The Origin of Rape

This topic submitted by Grant Goodall (palepurplen@hotmail.com) at 8:09 PM on 5/1/02. Additions were last made on Friday, May 3, 2002. Section: Dorsey.

Grant Goodall
Dr. Joseph Dorsey
Project Proposal
02/26/02

The Origin of Rape

Robin Warshaw’s I Never Called It Rape was published in 1988. The article was based on a recent survey studying the prevalence of rape on 32 college campuses that was conducted by Ms. Magazine. The statistics of this survey resulted in women having a one in four chance of experiencing sexual assault. In 1986 there were 90,434 rapes that were reported to the U.S. Law Enforcement agency, also we need to consider that the government estimates 3-10 rapes for every one rape reported. “In one year 3,187 women reporting: 328 rapes (as defined by law), 534 attempted rapes (as defined by law), 837 episodes of sexual coercion (sexual intercourse obtained through the aggressor’s continual arguments or pressure), and 2,024 experiences of unwanted sexual contact (fondling, kissing, or petting committed against the woman’s will.)” In 2000, there were 18 sexual offenses reported on the Miami Campus, and there was an estimate of around 200 actual sexual assaults.
In this project I would like to address the diverse concepts for the origin of rape in our society, such as Sociobiology’s concept of rape, which is a “reproductive strategy” based of the Darwinian theory of natural selection and genetic programming. I also plan to compare the different concepts in conjunction with using the theories to interpret the results my survey. The survey will consist of questions pertaining to the male perception and female perception of rape/sexual assault (definition and why sexual assaults occur), their awareness sexual assault as a social issue, if they think women provoke sexual assault (through clothing, bad communication, their lack of prevention), and where they have obtained their information. I assume that the results of the survey will correlate with a particular school of thought, which can lead to an understanding of the general viewpoint of Miami University. The surveying will take place in Shriver, which is a multipurpose building that doesn’t appear to have a fixed crowd except, for being Miami undergraduates that presumably live on campus.
My hypothesis on the survey is that males will be more prone to blame women for sexual assault, and males will know the least amount of statistics relating to rape/sexual assault. I also assume tha the reasons why people rape (in the Miami undergraduate perspectives) won’t correlate with Sociobiology concepts and ideology. Before I administer surveys to people I plan to run a pilot to make sure the survey is not unethical and offensive. No matter what, I will always inform everyone what the survey consists of before I hand it out because of the sensitivity of the topic.
Before diving into the theories of rape from a socio-biological standpoint it is imperative to understand the current status of women in biology. Sue V. Rosser addresses the current status of women in Biology & Feminism. Rosser describes the history of science being dominated by men. Rosser states, “The male domination of the profession led to an inhospitable environment for the few women who braved the obstacles to become scientists; it also preventing women from entering scientific professions.” Diving into any subject human’s base their interpretations from their own perception, experience, and education no matter how hard they try to be objective there will always be subjective and bias results. Due to science, intelligence, and the creators of Sociobiology being a male dominated field I expect to receive male dominated/bias perceptions.
J. Schwendinger and H. Schwendinger state that Sociobiology’s reasoning for rape is that it is a “reproductive strategy” based of the Darwinian theory of natural selection and genetic programming and its position is based on Utilitarian (Cost compared to the benefit, ultimately basing the decision on what creates the maximum return) and Classical economic theory (market-model). J. Schwendinger and H. Schwendinger criticize the Socio-biological concept stating that it “ignores the complexities of human society, such as political, economic, and symbolic relationships that differentiate humans from other living things.” Sociobiologists insist that primates and humans are moved by the same instincts, that primates and humans are both instinctually strive for dominance among individuals, male dominance over females, and territorial aggressiveness and results in gender inequality, war, and hierarchy. Robert Wright illustrates rape with the possibility of being an adaptation of natural selection for a reproductive strategy in The Moral Animal. Robert Wright further discusses the main human objective is to reproduce and denying reproduction would be committing genetic suicide.
In 1977, Clark and Lewis created another theory for rape that aligns them with sociobiologists in the ideology of economic theory. Clark and Lewis proposed that, “from the male perspective female sexuality is a commodity in the possession of women, even if it is something men will come to own and control over under the appropriate circumstances.” This concept creates a market where men are the consumers and females are in control of the supply. In this theory men that are poor will not be unable to buy their commodity, so just like criminals they will steal or use force to obtain their ends.
Feminism has been one of the main influences and has had the majority in creating alternative viewpoints on the origin of rape. Feminist scientist’s conducted studies on Sociobiological theories of the origin of rape, attempting to discover if it is universal human adaptation. In 1981, Peggy Sanday conducted an anthropological study that examined 95 societies, in the human Relations Area files that contained information on rape of these societies. Only 17% of the 95 societies were found to be unambiguously rape-prone societies, where as 47% were found to be rape free societies. The other 36% of societies were inconclusive based on the lack of information. Sanday found that rape was not universal and that the difference between rape-prone societies and rape-free societies was that rape- prone societies possessed gender inequality. Instead Sanday concluded that rape was a construction of culture rather than determined by the inherent nature of human beings. Beyond gender inequality these rape-prone societies all had characteristics of a greater tolerance of violence, glorification of aggression by men, and competitiveness. Further more I think that the concepts of Sociobiology further perpetuate violence towards women because of recycling unequal ideology.
Other alternative viewpoints include physiology and neurophysiology (based on hormones such as testosterone), alcohol, psychopathology and personality traits, attitudes and gender schemas, sex and power motives, social learning, dyadic contexts, institutional influences, media and societal influences, sexual scripts, cultural mores, and multifactor models. These theories will all be taken into perspective when surveying the Miami undergraduates.
Survey Results
The survey consisted of a total of seven questions with 32 females surveyed and 17 males surveyed. Some of the questions from the survey brought inconclusive results. About ninety percent of the surveying took place in Shriver on a Saturday afternoon. Surveyors were asked, “Can someone give consent after they have been drinking or doing drugs?” This question was answered with other questions, which leads me to believe that it was a poorly written question. Some of the questions that came from the drinking question were, “How much have they been drinking?” This surveyor question led me to believe a better question would be, “Can someone give consent if they are drunk?” This new question would probably lead to better results.
Another question from the survey that was inconclusive was “ What does consent actually mean?” The problem with this question is that the surveyor didn’t have much of a reasonable choice that could be wrong. The multiple- choice answers were all correct and together they formed the definition of consent. So when surveyors filled out the survey they always picked at least one correct answer. From hindsight, I now see that I should have performed a pilot survey in which I could find out these problems that lead to inconclusive results and then make changes to have a productive experiment. Not to mention the difficulty I have with getting people to fill out surveys, especially about sexual assault. A lot of people quickly just said, “no” and turned away at the questions. Others were a little friendlier about filling out the survey, but I don’t think anyone likes to think about sexual assault.
For the survey question that stated, “Is there any kind of “acceptable” sexual assault?” Surprisingly, this question was answered “Yes” by three females. One female believed that sexual assault is justifiable if the “victim” is dressed in provocative clothing. Another female thought sexual assault was acceptable if the “victim” was into it at first. The last reason for acceptable sexual assaults was if the “victim” has previously consented on a different occasion. Again I was surprised to find that of the three people who believed in some type of acceptable sexual assault were all females. It was surprising because 99% of sexual assaults are committed against females. Another reason for surprise is because of how prevalent sexual assault is at Miami University and I often have talked to women that are upset because they have to worry about being assaulted walking alone at night.
In Figures 1 through 7 are graphs and pie charts made to compare how the Miami students answered to the question, “What do you think is the percentage of false rape accusations?” Of the people surveyed 76.4% answered with the wrong answer. 68.7% (or 22 out 32) of the females answered the question with the percentage. Not only did these women answer the question wrong, but also they were also the most consistent with answering with the higher percentages answers. On average the females guessed 6% - 25% of falsely accused sexual assaults. 58% (or 10 out of 17) of males answered with the wrong percentage. Of the male survey results many of the most of the men answered “A”, “B”, or “E” which carried a percentage lower than one. Overall out of the surveys men believed that there was a much lower percentage of falsely accused sexual assaults than the females believed.
Another interesting result came from the last question on the survey, which asked, “Do you think sexual assault occurs because of human nature or environmental factors/ nurture?” Of all the people surveyed 29.4% believed sexual assaults origin lies in human nature, 47% believe its origin comes from nurture, and 23% believe its origin comes from both: human nature and nurture. Of the females surveyed 12 out of 32 (37.5%) thought the origin of sexual assault was based on human nature, 13 out of 32 (40.6%) females thought is sexual assault was a nurture issue, and 7 out of 32 (21.8%) females thought it was based on both. The men’s answers consisted of 2/17 (11.8%) human nature, 9/17 (52.9%) nurture, and 6/17 (35.2%) answered for both. Because of the scarce amount of surveys, the gender differences in the answers seem to be inconclusive, but when we observe the statistics that include everybody we can see a big division. The result of nurture versus nature are cut down the middle, which seems to correlate with a lot of the class discussions we have had in natural systems II class.

