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39 Jurimetrics 137 (1998-1999)
The Biology of Human Rape

handle is hein.journals/juraba39 and id is 147 raw text is: THE BIOLOGY OF HUMAN RAPE Randy Thornhill* ABSTRACT: This article discusses rape from a biological perspective and dispels some myths about what that perspective is, and what it entails. It emphasizes that evolution applies to rape, just as it does to any feature of life. How exactly evolution applies is unclear, but various hypotheses are presented and evaluated. A rape-specific adaptation in men seems likely, but more research is needed to discriminate the rape adaptation hypothesis from the incidental effect hypothesis. In addition, this essay suggests that the widespread opposition to studying rape from an evolutionary biological perspective stems from a bias against viewing rape in biological terms, a bias we must understand and confront if rape research is to progress. CITATION: Randy Thornhill, The Biology of Human Rape, 39 Jurimetrics J. 137-147 (1999). Many people dislike the idea that rape has a biological basis, and have extreme difficulty thinking or talking about rape in biological terms.1 The widespread opposition to the study of rape from an evolutionary biological perspective stems, in part, from misunderstanding biological facts and theory and the inferences that can be drawn from supporting data. I. COMMON MISUNDERSTANDINGS Most people have little knowledge of developmental biology. As a result, they do not understand that developmental programs of organisms are evolved *Randy Thomhill is Regents' Professor, Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131 USA, rthom@unm.edu. 1. See, e.g., Del D. Thiessen & Robert K. Young, Investigating Sexual Coercion, SOCIETY, Mar.-Apr. 1994, at 60-63 (supporting this inference and concluding that rape literature is rarely scientific and frequently explicitly anti-biological). WINTER 1999

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