I would like to present this year’s Most Disgusting Sentence in an Academic Paper award. I realize it’s somewhat early in the year, but I don’t think that we’re going to find a sentence more disgusting.
In addition, these findings provide circumstantial support for one hypothesized function of the emotion of sexual attraction—to motivate men to pursue women for exploitative, short-term mating opportunities when there are cues suggesting that exploitative strategies are likely to be effective.
I know everyone reading this is thinking “wait, that did NOT say what I think it did.” Yep. In the paper Sexual exploitability: observable cues and their link to sexual attraction, someone literally argued that sexual attraction evolved in order to help men find which women it’s easiest to rape.*
I am not really sure whether women or men come off worse here. Women are agency-less flaps of skin around a pussy, who never experience sexual attraction, much less actually seek out sex instead of being helpless tools of evil male predation; men are rapists out for nothing but a quick and easy lay, and they’ll do whatever it takes to get it. God. Sexists suck.
Sexism aside, the research in the paper is actually really interesting. They selected pictures that exhibited certain traits possibly linked to how rapeable people perceive women as, and then asked men to rate how rapeable and attractive the people in the pictures were. As it happens, fourteen cues were positively linked to exploitability, and all of them were correlated with short-term attractiveness, but not long-term attractiveness: attention seeking, come hither look, “easy,” flirty, immature, intoxicated, open body posture, partying, promiscuous, promiscuous friends, reckless, revealing clothing, sleepy, and young.
Like most evolutionary psychologists, the authors seem to be entirely unaware that culture is a thing and that different cultures find different traits physically attractive. Therefore, they did not find the explanation for this data that I, at least, find intuitively obvious: the virgin/whore complex. With the exception of immature, young, and sleepy, all fourteen cues describe the mainstream stereotype of a ‘slut.’ According to the tenets of the virgin/whore complex, sluts are good for casual sex and will “get themselves raped,” but when you get married you want to marry the Madonna. This is literally the exact result that would be predicted by mainstream, standard feminist theory.
The sequel study, which is not called Misandry 2: The Ensexisminating anywhere outside my brain, found that men who are assholes (technically, who are ‘disagreeable,’ which is the psychological term for asshole) and, if single, like casual sex are more likely to perceive women as rapeable. In short, most men aren’t slut-shaming misogynists who believe that sluts will get themselves raped. Assholes are. This is literally scientific proof of that, right here. The whole misandric idea that men can’t control themselves? It can go away now! Most men can! Only men who are assholes seem to have even the remotest problem!
I also find it really interesting that being a “sluts will get themselves raped” asshole is correlated with desire for casual sex, but only among single men. My hypothesis is that men who are likely to subscribe to that particular sexist view are also likely to subscribe to other sexist views, such as the one that men are of course supposed to desire sex with every person with a vagina who comes along.
*They actually folded “seduction” in with rape by force, rape by deception, and rape by coercion, which provides one with fascinating insight into the mindset of the authors.
About ozyfrantz
Another article describing the same study:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/05/dumb_women_do_men_find_them_more_attractive_.html
Relevant quotes:
So… “exploitable” is being used in a technical sense in which it doesn’t quite mean what it normally does… but the technical sense is still pretty disgusting too.
I would caution you to remember that THAT WHICH MAY BE DESTROYED BY THE TRUTH SHOULD BE, and this finding might really be true. That obviously does not mean that it justifies anything whatsoever in a world where exploiting people hurts them.
That said, it seems that even scientific evo-psych is contaminated with patriarchy.
I would be very, very surprised if that sentence turned out to be true, given the existence of (a) female sexual attraction and (b) female rapists.
Everything is contaminated with patriarchy. It’s like herpes. Or glitter.
I haven’t read the paper, but does it argue that rape is one possible reproductive strategy employed by our ancestors, or that it’s the only one?
If it’s the former then female sexual attraction and rape could easily coexist as part of a more dominant reproductive strategy: Monogomous pairing.
