This blog post explores whether the surge in rape during wartime is an expression of evolutionary instinct or a means of strategic violence.
Rape is one of the most heinous crimes, regardless of country or era. Therefore, efforts to understand its causes—both from humanities and social science perspectives and through scientific inquiry—are underway to find ways to prevent it. One such perspective is evolutionary biology. Evolutionary biology examines biological traits from an evolutionary standpoint, introducing concepts like natural selection and adaptation. Organisms possess diverse traits. If a specific trait aids survival and reproduction, it will be more likely to persist compared to other traits. Therefore, if the distribution of traits within a population changes over long periods through natural selection, a group with different characteristics from the original organisms will emerge. This is called adaptation, and examples can indeed be found in the diverse traits of humans. However, this does not mean all traits are the result of natural selection. Depending on the extent to which one acknowledges the influence of natural selection on a given trait, individuals can be divided into adaptationists and anti-adaptationists. Adaptationists strongly believe in the power of natural selection, while anti-adaptationists question it.
‘Darwin’s Table’ discusses whether the trait of rape is a product of adaptation. Adaptationists argue that rape is a behavior to increase reproductive success, and that it is adapted and exists in the unconscious of males. However, I take the opposing, anti-adaptationist stance, believing rape is not an adaptive product. Rather, perpetrators ‘choose’ rape as a means to express their aggression and violence. This ‘choice’ means they use rape as a ‘tool’ to express violence.
First, various types of rape exist. According to Nicholas Groth, rape can be categorized based on the perpetrator’s motive: rage rape, power rape, sadistic rape, and masculinity-affirming rape. In rage rape, the perpetrator chooses rape as a means to punish women and inflict humiliation. Thus, the perpetrator commits rape not for sexual purposes but as a tool for venting anger. Consequently, the perpetrator inflicts severe physical threats upon the victim, to the extent that the act cannot be viewed as merely for the purpose of sexual intercourse. Second, in power-driven rape, the primary motive is the display of strength and power. The perpetrator does not intend to inflict injury on the victim but rather seeks to dominate the other person using sexual means. The perpetrator aims to prove their subjectivity and dominance through the sexual act. Third, there is sadistic rape. In this case, the perpetrator derives excitement and satisfaction from the pain the victim feels. Because they find pleasure in the victim’s helpless state or the sight of their suffering itself, it often involves not just sexual acts but also murder. Finally, there exists masculinity-affirming rape. This occurs when someone commits rape to demonstrate their masculinity; commonly, these perpetrators often lack a traditionally masculine appearance or physique. Consequently, many perpetrators lack experience dating women through normal channels and tend to harbor sexual fantasies.
Examining these four types of rape reveals that rape does not occur solely due to sexual desire. It is an expression of violence through sexual acts, and for perpetrators, rape is perceived as one of the most severe forms of violence that can be inflicted upon women. Adaptationists, of course, might point to masculinity-affirming rape cases to argue that rape is an adaptive product. While they would acknowledge that rape was used as a means in the previous three types, they would contend this is merely a result of combined social and cultural factors. Fundamentally, they would argue it is an adaptive product, like masculinity-affirming rape, employed by men who struggle to find mates to increase their reproductive success.
However, men who commit masculinity-affirming rape also use it not to satisfy sexual desire but as a means to resolve personal inferiority. While their shared lack of masculine appeal may indeed lead to mating difficulties, conversely, it can also result in feelings of inferiority and a lack of self-confidence.
Particularly, the inferiority stemming from a lack of masculine appeal targets women, leading them to choose rape as the means to inflict the greatest violence. Adaptationists might counter that the current manifestations of rape do not reveal the past processes through which it was naturally selected.
Even if modern rape appears unrelated to reproductive success, they argue that because rape was adapted in the past and remains in men’s unconscious, modern rape occurs as a result of this adapted unconscious.
So, let’s assume rape truly stems from an unconscious drive for reproduction. If the fundamental reason for rape originated in reproduction, how can we explain the murder that often accompanies rape? Forcing sexual intercourse clearly increases reproductive success, but murdering the victim afterward is an action that prevents the birth of one’s own offspring. Therefore, rape and murder are behaviors existing at opposite poles from the perspective of reproduction, and performing both together is a highly contradictory outcome. In the case of sadistic rape, where murder itself provides the greatest pleasure and satisfaction, it cannot be said that the act of rape stems from an unconscious desire to increase reproductive success.
Adaptationists may counter that murder is merely an act born from fear of criminal detection. They explain that modern society possesses different social and moral concepts than the past, presenting many differences from the circumstances where rape could have increased reproductive success. Therefore, they argue that rape is driven by instinct, citing its prevalence in war situations where law enforcement and legal authority weaken.
Of course, rape does increase dramatically in war situations where law and order weaken. However, if rape occurred primarily because social norms were weakened, indiscriminate rape should have also occurred among members of the same tribe. Yet, it typically occurs as one means of violence inflicted upon the enemy nation’s women, particularly when the dominant nation rapes the defeated nation. This is a form of psychological warfare, distinct from conventional combat with guns and swords. There are documented instances where military leaders actively encouraged soldiers to rape civilians during wartime. It was another means of violence, intended not only to harm the female victims but also to inflict humiliation and insult upon the enemy’s men.
Recently, a new type of rape called corrective rape has emerged. It occurs under the pretext of ‘treating’ homosexuality. This case synthesizes all the previously mentioned grounds. Corrective rape is fundamentally rooted in homophobia, reaffirming that rape is an act committed to express one’s own aggression and violence.
Simultaneously, despite originating from homophobia, the fact that the majority of victims are still women indicates that men perceive rape as one of the severe forms of violence they can inflict upon women, leading them to choose it as a means.
Although the act involves sex-related behavior during the rape process, and may appear linked to sexual desire or even reproduction, when viewed in isolation, it is no different from other violent acts. Therefore, the inclusion of sex-related acts does not mean it increases reproductive success. Just as one might say a person’s strength is the result of past adaptations to increase survival rates, it does not follow that the act of hitting others can be viewed solely as a result of survival instinct adaptation.
