Rape is as natural and inevitable as tornadoes, epidemics and floods. So brace yourself, woman. Try to relax and enjoy it and, above all, don't take it personally. If being raped upsets you, this is merely an evolutionary adaptation to psychological distress in reaction to rape. So try to be objective. That's the view of two evolutionary biologists, Craig T. Palmer, an instructor at the University of Colorado, and his unfortunately-named colleague, Randy Thornhill, a professor at the University of New Mexico, co-authors of a controversial new book, A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion.
Both men are dismissive of the current belief that rape is driven by power and violence rather than sex. Women who espouse the view that rape is an act of violence are "scientifically illiterate" and too emotional to comprehend the scientific facts objectively, say Palmer and Thornhill.
The "facts", as they present them in the interest of protecting the women and girls in their lives - or so they say - is that rape is a result of the explosive combination of randy young men and sexually desirable young women. The pair use Darwinist theory to analyse not what's in men's jeans, but what's in their genes. Young males, they say, rape more than older males because sexual selection has endowed boys and men with a much greater propensity to take risks, which peaks in young adulthood at the same time as sexual interest and impulsiveness are peaking. Only the genes of men who inseminate the most desirable, fertile and nurturing women will survive to fulfil their genetic destiny. Thus, evolution has made all men sexual predators with an in-built biological imperative to rape attractive, fertile young women - especially those most desirable ones who refuse to choose them as mates.
"We fervently believe that, just as the leopard's spots and the giraffe's elongated neck are the results of aeons of past Darwinian selection, so also is rape," Palmer and Thornhill write. "Human rape arises from men's evolved machinery for obtaining a high number of mates in an environment where females choose mates. If men pursued mating only within committed relationships, or if women did not discriminate amongst potential mates, there would be no rape."
Rape is more than a physical experience. It is humiliating. It harms dignity, integrity, confidence and mental health. Yet Palmer and Thornhill believe that the psychological response to rape is an adaptive behaviour. Only married or young and fertile women get overwrought about it because they have the greatest interest in retaining control over their genetic destiny. Post-menopausal women don't get as upset about rape, Palmer and Thornhill claim. Thus, "the psychological pain that rape victims experience appears to be an evolved defence against rape. The pain focuses the victim on the rape and on the negative changes it has brought about in her life, thus helping her to solve current problems (e.g. her mate's divestment and suspicions) and to avoid being raped again. "Women also appear to have psychological adaptations other than mental pain that also defend against rape, such as avoiding contexts with elevated risks of rape when at the point of maximum fertility in the menstrual cycle."
To read and hear an experience as traumatic as rape being discussed in the cold language of evolutionary biology and with not a shred of emotional intelligence is shocking, to say the least. But what is even more frightening is that Palmer and Thornhill are parading their theory on every talk show on the planet in the hope of spreading the view that the act of rape is as natural to young men as playing soccer. If women want to avoid being raped, Palmer and Thornhill advise, they should dress demurely and should be accompanied by chaperones in situations where males and females are likely to come into contact. And we should have strong social barriers against allowing females - especially at the ages when they are most sexually attractive - out alone in isolated areas.
In modern Western society, "the common practice of unsupervised dating in isolated environments such as automobiles and houses, often accompanied by alcohol consumption, has placed young women in environments conducive to rape to an extent probably unparalleled in history. Any educational programme dedicated to preventing rape should inform young women about these risks. Although it might be argued that reinstating structural barriers entails losses in personal freedom, the consequences of the absence of such barriers should also be considered," the authors claim.
Recent experience in the Republic has shown us that walking home alone late at night can have tragic consequences for women. But, common sense aside, this genuine plea from Palmer and Thornhill for the reintroduction of a wholesale social chador is ridiculously naive. We know in Ireland more than anywhere else that you can live in a convent or monastery and still be raped and sexually abused. We also know that rape has nothing to do with sexual attractiveness or child-bearing ability. Post-menopausal women are raped. Children are raped. Men are raped by other men - with no promise of sexual reproduction in the offing. Many rapists use condoms - surely a sign that they have no interest in what happens to their genes. Rape within marriage is surely not a case of a man seeking to insert his gene code into an irresistible womb, since he has access anyway.
Olive Braiden, director of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, says the truth is that rapists have a knack for finding and targeting not the most sexually attractive women, but the most vulnerable women who are the most easily coerced. When we talk about rape as an act of power, we are not necessarily talking about physical force. Coercion takes many forms - including threat to livelihood, family and reputation as well as physical safety.
Rape in war settings is coercion at its mightiest. Braiden recalls meeting a Chinese woman in her 70s who, as a "comfort woman" raped by Japanese soldiers in a camp during the second World War, suffered physical and psychological injuries from which she never recovered. If what the rapist wanted was impregnation and gene survival, he wouldn't be treating his victim so badly.
But Palmer and Thornhill argue that rape is more frequent in war because benefits are high and costs are low. Without anonymity and in the face of deterrents, men are less willing to take the risk of raping - which is why, they claim, lower socio-economic class people are more likely to rape and be raped than affluent people. Not all evolutionary biologists agree, fortunately. Dr Jerry Coyne, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago, has called Palmer and Thornhill's book "irresponsible" and "the worst efflorescence of evolutionary psychology that I've ever seen". The problem is that once such ideas leak into the popular culture and become warped by opportunistic men, they will be seen as justification for rape. Women will be made to feel that being raped is their fault and lawyers will be able to argue that their defendants in rape cases are not criminals, but simply men who were unable to resist the call of an ideal reproductive opportunity with a woman who proclaimed her availability by wearing a tight blouse or a short skirt.
A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion by Craig T. Palmer and Randy Thornhill is published tomorrow by MIT Press, £17.95 in UK