Even if they argue the latter (which seems unlikely) female sexual attraction and rapists would still probably exist: Men have nipples, but noone would argue that our species evolved in such a way that men were the milk producers. I can’t think of a single physical or behavioural trait of either sex that doesn’t at least occasionally or partially manifest in the opposite sex.
Okay, as an anthropology graduate student, I take a sh*t ton of offense at the premise of this article. This is a research paper, and it looks to be dealing with different components of sociobiology. Your definition of “culture” has absolutely nothing to do with the subject of the paper and while it may offend some people, evolutionary science is not in the business of making the author or anyone else feel good.
This is an academic piece written strictly with an eye towards evolutionary psychology. I’m not the biggest fan of evolutionary psychology or sociobiology in general because both place far too much emphasis on the human genome and not enough on the transmission of culture, but that’s just my somewhat educated opinion. The author’s opinion on this paper, however, is rather unwarranted and attacking said paper because a single sentence causes a sexism alarm to go off is showing a lack of scientific credentials.
“I would caution you to remember that THAT WHICH MAY BE DESTROYED BY THE TRUTH SHOULD BE, and this finding might really be true. That obviously does not mean that it justifies anything whatsoever in a world where exploiting people hurts them.
That said, it seems that even scientific evo-psych is contaminated with patriarchy.”
No. Evo-Psych is not “contaminated with patriarchy”, human evolutionary history is “contaminated with patriarchy”. This is human history, it’s not pretty and it’s rife with death, destruction, and continuous exploitation of the meek by the willful and lucky. Merely contending that certain aspects of the human sexual self (which is, ugh, far more culturally based than the writers of this paper are willing to admit) may have “developed” in response to real or perceived opportunities for exploitation is not waving the flag for patriarchy, it’s merely stating what the evidence may point to.
The author of this piece and many other normal people (anthropologists are not normal, and I’ll be the first to admit that we are very strange creatures) need to check their cultural baggage and expectations at the door when reading these sorts of papers. The study of human history and human evolution can uncover things that aren’t politically correct, and crying foul whenever that happens is just amateurish.
http://www.atomicnerds.com/?p=5833
Makes some of the same points Ozy does, and also that sex != babies != reproductive fitness, which seems like it might be especially relevant when you’re studying a population that, largely, doesn’t have children and, at least on a conscious level, doesn’t care to have children in the immediate future.
Technically, it’s about an article about the paper. But having read both it seems that Slate is actually portraying the paper fairly accurately (and even expresses some measured skepticism; it’s rare that the science journalist comes out looking better than the study authors).
And that was not meant as a reply to you in particular. New commenting system ahoy.
My initial response was “huh”? While I do see that it seems to be suggestive that men tend to look for opportunities for casual sex, it seems like overkill to jump from that to “rape”. Then again, I didn’t read the original paper, and I’m aware of the technical definition of “exploitative” which is neutral in connotation.
I was thinking the same thing. How does one go from short term exploitative mating opportunities (IE, one night stands, friends with benefits through short term casual sex relationships) to the equivalent to rape?
The author of this piece seems to woefully misunderstand evolutionary psychology.
Let’s make several things clear about the way evolutionary strategies work:
1) Many of them will be vestigial. Think about goosebumps: we develop them when scared because once upon a time it would cause the thick, course hair that covered our bodies to stand up, and make us appear larger when faced with a predatory. We have guns now, and need not worry about predators, but the goosebumps continue to occur. Most evolutionary strategies will look like this: they made sense in the distant past, and we can see their echoes today, but that does not mean they are still viable strategies today.
When the author writes a sentence like “Like most evolutionary psychologists, the authors seem to be entirely unaware that culture is a thing and that different cultures find different traits physically attractive” it’s pretty clear that the author has fundamentally misunderstood what is going on. Evolutionary strategies were probably developed when there where about 2000 total humans on the planet some 70k years ago. We can see the vestiges of this strategy today. This has nothing to do with culture, and everything to do with the author having a dim view of evolutionary psychology while not really understanding it.
