|
FirmhandKY -> RE: Is it rape if she likes it? (5/4/2007 4:31:07 AM)
|
Natural History of Rape
Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion
By RANDY THORNHILL and CRAIG T. PALMER
The MIT Press
(C) 2000 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. ISBN: 0-262-20125-9
Chapter 6
The Social Science Explanation of Rape
Zuleyma Tang-Martinez's phrase "a feminist psychosocial analysis" (1997, p. 122) accurately describes what has become the dominant explanation of rape in the social sciences over the past 25 years. This explanation developed after certain feminist assertions were added to the "learning theory" that has been the bedrock of social science for much of the last 100 years. Because the phrase "feminist psychosocial analysis" is a bit awkward, we will refer to it as "the social science explanation."
The social scientists we mean are those whose "research" has been guided more by ideology-driven social arguments than by science. For a definition of feminism, we rely on Gowaty (1992, p. 218): "a movement to end sexist oppression."
We have been told that some of the positions we are about to criticize have been abandoned by social scientists studying rape. We are not convinced. Not only does the recent literature on rape repeat these positions; assertions reflecting these positions often continue to be made by the same people who claim that the arguments have been abandoned (Palmer et al. 1999). Hence, we feel our use of the label "the social science explanation" is quite justified.
Learning Theory
The social science approach to rape is based on learning theorists' assertion that culture is a non-biological entity and that it causes the behavior and the desires of men and women through a powerful process known as "learning."1 Hence, rape occurs only when men learn to rape. One reason why so much of social science pays little attention to scientific standards is that this "learning theory" is almost metaphysical, so that making the implicit evolutionary assumptions of the learning theory of rape explicit is especially challenging.
...
"Rape Is Not Sex"
To the general framework of learning theory many feminist social scientists added the assertion that "sexual coercion is motivated by power, not lust" (Stock 1991, p. 61). This addition made male dominance a larger target of feminist opposition. This view was first put forth by Millett (1971), Griffin (1971), and Greer (1970). When popularized by Brownmiller (1975), it quickly became the central tenet in social science explanations of rape. As Warner (1980, p. 94) notes, "it is now generally accepted by criminologists, psychologists, and other professionals working with rapists and rape victims that rape is not primarily a sex crime, it is a crime of violence." Further, the idea of rape as "a political act that indicated nothing about male sexuality" (Symons 1979, p. 104) became a "focal point of feminist theory" (Sanders 1980, p. 22). Indeed, by the mid 1980s rape had become the "master symbol of women's oppression" (Schwendinger and Schwendinger 1985, p. 93). This intertwining of explanations of rape and political ideology has caused the naturalistic fallacy to play a truly impressive role in the social science study of rape.
In combination, learning theory and the feminist assertion that rape is motivated by a desire for control and dominance produced the view that rape is caused by supposedly patriarchal cultures where males are taught to dominate, and hence rape, women.
...
It is difficult to overestimate the power the "not sex" theory of rape continues to have. Murphey (1992, p. 18) offers a typical example from the popular press: "Joan Beck, a nationally published columnist based with the Chicago Tribune, was able to say in April 1991 that 'if there is still any lingering misconception that rape is a crime of sexual passion, it's important to drive a stake through the heart of that idea as quickly as possible. . . .'" Jones (1990, pp. 64-65) explicitly praises Brownmiller's 1975 book for having taught feminists that "sexual and physical violence against women is not 'sexual' at all but simply violent."4 Sanday (1990, p. 10) states that during rape "the sexual act is not concerned with sexual gratification but with the deployment of the penis as a concrete symbol of masculine social power." Donat and D'Emilio (1992, p. 15) write that among feminists in the 1960s "rape was recognized as an act of violence, not of sex." White and Farmer (1992, p. 47) state that "feminist assumptions . . . generally de-emphasize the potential contribution that biologically driven sexual motives may play in the commitment of sexual assault." Morris (1987, p. 128) writes that "most feminist writers . . . see rape as a violent act [and] argue that the use of force or physical coercion is the central feature of rape."
As an indication of the strength and the pervasiveness of these assumptions among social scientists,5 consider the following quotation:
We cannot overestimate the influence of feminist theorists such as Brownmiller upon the thinking of current researchers. Many investigators, while not necessarily testing the assumption in their studies, presume that rape is a manifestation of male dominance over and control of women." (Sorenson and White 1992, pp. 3-4)
That "Brownmiller's book established decisively that rape is a crime of violence rather than passion" (Buchwald et al. 1993, p. 1) is the starting point for most feminist studies of rape, since that book "has been recognized as the cornerstone of feminist scholarship on rape" (Ward 1995, p. 19). In 1992, Susan Brownmiller herself endorsed the "feminist" view she had popularized in the 1970s: "The central insight of the feminist theory of rape identifies the act as a crime of violence committed against women as a demonstration of male domination and power." (Brownmiller and Mehrhof 1992, p. 382) Davies (1997, p. 133) stated that it is a contention of feminists "that rape is an act of power, not sex." Polaschek et al. (1997, p. 128) argue that feminist theories view rape as primarily motivated by male dominance, and furthermore that evolutionary theories proposing "sexual motivation for rape, with associated aggressive and dominating behavior viewed as tactics rather than goals" are "in stark contrast to feminist . . . and broader social learning positions."
