Thread: Is man really just a gene-spreading machine?

I think we all know the strong desire for dominance and sex humans have, even more so than we like to talk about openly. But I got pretty disturbed by reading this http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache...lnk&cd=2&gl=se at page 23 it says ''In studies in the early 1980s and 1990s, approximately one-third of college men reported they would rape a woman if they knew they would not get caught.'' And this is despite living in a civilized culture. If an average man (in his most basic, uncivilized, natural state) spotted a sexually mature girl, would he simply go off and rape her? If anyone got in the way between him and his sex ''partner'', would he simply kill that person to go attain his goal?

We're talking about collage rape here, usually by friends or acquaintances, often including both parties being drunk and alone voluntarily, and often no protest from the victim. That's how I skimmed it.

So I think this 1/3 is imagining such scenarios, which they'd heard about or indeed had sketched by the survey itself.

Not to say that more widespread form of rape isn't callous - just knowing a person will regret something is reason to protect them from it rather. And initiating/continuing sex with someone who isn't into it, is just creepy. Put that way, I'll bet a lot more than 2/3 men would agree.

So no, an average guy would not "simply go off and rape" let alone kill. That's a totally different kind of rape.

Most rapes are between people who know each other, like, ex couples and best friend's brother and so forth. And kept between them. So, "getting caught" isn't like, getting tasered by police, it's like the woman doesn't have the nerve to speak about it, because she shares important social ties with the rapist. A lot of guys overestimate a woman's freedom to just play fast and loose with her social network as guys generally do. So social coercion does not seem a big deal, compared to the popular image of violent rape. No resistance, no mention = no rape? Put that way, I think you'd get the 1/3, easy.

It's also important to remember that there's more to spreading your genes that just having sex. In humans especially, the child requires a lot of care and investment if it's going to be successful, so fathering it and walking away may mean that it will die anyway. Rape in humans, then, is probably not a viable way to spread your genes unless you can trick some other male to raise the resulting child for you, which would be pretty difficult if the woman was forced and not complicit in the deception.

I also find it's good to question any statistic without a reference to the study that it came from. How many colleges were sampled? How many men were questioned? And of those who said they would, how many ACTUALLY would when face to face with the situation? That's always a danger with questionairres. Objective measures are far more reliable than self-reported ones.


Edit - (I skipped the last line of the OP when I first read it): Humans don't live in bubbles. We live in social groups, in a society that has expectations of us if it's going to allow us to live in it. Thus, killing a person just because he or she is in trying to stop you from raping someone will have repercussions beyond the immediate goal. Unless you're sociopathic and your brain isn't tuned like most humans' brains are, then there's going to have to be additional stressors before you'll get to that point.

yes

if athiests are correct then yes, but why do you ask, do you see something worth question?