2) PLEASE look up the term “evolutionary stable strategy.” Basically everyone who misunderstands evolutionary psychology (as this author clearly does) has no idea that this is the actual basis of evolutionary psychology.
To give the 10-second version, the idea is that multiple strategies are always in competition all the time, and 100% of the population will almost never exhibit any given strategies. Instead, the portion of the population that is pursuing a particular strategy will depend upon the novelty of the strategy, and its success rate compared to others.
Looking at the matter at hand, it’s entirely possible that “short term exploitative sex” was a viable evolutionary strategy for some percentage of the human race. This does not mean it was the only strategy being pursued, nor does it mean it was the most widely pursued strategy.
So it’s entirely possible that some percentage (and it can be REALLY small, like .0005%) of the population is pursuing the “exploitative sex” strategy, and this impacts the gene pool, while the rest of the population fully enjoys “agency” among other things.
Please actually look into evolutionary psychology before dismissing it out of hand.
You appear to have mistaken an academic paper for something which is about opinions. It’s about science, which, ideally, has nothing to do with the opinions of the authors. Perhaps this paper is an example of bad science, in which case there is an entirely valid critique of it, but you can’t simply say a piece of research is bad because you dislike their findings.
I think you’re mixing up “the way things should be” with “the way things may have been.”
Was human sexual attraction originally based on a predatory sexual model? Maybe, we certainly wouldn’t be the first species to reproduce in that manner. Has our culture evolved to the point where this is no longer the case for *most* humans? Definitely.
Hard to extrapolate the results of a rather contrived “experiment” done with a sample of college students looking at photos to actual interaction/all cultures/all people/across all time. I think this bit of writing shows the different between biology and ev-psych in a humorous yet accurate way:
http://www.denimandtweed.com/2012/05/evolutionary-psychology-dialogue.html
To the “you can’t say it’s bad science because it’s sexist” crowd: I see where you’re coming from, I really do. But this is not the hill where you want to make your stand.
Because in this case, it’s pretty clear that it’s bad science, and that it’s bad science because the authors are uncritically buying into contemporary (sexist) cultural views of gender, sexuality, and reproduction. So yeah, in this case, it really is bad science because it’s sexist.
Stephen J. Gould often wrote about how scientists allow their cultural biases to contaminate the study of evolution. It’s a theme in many of his essays. No scientist comes to the table as a blank slate. Fields lIke evolutionary psychology seem particular prone to bias because of lack of hard data (we really don’t know how prehistoric humans lived, much less what they thought or felt), subjective research methods (relying heavily on surveys of college students at western universities) and highly speculative conclusions.
This study, for example, interpret various subjective characteristics of women in photos (sleepy, young, “come hither” etc.) as indicating that said women are “open to exploitation” — which is the very conclusion that the authors are trying to prove! It would be equally valid to interpret those characteristics differently.. In particular, monkeys and apes (very social animals, like us) rely on facial expressions and body language to convey the message “aggressive/stay away” or “friendly/come here”. I’ve read that researchers working with primates have to be careful to avoid aggressive facial expressions as the wrong expression can result in a very aggressive or violent response from the animal. Female human primates who are interested in sex would presumably want to use “friendly/come here” expressions to encourage males to approach them, just as people do generally when in a social group. “Friendly/come here” expressions in the conext of looking for sex/mates might emphasize lack of aggression, such as having a relaxed face (“sleepy”) as opposed to an alert, possibly aggressive face. This would have nothing to do with being “rapeable.” Male primates approaching an uninterested female do run a risk of physical injury, so that’s something they would presumably have to be careful about.
I would not hitch my entire wagon to a Christian Marxist scientist-ologist
One of the best written books on the matter is by Daniel Dennett, and he devotes a whole chapter discussing Gould and their disagreements. Below is a heated exchange between Dennett, Wright and Gould. Gould comes across as borderline fanatic.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1997/aug/14/darwinian-fundamentalism-an-exchange/
Yes, there has been enormous controversy in scientific circles over his theory of punctuated equilibrium. Dawkins took the theory to,pieces, although I’ve read that their personal relationship was cordial. But I’m not sure how that detracts from Gould’s very valid critiques of unconscious bias (such as racial bias) in the history of the science. Gould was also a wonderful writer and his books are well worth reading in my view.