That the "not sex" explanation remains popular among feminists, and that it has dominated feminist writings on rape, is even admitted by some individuals who point out that not all feminists have supported it. For example, Muehlenhard et al. (1996, p. 129) admit that "in general, . . . feminist theorists have emphasized the goals of dominating and controlling rape victims and women in general."
...
When some feminists appear to be challenging the dominant feminist position by arguing that rape is about sex, they actually mean that "it is social sex, not biological sex, that rape is about" (Bell 1991, p. 88). Further, "social sex" is the motivation for rape only when sex is socially constructed to be the same thing as power and violence. For example, Scully and Marolla (1995, p. 66) state that "from the rapists' point of view rape is in part sexually motivated," but they emphasize that this is only because "they have learned that in this culture sexual violence is rewarding" (ibid., p. 71). Jackson (1995) states that rape is sexual, but only because our culture has given us "sexual scripts" that happen to equate sex with power and aggression. Hence, according to Jackson's theory, rape is impossible when people are given "sexual scripts" in which sexuality is "not bound up with power and aggression." Jackson attempted to validate this position by citing Margaret Mead's (1935) description of "the Mountain Ara-pesh of New Guinea" as "the most famous example of a society where rape is unknown"--a society in which there is "no element in [the] sexual scripts which could create the possibility of rape" (ibid., p. 27). In reality, however, the Arapesh are quite familiar with rape--see below.
...
Flaws in the Social Science Explanation of Rape
The social science explanation of rape has five major errors:· The assumptions it makes about human nature are not compatible with current knowledge about evolution.· Its assertion that rape is not sexually motivated is based on arguments that cannot withstand skeptical analysis.· Its predictions are not consistent with the cross-cultural data on human rape.· It does not account for the occurrence of rape in other species.
It rests on several assertions that belong more to metaphysics than to science. After describing these errors, we will examine how they are reflected in the empirical data produced by the social science theory of rape. We will then describe how ideological concerns have maintained the popularity of the social science explanation of rape despite its failure as a scientific explanation.
Incompatibilities with Evolutionary Theory
Any explanation of human behavior makes an implicit assertion about human nature. This is because, as the psychologists Martin Daly and Margo Wilson (1996, p. 23) point out, all "sociological, economic, and political hypotheses are necessarily built on implicit psychological hypotheses about how individual human actors perceive and are affected by social, economic, and political variables." Since nearly all social scientists claim to accept evolution, all their explanations of human behavior are implicitly evolutionary. Only if they make their evolutionary assumptions explicit, however, can these theories be properly evaluated in light of the modern understanding of evolution. We will now attempt to make the evolutionary assumptions of the social science theory of rape explicit.
The most fundamental premise of the social science theory of rape-- that an individual's psychology is "determined" solely or mostly as a result of socialization--implies something close to the classic tabula rasa view of human nature. Based on the false assumption that aspects of living organisms can be divided into biological and non-biological categories, this view holds that human "biological" nature consists of a few basic needs (sex, love, respect, affection), but that these can be combined or separated in any way that the non-biological entity of culture dictates. Indeed, these desires and emotions are sometimes asserted to be present only when a culture dictates their existence. Hence, violent behavior is something that exists only when it is taught, and individuals will find sexually attractive only those beings and other objects in the environment that they are told to find sexually attractive. On the further assumption that there are no differences between the "biological" natures of human males and human females, males and females respond to the same cultural instructions in the same manner.
These propositions are entirely at odds with current knowledge about evolution because they fail to acknowledge that selection has shaped the psychology of human learning and decision making. If the referent of "a culture" is restricted to what can be identified by the senses, a culture is seen to consist of no more than a number of individuals interacting in certain ways. If the psychology and the learning capacities of these individuals are seen as products of selection at the individual level, then a culture is a conglomeration of individuals, each designed to engage successfully in social competition with other individuals (Alexander 1979; Cronk 1995; Flinn 1997). Individuals may form alliances and cooperate, but only when such cooperation is a successful tactic in their competition.
