Reddit reviews A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion

There is an evolutionary explanation to it (and there is a book on it: http://www.amazon.com/Natural-History-Rape-Biological-Coercion/dp/0262700832/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406448750&sr=8-1&keywords=natural+history+of+rape ). Rape hurts a woman psychologically, because in the past it meant involuntarily giving up her mate choice and 9 months of her time and energy through pregnancy. And for men, being raped by a man hurts psychologically, because it reduces their status.

Well, yes, it kinda is. No, not every sex act is about procreation - far from it, in fact. But humanity's sexual urges (and those of other sexual species, as well) are based on procreation. I mean, listen, you tell me: there are, what, multi-billion-dollar industries devoted to allowing women to appear as if they're in their mid-twenties, or as close to that as possible - why, if attractiveness (and especially sexual attractiveness) had nothing to do with reproduction, would that be the case?

And further: If sex wasn't at some level "about" procreation, or if rape wasn't at some level "about" sex, why would we see a vastly disproportionate number of female rape victims being within the most fertile ages? When a large portion of the population is in their 40s, 50s, 60s, etc., why wouldn't women in those age groups make up an equally large portion of female rape victims?

Again, there is a disconnect between sex and reproduction, especially with the advent of birth control. When most people have sex, most of the time, procreation is not the goal, or even something they're thinking about. But the idea that our behaviors - the universal ones, that are ingrained in our species - are not implicitly related to reproductive success is.. well, it's a very silly claim, to be honest.

(To preemptively clarify: I agree wholeheartedly with Thornhill and Palmer, who have somewhat controversially argued that rape is a behavior with roots in our evolutionary history. But before you attack me on that basis, let me be perfectly clear: doing so commits the naturalistic fallacy, attempting to derive an ought from an is - or rather, implying that an "ought" statement that is objectionable follows from the "is" statement that I am making. Nothing could be further from the truth. To say that something is "natural" is not to say that it is moral, ethical, or acceptable. Humans are unique in our ability to critically reason about our behaviors and decide for ourselves whether or not to accept the behaviors that natural selection has endowed us with.)

https://www.amazon.com/Natural-History-Rape-Biological-Coercion/dp/0262700832

Your argument was that rape is not natural in mammals with higher order brain functions. You should provide evidence to support your claim. I have provided evidence for my original claim.

Here's a book which disagrees with this hypothesis:

https://www.amazon.com/Natural-History-Rape-Biological-Coercion/dp/0262700832

And another which claims that the feminist approach has actually hindered police investigations:

https://www.amazon.com/Galileos-Middle-Finger-Heretics-Activists/dp/0143108115/

I don't know enough to say which view is correct.

I disagree. I think that this interpretation is a case of presentism. Slavery was not always wrong, in fact some people saw setting slaves free immoral and not having slaves at all was an affront to the proper way of life. Even more extreme rape, humanities development and survival was at one time (I can't find the right word here) "dependent" on rape.

I do agree slavery and rape are wrong but only because of the Moral context of the era and society I am apart of. Were I a prehistoric human neither would strike me as morally wrong but perhaps not going on a hunt with the other men would be. I am not an professional anthropologist so forgive the poor example just think off the top of my head.