Because he had a very strong political bias that influenced his work – Non-overlapping magisterial for example, and as you say, punctuated equilibrium. He was a wonderful writer to be sure, but not one to take direction from on how to avoid bias.
I’m to advocating that anyone adopt his as their personal guru. I’m thinking specifically about his writings on the misuse/misunderstanding of the theory of evolution in terms of “superiority,” for example. The old idea that whites are “more evolved” than other races. Or the idea that mammals are more “advanced” than reptiles, for that matter. Dawkins and many other evolutionary biologists have written about the same ideas but Gould came to mind because he wrote so articulately. I am not sure why you dislike him so much or why you want to throw out everything he said because you don’t like his politics. Seems rather narrow minded.
My understanding is that there are different definitions of the word “exploit” when used in the context of ecology or biology. I always thought in scientific or quasi-scientific jargon it was meant as a more neutral term, referring to a general opportunity, not necessarily rape or murder or kidnapping. It can refer to something violent or coerced or something consensual or cooperative. I’ve heard anthropologists and ecologists talk about “exploiting” resources in a very broad sense, not necessarily like strip mining. Hunter/gatherers “exploit” natural resources just by taking fruit from a tree. Of course, in this broad sense, any woman consenting to sex will be exploiting her partner right back.
If the thesis is that paleolithic males raped females every chance they got, that’s going to need much better evidence than showing some present-day college kids some photos!
I challenge the unquestioned assumption that 100,000 years ago humans were much more violent towards each other than they are today, and the related assumption that rape was much more common back then compared to today, or even that rape is just as common today as it was back then. Maybe so, maybe not. Twentieth century h/g groups suggest this is not true.
As I’ve written elsewhere, the women of 50,000 years ago would NOT have been easy targets for male rapists. Think about how your average woman could turn a dead animal into clothing and food with a sharp tool, and you’d start to wonder how successful or long-lived a male would-be rapist would be. What, you think only men used sharp, bloody tools? Strange how prehistoric men are assumed to be savage animals while prehistoric women are assumed to be totally passive and submissive lumps of flesh. Not bloody likely.
You’re challenging the assumption that primitive humans were more violent, but asserting that primitive women were more combat ready?
Well, sure, it sounds silly if you get all *logical* on me…. : – )
I admit I don’t have the details of my hypothesis all worked out. It just struck me as odd that the “caveman rapist” idea seems to posit highly aggressive males but generally says nothing about women’s ability to defend themselves. It makes no sense to assume that prehistoric men would be like savage wild animals but prehistoric women would not.
There is the possibility of peace through deterrence. The visible ability to defend oneself using violence could have been a powerful check on aggression, paradoxically making sexual violence less likely. I’m certainly willing to believe that rape in one type of social/economic context is much less likely than in another context.
One could argue that there is a clear evolutionary advantage in the ability to defend oneself against rape. Human evolution has been driven by women’s choices as much as or maybe even more than male impulses or male choices. I know that’s just crazy talk…..
I agree with you. Prehistoric women were probably not pushovers. They were probably quite physically strong and had access to sharp tools and weapons. Though I have no doubt that rape has always been around (“forced copulation” occurs in many animals, including apes), that doesn’t mean that “cavemen” were regularly knocking women on the head and dragging them off. The existence of clitoris, female orgasm, and female sexual pleasure in general proves that women who enjoyed sex and sought out sex must have had a reproductive advantage even though female sexual pleasure is not necessary for reproduction. The clitoris is the only organ in the human body that has no purpose other than pleasure!
wellokaythen writes:
“One could argue that there is a clear evolutionary advantage in the ability to defend oneself against rape.”
You could also argue the opposite. Genghis Khan’s mother had a husband and children before Genghis Khan’s father took over her village and raped her (I’m assuming the previous children were murdered or enslaved).
By not fighting to the death, or stabbing her rapist at night and aquiescing to her new life, she netted herself 80 million descendants.
