to be rehabilitated, or others prevented from doing it before it reached that stage, they'd have to resolve whatever underlying issue provoked them to do or fantasise about it.

Reading your response @ApostateAbe though, I suspect you've created this thread to argue against feminist positions more than anything else. I feel like you'd need to spend a day in someone elses' shoes in order to get that one.
 

ApostateAbe

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I know Marbles is being tongue in cheek but I do wonder if there's something to that. Our Mother's are the original female archetype in our lives, so it makes sense to me that our relationship to her goes on to inform our relationship to other women in our lives. I'd guess that someone is more likely to go on to have very troubled sexual relations if they have an unhealthy relationship with their Mother.

I'm thinking of an admittedly extreme example like Ted Bundy. He discovered that the person he had grown up to believe was his sister was actually his Mother, and then a year later he started the rampage that he was famous for. It's not that difficult to see his sexual violence in part as a mirror of the hatred he had for his Mother.

I don't know much about Bill Cosby at all. I'm just saying there's likely a specific reason why he chose to express his sex drive the way he did. If we just say "he's fulfilling his sexual drive" a) I feel like we're giving him an excuse like we would to a gang of ducks and b) I feel we're only describing what happened on a surface level, where if people like him were to be rehabilitated, or others prevented from doing it before it reached that stage, they'd have to resolve whatever underlying issue provoked them to do or fantasise about it.

Reading your response @ApostateAbe though, I suspect you've created this thread to argue against feminist positions more than anything else. I feel like you'd need to spend a day in someone elses' shoes in order to get that one.
Yes, I am arguing against the feminist position, and I don't think anyone here has really defended the feminist position nor even disagreed with my own position (rape is usually about sex drive). There are just a lot of diverse offshoots and elaborations of my position. I expected that I would be writing something disagreeable, given that the same position attracted disagreement elsewhere, but I didn't.
 

peoplesuck

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nor even disagreed with my own position
its a lack of compassion and empathy, only people with actually brain damage/malfunctions are so horny they rape people.
Sorry but I disagreed quite openly. please dont let the keep you from ignoring it.

TBH I think rape causes sex drive, think about it, how many people have raped and had a sex drive, clear connection here.
Im wasting my time saying this, so I must be retarded, dont take me seriously, im not smart enough to comment on this mensa forum. MB
 

peoplesuck

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I have a good thread, shitty threads are usually about attention and not actually figuring anything out, but just being negative and argumentative, while ignoring what people actually say,because the point of a thread isnt communication.
 

ApostateAbe

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Yeah, you apparently thought you were disagreeing, but you were not. I just took it as an obvious given premise that rapists tend to lack empathy, and that doesn't really need to be stated explicitly as a component of the behavior.

"What causes some people to murder? Anger or greed? I think it is generally anger."

"You are wrong. WRONG! It is both anger and a lack of empathy."
 
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