At 04:37 PM 04/09/04 -0700, Deborah Harrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
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I agree that rape is certainly not a "political act," but if it was *only* about procreation then no child, man or older (i.e. post-menopausal) woman would ever be raped.
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That's not actually the case. Evolution has done the best it could, but the resultant psychological traits have a bell curve distribution. I.e., to the extent there is a bias for men generally preferring woman at the peak of their reproductive potential, the mix of genes alone will cause those out on the tails of the curve to be attracted to children and older women. And in fact, what is the record for the youngest and oldest human female reproducing?
On top of this you get imprinting like experiences, and well known gene and environmental effects where male sexual orientation is to males rather than females.
Just because behavior is driven by evolved psychological traits that *most of the time* in hunter gatherer tribes result in reproduction does not mean that the mechanisms are anything like perfect. They only had to work enough of the time to get into the next generation, and some combinations of genes (traits) should be expected to fail.
Keith Henson
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