I have seen it posited that women actually have a nature-driven drive to not fight to the death in their rape and that it is culture that brings about the existence of women to fight back.
Studies on women and adrenaline show that rather than having men’s “fight or flight” mechanism, when women are pumped with adrenaline, they have a drive to “tend and befriend” and try to soothe their assailants. If women were evolutionary driven to resist rape, I would think that they would also have a flight or fight mechanism.
She may have netted 80 million descendants, but she doesn’t know that. She’s been dead a damn long time. She probably mourned her children and husband. I mean, if someone came into my house today and killed my kids and husband and was like, hey! don’t fret! You’ll have 80 million descendants after I rape you! I’d want to spit in his face.
Given bodily size difference, women might have tended and befriended in the hopes of surviving to protect offspring that currently existed, not because they wanted to spread more seed around. I mean, if you get killed, for sure your kids will wind up dying.
Hey Julie,
I wasn’t using reproductive success as a defense of rape. I also wasn’t making moral pronouncements of rape or defending it in any regard.
I was talking hypothetically in a dispassionate way about whether resisting rape, or submitting to rape is a better reproductive strategy for prehistoric women.
My point is that had genghis khan’s mother resisted (to the death, and I’m sure a woman could do that simply by trying to stab her assailant in his sleep whenever she was in a position to be trusted), then she would have died and so would have any offspring of genghis khan’s father.
In other words, the woman who’s current husband and children are murdered who fight to the death have zero reproductive success.
The woman who’s current husband and children are murdered and submit enjoy reproductive success for her cowardice.
In other words it’s more likely that *lack* of resisting rape would be an evolutionary advantages (which is all I was saying).
For prehistoric or tribal men it most likely worked the other way. When a tribe is being invaded men would be seen as enemies with no utility for keeping alive (ditto for his children).
In the event of a tribal war or invasion, men’s reproductive success banked upon his personal bravery or even self-sacrifice (if by dying he were to guarantee his current existing children’s survival).
I think this has filtered down to a diluted form today. Men are congratulated and clapped on the back for taking action, even when that action was seen to be wrong at a later date (financial melt-down). Whereas women are castigated and scorned when they take action.
The flipside is that men are castigated and scorned when they take action, and women are encouraged to not take action (of inappropriateness).
Last sentence meant to say:
Men are castigated and scorned for being passive, while women are encouraged to do so.
Huh. I suppose we are going with the idea that there is a deep “reproductive success” drive at an unconscious level? Is it at all possible people either fight or tend based on other dynamics?
When faced with the certainty of death, I think to some extent your innermost self is going to be put to the ultimate test.
In a world in which conquest by the sword and spear is a frequent reality, a woman could easily be steered by her genetic disposition. Considering that women who resist do not pass on her genes, and that there is a very real chance that we are all descended by several generations of women who submitted to life w/the man who raped them and killed their previous family, then it stands to reason that those genes to submit are passed on.
While heredity may not be destined, it most certainly has an impact of moderating the upper and lower limits of your attributes (and even behavior) within which people strive to accomplish things.
I knew a woman who survived an extremely violent rape. She survived because she had small children, but I doubt anyone wants to die anyway. I’m not convinced that surviving (submitting to) a rape means you want those genes passed on. It could mean you just want to live. Survival (for you or current kids) is a drive as well as is reproduction. Women also went to great lengths to discover abortificent drugs as far back as ancient Greece so…
I’m not arguing that reproductive success is a conscious or unconscious decision for women when being raped.
I am simply saying that a woman who in prehistoric times resisted against the barbarian invaders who killed her family had zero reproductive success.
Whereas the woman who submits will have reproductive success.
It’s not just about at the moment resistance. Hunter-gather societies are limited in size, and people who exploit others can’t hide in the crowd. A raped hunter-gatherer can lie down and take it for the moment, then come back with a long term partner and a brother the next day.