Once the basic premise that human psychology and culture are products of selection at the individual level is understood, the implausibility of the social science view of human nature is revealed simply by asking these questions: What would have been the evolutionary fate of individuals in ancestral populations who possessed the nature implied by the social science explanation? How would they have fared in reproductive competition with individuals who had a more specialized set of psychological adaptations? In particular, what would be the evolutionary fate of individuals who engaged in the high-cost behavior of violence only when they were told to do so by others (including individuals who were their reproductive competitors)? Because violent behavior has very high costs, this would have given a tremendous advantage to the competitors, who could simply instruct susceptible rivals to engage in violence when the potential benefits of such competition were low and to forgo violence when the potential benefits were high. Males who engaged in violence with no benefits simply because they were taught to do so must be no one's evolutionary ancestors, because they soon would have been outreproduced by males with specialized psychological mechanisms predisposing them to engage in aggression only when the benefits outweighed the costs. Indeed, there is much evidence of the finely tuned design of violent behavior in terms of the costs and benefits of aggression as a solution to very specific problems for the aggressor. Evolutionary biologists have studied aggression intensively across a wide variety of animal species, especially in the last 25 years. A rich empirical base supports the evolutionary view that aggression has evolved as a result of selection, and that therefore aggression is condition-ally patterned in relation to predictable ecological factors that affect its benefits and its costs. (See, e.g., Elwood et al. 1998.7)
Reproductive failure also would befall an individual who could be instructed to form cooperative relationships with others who intended to exploit his trust and love. Altruism and cooperation can increase reproductive success only when they are directed toward genetic relatives or toward reliable reciprocators (Trivers 1971). The individual whose psychological systems predisposed him or her to exhibit helpfulness in arbitrary ways, as directed by his "culture," would have been most unlikely to outreproduce competitors. Hence, the individual proposed by social science theory to have such flexible emotions would have become no one's ancestor.
An equally unsuccessful fate would await individuals who were sexually aroused only by individuals they were instructed to desire. Sexual attraction and arousal have many non-arbitrary features, including species, sex, age, and health. (See chapter 2 above.) Males or females in human evolutionary history who mated randomly with regard to any of these characteristics of potential mates are also no one's evolutionary ancestors. Males or females in human evolutionary history who mated only with the mates they were told to mate with by their evolutionary competitors quickly eliminated from the gene pool the genetic basis for the development of this kind of learning "ability." For example, competitors could quickly reduce the reproductive success of such individuals to zero by telling them not to be sexually attracted to desirable members of the opposite sex.
That males and females not only have very flexible general sexual adaptations but have the same general sexual adaptations is even less plausible. Males and females in human evolutionary history were presented with very different problems of selecting and competing for mates, and thus women and men have differently designed sexual psychologies. The kind of males and females proposed by social science theorists would have been quickly outreproduced by more specialized males and females whose psychological mechanisms inclined them to behave in ways that solved the sexual challenges facing their specific sex more efficiently.
Rape and Sexual Motivation
As the literature cited above demonstrates, the social science theory of rape rests on the assumption that a non-sexual motivation (such as a desire for power, control, domination, and/or violence) is both necessary and sufficient for a rape to occur. Aside from ignoring evolution and the ultimate level of explanation, this assumption can be accepted only if one accepts a bizarre definition of 'sex', suspends logic in the evaluation of supporting arguments, and abandons all skepticism in evaluating evidence. As the literature cited above, in Palmer 1988a, and in Palmer et al. 1999 demonstrates, many social scientists still imply that sexual desire is not sufficient or even necessary as a motivation for rape. This position, which remains at the heart of the social science explanation of rape, is routinely used to make pronouncements on what individuals ought to do to prevent rape.
There is no question that multiple motivations may be involved in any human behavior. An individual rapist may be motivated by a desire for revenge against a particular woman who turned down his earlier sexual advances, by a desire to humiliate or inflict pain on a particular woman or on women in general out of hatred for his own mother, by a desire to impress other males by losing his virginity, or by any of a countless number of other possible motivations. But have social scientists really demonstrated that any rapist is not at least partially motivated by sexual desire? Indeed, could any rape really take place without any sexual motivation on behalf of the rapist? Isn't sexual arousal of the rapist the one common factor in all rapes, including date rapes, pedophilic rapes, rapes of women under anesthesia, and rapes committed by soldiers during war? Further, would a rapist have to have any of the possible non-sexual motivations in order to commit a rape? Isn't it possible for a male's sole motivation for committing a rape to be a desire for sexual gratification?
One reason these seemingly obvious points have been obscured is that social scientists typically present the issue in terms of whether rape is "an act of" sex, "an act of" violence, or both. Perhaps by intention, use of the phrase "an act of" blurs the difference between the goals that provide the motivation for rape and the tactics used to accomplish those goals. Rape is obviously not the same act as consensual copulation, because by definition rape implies the use of certain distinct tactics (e.g., force or the threat of force). But that doesn't mean that the motivation of the male necessarily differs.
The importance of distinguishing between the goals that motivate a behavior and the tactics used to accomplish those goals becomes clear when one considers prostitution. The act of prostitution includes both a person giving money to another person and a sexual act. Does this mean that a man who goes to a female prostitute is motivated by a desire to give money to a woman? Does it even mean that the man is motivated by both a desire for sex and a desire to give his money to a woman? A man might have numerous motivations for going to a prostitute, but isn't it possible that the man lacks any desire to give his money to the woman? Isn't it indeed likely that the man gives his money to the woman only as a tactic to gain the desired goal of sex, which is the sole motivation of his behavior? Further, isn't it possible that the man would much prefer to have sex with the woman without having to give her money? If the same "logic" that has been used in the social science explanation of rape were to be applied to prostitution, people would be asserting that going to a prostitute is an "act of altruism, not sex," or at least that it is "an act of both altruism and sex."
There's a lot more interesting stuff, but I figured this was long enough, and on topic.
FirmKY
|
|
|
|