What Have I Learned?
Natural systems class, Robert Wright, and A Critique of the Sociobiology of Rape have presented many ideas and rationales on the topic of the nature of human nature. I have been offended by some theories (Robert Wright’s) and I have wanted to disprove these theories. I was not really able to disprove anything with my survey, but I have received a general idea of how people of Miami University feel about sexual assault.
When I compare the results of the survey to contemporary statistics I see that people need more information on sexual assault. In 2000, there has been an estimate of 200 sexual assaults at Miami University. This remains to be a consistent issue and still people have a large lack of knowledge about sexual assault. Some say change needs to occur within your self. I agree and I feel confident about changes in myself, but I think, Miami needs to help make the campus a safer atmosphere. I would recommend having mandatory program that consists of speeches and discussions about sexual assault and consent for everyone in the incoming class, or for anybody who hasn’t participated in this type of program since entering MU. With more attention and action we can help to at least lower sexual assaults at Miami and promote change among the community.
From what I have heard Miami deals with sexual assault in a different way. Supposedly Miami doesn’t report sexual assaults off-campus on their statistics that they give to people applying to go to school here. Miami wants to look good, get a lot of money, so someone (I haven’t found out who yet) can kick it in the Caribbean when they retire. Miami lying about sexual assault statistics explains a lot about the way they deal with sexual assault.