That doesn’t work after conquest, obviously, or for any long-term abuse or subjugation. But the fact that long-term relationships of this sort exist is just one more sign that that paper is full of shit: it treats exploitation as a feature of short-term relationships.
My point is simply that women who submitted in the past would pass on those genes, where as the women who fought did not.
Yeah. I suppose it wasn’t something people thought about. Many women now survive rape but make sure they don’t carry any offspring to term. Most women don’t want to, it seems.
Women controlling their reproduction wouldn’t have been part of the equation for most of the time humans have been on the planet.
Yes it was. It’s called infanticide and abandonment of babies, and it’s been very common cross-culturally for thousands of years until the invention of reliable contraception.
…If you didn’t know that I would suggest that you should do some more research before you opine about what definitely evolved.
Piggy backing on Ozy, yes. Women found herbs early on for abortificants as well as killed babies and or abandoned them. They may have carried them to term, but that doesn’t mean they wanted them, were happy about them, or wanted to keep a child of a rapist. Or hell, even if they had 5 kids already, that’s a lot of mouths to feed.
Thank goodness we do have contraception now to avoid these situations, especially in the case of rape.
Piggy backing onto Julie and Ozy…frankly humans are pretty low on infanticide compared to a lot of other animals. Yeah, usually in other animals it’s males who do it, but females do too…often enough that it’s not only attributable to erratic behaviour. Which, that has absolutely nothing at all to do with sexual assault or rape in humans…I’m just pointing out that evolutionarily there are reasons for infanticide too.
Which all of this discussion really just points to the fact that you can sort of take any behaviour, find a potential evolutionary benefit for it, and then try to explain it away through it. Humans are flipping complicated. It’s far too simplistic to say that “reproductive success” is what drives us all. It’s also far too simplistic to suggest that when it comes to what we consider “reproductive success” that it’s all about carrying a fetus (any fetus) to term.
To paraphrase Hal Sparks again: There is a woman in Rwanda right now with a baby in one hand and a machine gun in the other, mowing motherfuckers down with a steely momma bear gaze in her eyes. And there’s a man in upstate New York trying to kill a spider with a rolled up newspaper without shitting himself.
Basically, people do not behave with reproductive success as the only motive, or even as the most important motive. We like to say that reproduction is like the strongest drive, but I think we say that because as a society we need a way to justify people wanting to have sex. Oh it must be to reproduce! It can’t be anything else…because sex is so bad, unless we can justify it by saying it’s about perpetuation the species. Then it’s alright.
Peeps be complicated.
(Yeah you could argue the ‘momma bear’ part of the example is all reproductive…but that’s actually not the point he’s trying to make).
Also, John, your summary of prehistoric life is far too simplistic. And the way in which you are drawing direct lines from your interpretation of prehistoric life to today, is far too simplistic. That’s not how culture works. There is no continuity like that. (This isn’t an attack you. Most people do it. It’s pop-archaeology).
Fine points all.
And while I”m pro choice, the thought of abortion is not something I ever want to face. But if I were raped, I’d immediately Plan B it. I would not want to become pregnant from a rape nor support that particular reproductive strategy, not one bit. Knowing how hard women have fought to have abortion rights, and the risks taken throughout history to end pregnancies, I suspect most women didn’t either.
“Studies on women and adrenaline show that rather than having men’s “fight or flight” mechanism, when women are pumped with adrenaline, they have a drive to “tend and befriend” and try to soothe their assailants. If women were evolutionary driven to resist rape, I would think that they would also have a flight or fight mechanism.”
I’ve never put much stock in the tend or befriend theory. Granted, I’m no scientist, but I’m confident flight is just as much an option for women as men. They don’t stick around to feed that gnashing dog, they do the same thing men do, try to flee, perhaps by trying to sooth the dog as they back up (again, same with men). As to fight, well, many women fight back against attackers, though when they are faced with a losing battle they can’t flee from, they may capitulate. Slaves throughout history have been men who did the exact same thing when faced with a fight they can’t win. I just see the whole tend or befriend thing as another attempt to claim women are good, men are bad. Men will flee (with the implication of cowardice and selfishness, or else they fight, violent behaviour that is often condemned. But to “tend and befriend” is to imply being compassionate, positive and benign, even in the face of aggression and personal hardship. and the truth is, both genders participate in both sets of reactions. So it just seems like propaganda to me.
