Men Are Not Rapists

by Laura Goodwin

On the Today show (1/24/00), evolutionary psychologist Randy Thornhill insisted that "Rape is a sexual act with a sexual motivation" that evolved as a reproductive strategy for men to pass their genes on to as many offspring as possible. Thornhill, co-author (with University of Colorado professor Craig Palmer) of the then-unreleased book "A Natural History of Rape" (MIT Press), warned that to reduce their chances of being raped, women must understand "that there are costs associated with dressing provocatively and going out alone at night and so forth."

I know this man is wrong. Rape happens, but men in general are not rapists by nature. I know plenty of men who could never dream of doing it. Rape is against their nature completely. Most guys want to feel wanted, and need encouragement from their partners. Calling men rapists is an insult to most men, and it dignifies rapists, which they don't deserve.

Nature designed the human species to give a darn about each other, and to cooperate. We are a ~compassionate~ species. People who aren't compassionate are called inhumane, like it's a bad thing. Rape is inhumane, and all civilized societies forbid rape and punish it as a crime. If it was normal to rape no one would question the practice. There are no laws against eating because we all have to eat, but there are laws against rape, because it's not only not necessary for survival, but it's an ugly thing to do, and people are repelled by it.

Rape has nothing to do with perpetuating the species. Many rape victims are men. Many rape victims are children. Many women who are raped are too old to be impregnated. Many rape victims are killed. Kinda hard to perpetuate the species that way! BTW, a small number of rapists are women.

Rape may be instinctive behavior, but so is punishing rape! Fighting rape is instinctive behavior! People have instincts, but those instincts are social and altruistic more often than they are anti-social and predatory.

A rapist did not honor the memory of his adored wife with the mind-bogglingly beautiful Taj Majal. Men LOVE women! They deify us! Look at the Goddesses of the Pantheon, the ~Statue of Liberty~, the luscious, radiant, voluptuous images of wives, mistresses, mothers, and lovers that have been recorded on paint and in bronze and stone through the ages. Anyone who could see the world alive with artistic evidence of men's adoration and deep respect for women and conclude that men are by nature rapists have got to be blithering idiots.

Not that we aren't an aggressive species. Ice-age, stone-age men and women hunted meat for a living, and to them, bloodshed meant life. They also noticed that both the moon and women had a monthly cycle, so it seemed to them that women and the moon must have a mysterious relationship. They noted that women produced children, shedding blood to bring forth offspring, and here too blood was involved, and meant life. Women and blood and the moon and hunting... it all was somehow connected. If a man or animal was drained of blood, it would die. Blood was necessary for life. Yet women regularly shed blood and did not die! Miraculous! Spooky!

Our stone-age ancestors were primitive but not stupid: they knew something numinous when they saw it. So they dressed the priest in an animal skin, banged drums, and he brandished his strap-on antlers and capered around while the huntress priestesses symbolically howled at the moon, stalked him, killed him, and ate him. They painted their lips and fingertips red with blood, or a blood-colored dye as a token of grace. The effect this had on the men was it filled them with dread and admiration.

The oldest deities are all goddesses, and the oldest goddesses were often warlike, huntresses, terrifying and powerful, adorned (like Kali Ma is still depicted today) with necklaces made from human skulls. Blood was poured upon Her stone altars all around the world. Scarlet is her sacred color, the color of life and death. Naturally women adorn themselves with it, even today.

Early religious rituals often included blood rites, with men required to suffer and shed blood as a sign of manliness and submission to the tribe...often losing body parts or even their lives. These were apparently often accompanied by orgies that included things like drumming, dancing, feasting, sex, and imbibing intoxicants. Sure, they fasted, but that was before. After, they celebrated with drumming, dancing, etc. That's what *I* call instinctive behavior!

There are still rites like this going on all over the world right now. You know that's instinctive, because people are the same way all over the world no matter what their belief system or degree of sophistication, and apparently have been that way since we've been human. That's human nature. Think how easy it is even today for a woman with reddened lips and fingertips to convince a man to act like an animal and offer himself as a sacrifice in homage to her mysterious beauty, and this, even in opposition to their dominant social paradigm, and the way they were raised. Children invent such games without even being taught. For heaven's sake, it's in our DNA.

To believe (as the author cited above does) that a woman dressed pretty or dressed lightly is asking for rape, one must ignore the tens of thousands of years of evidence that women can run around stark naked, or wear very little in the presence of men with no fear, more often than not. One word: beaches!

Men are *not* by nature rapists, rape is *not* normal behavior, and to imply so is asking for trouble from those who love the decent men we trust, depend on, and whom we will defend.

This essay and all site contents Copyright L. Goodwin 1990 -2001