I have no idea who sent what here......so don't take anything I
say personally, please.....................
Sent:
> This is another example of the futility of using current cultural
> frames of reference to theorize about the distant past.
> In many HG groups the one male one female sexual exclusivity does
> not exist. There is usually some form of family pairing,

Ardeith writes:
Gestating a human, and the time and energy required to raise that
human to the point that it can survive without its mother, is an
extremely expensive project.....in terms of energy and effort
required.   It was vital to the survival of our species that the
mother have the support and help of her family/clan during the
years she was child-rearing.  A female had a poor chance to
successfully raise her child alone.     One male/one female
bonding was not necessary to this, but the cooperation of the
whole of the clan was.
The bonding between individuals of both genders was
vital to the survival of our species.  The males had to trust
each other in the dangerous pursuit of game animals, and
the females had to trust the males to bring home the zebra,
and had to trust that the other females would share their
gatherings while the lactating female was occupied with
her infant.  Both males and females had to trust the others
in the clan would help each other in defense against
predators.....human and non-human.
Many pregnant or lactating females have little interest in
sexual activities, but the males of the family/clan always
had other females around to turn to.............a male who
was violent toward other family/clan members was a
disruptive force to be feared......a violent rape could
abort a pregnancy, and possibly kill the female.   It was
not in the interest of survival of the family/clan to have
its babies aborted or its females killed by such violence.
It was in the interest of survival of our species to
develop cooperative attitudes ....... and rape is not a
cooperative behavior.

Someone sent:
> << Yes but from what I can gather the authors are explicitly
> challenging the conventional wisdom that rape is primarily about
violence (or a
> result of chaotic or overcrowded conditions). In their view rape is
primarily
> about males forcing women to have sex because they are driven to have
> sex, at least in the prehistoric world.

Ardeith writes:
Paleolithic males had no need to rape......if one female was
not interested today, another would be.  Males may be "driven
to have sex"......I wouldn't know about that.....but I doubt it.
I don't have studies on the frequency of sexual intercourse
between HG males and females at hand, but I doubt the males
were interested in sexual activities at any higher frequency
than are males today.   Most males today are satisfied with
one to three sexual encounters per week.......not teenaged
boys!......I'm talking about adult males who have their "zebras"
to hunt down and bring home......(zebras = $$$)......and if
a female is not available when the urge comes on them, they
always have recourse to their own hand.   Ejaculation does
not require a female, or rape.  Males may indeed be driven
to ejaculate......just as females can yearn for a climax........
but this is not what rape is about.
Rape is about anger......anger at a woman who teased a
male into erection and then denied him......or anger at
all females expressed by forcing one or more females
to do the male's will.........rape is an expression of anger
or contempt.....contempt for females, or contempt for
the males those particular females "belong to".......
Was it in Afghanistan that soldiers raped the enemy's
women because they knew the enemy-males would
be forced by their religious dictates to then kill those
women?   This wasn't sex for pleasure.....though I
don't doubt that some of the soldiers enjoyed it.....this
was sex as a weapon......................

Someone sent:
 I see nothing implausible about the theory that strong
successful serial rapists will have more children than weak unsuccessful
rapists and non-rapists. >>

Ardeith writes:
A male lion takes over a pride, and kills all the cubs.....
this throws the female into estrus and the new male
can now mate with them........but woe unto the male
lion who attempts to mate with a female who is not
in estrus.  Most animals in the world do not attempt
to mate with the females until estrus prepares the
females to accept them.....many animals will "mount"
other males and females to display dominance....even
dairy cows.....who are all female....will use this display
behavior to establish their place in the hierarchry...and
woe to the farmer who does not observe and respect
that hierarchy.   Bonobos do mate at any time, just as
human females can.....but the bonobos seem to use
sex as a social tool....a means of defusing tensions,
a method of increasing the bonds between members
of the troop......which may indeed have been part
of the reason the human female is not bound into
an estrus cycle......perhaps we were originally as
sexually uninhibited as the bonobos.......and sex
was not a tool of anger, but a tool of bonding......
whatever.......rape could not be a necessary tool
of survival of our species...........raping all the
females of a clan and then running off to find
another clan's females to rape may indeed
allow a rapist to sire more offspring.....but
without the cooperation of the clan, that
offspring would not survive..........and this
whole line presupposes that the males
of 50K years ago actually knew they sired
children.......which there is no evidence to
support.    In the last 200 years, HG groups
have been studied who believed a female
became pregnant by the sun or moon or
spirits or even the wind..........the male
"opened" the way, perhaps.....but males
did not attempt to "claim" offspring............
Among the Native American tribes, the
child looked to its mother's brother for
a "father-figure".........you may not know
who your father is, but you always know
who your mother is, and who her siblings
are......

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