I don’t know. I have to wonder about the women being raped. I am a woman, and I have been raped. I’m not suggesting that I asked for “it”, or that any person is asking to be abused- but it does make me wonder… People who have been raped or violated more then one person, people who go into multiple relationships that are abusive- Could it be that some people who are seen as weaker are easily marked to those who are looking to violate?
I have told myself that I played the victim many times in many destructive ways to serve some purpose, and when I was ready to be a victim, I have not been destructive.
I don’t have any concrete answers, but this paper does open the door for many discussions.
My big question regarding that paper is, don’t women have the same set of drives?
It would be un-controversial to suggest that women were attacted to the following characteristics.
flirty
open body posture
partying
promiscuous
promiscuous friends
reckless
revealing clothing
I could imagine that women might also like
easy
intoxicated
sleepy
young
immature
Brings to mind the study discussed here which found that men and women both view men or women who are naked/scantily clad as simultaneously less competent and more attractive/vulnerable/needing protection.
To everyone wondering just what “exploitative” means in the context of the paper above, it helpfully answers your question in exactly one sentence! (The first sentence, even.)
“Exploitative resource acquisition strategies are a class of strategies designed to facilitate resource accrual by taking advantage of other organisms through deception, coercion, or force.”
Having sex with someone “through deception, coercion, or force” is a pretty clear rape definition in my book. So yes, when this paper sounds like it’s talking about rape, it is, in fact, talking about rape.
“Having sex with someone “through deception, coercion, or force” is a pretty clear rape definition in my book.”
Force yes. Coercion, maybe (blackmail yes, arrangements/transactions no, etc). Deception, no. I don’t think women are so frail and stupid that they need special protection from making ad decisions.
I’m waiting for the research in reply that posits the characteristics of a likely sexual exploiter:
Oily
Sweaty
Needy
Awkward body posture
Inappropriate
Defensive
Opinionated
Blustering
Wheedling
Selfish
Etc.
Criminal profiling and research has been around for eons Mike.
After having read the paper in question, I’m struggling to find all the controversy.
Intelligent people are harder to deceive, you can’t flirt with someone who is passed out, the young are more easily deceived ….and the authors did not come up with the categories, they reused and tested for statistical validity.
The problem is the authors generalizing results from about a one thing in one specific environment: sexual exploitation among 21st century college students, to a different thing in a very different environment: reproductive exploitation (sex is NOT the same thing as successful reproduction) in among the hunter-gathers that humans were for most of our evolutionary history. And, making that generalization, making some unproven and controversial assertions about universal human nature.
I don’t think we’re on the same page as to what is being shown: the authors draw on various sources of research, there is no “universal” in either evolution or statistical analysis, the theory of sexual selection is very powerful and is backed up by a ton of corroborated research (from Darwin’s initial thoughts on the matter), culture exaggerates and generally does not run 180 degrees different from the gene’s eye view, artifacts are not discombobulated ethereal fragments of socially constructed jello – stereotypes can be statistically true, and none of any of this is by definition essentialist in any way shape or form.
Culture also isn’t always a combination of biological reaction to environmental pressure. Sometimes cultural norms run quite counter to biology and evolution…it can run 180 degrees from “the gene’s eye view.” And on the other side of that, sometimes cultural norms seems so flipping “natural” that we assume they’re biological in origin, when really they’re not.
Yeah that’s not how evolution works. If this “tend and befriend” response is real, it’s not situational like that. And from what I’ve read on it, whether it’s real or not is actually highly questionable. Hell, even the “fight of flight” response is actually too simplistic for how people respond when hit with adrenaline.
Most notably there’s also the “freeze” response, such as a lot of rape survivors show: stay still and passive until it’s over in the hopes they won’t kill you.
Sounds absolutely plausible actually.
Disgusting… but probably true.