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I think I was arguing that rapists and predators are by definition Bad. Also that even rich elite clans usually have a couple of members and hangers-on whose individual genetics would not be a valuable addition to anyone's family tree.
I'm not aware of any helpful published surveys supporting this, but to my mind the counter-narrative where Southern patriarchs eagerly guard the honor of their random enslaved field hands is making the more extraordinary claim. Who would even dare to come forward with a rape accusation in that context? Given the overall attitude to women of that class, why would they be believed and avenged rather than punished for causing trouble and/or assumed to have themselves been the seducers?
Slave owners ran breeding programs to produce a more docile slave population. Sexual access to female slaves probably wasn't guarded 100%, but it assuredly wasn't available to randos on the basis of nobody caring.
This was debunked decades ago. See Time on the Cross.
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You know who was in even closer proximity to a lot of female slaves than white guys?
Male slaves -- if the slaveholders didn't care about their slaves being raped, I would think inter-slave rape would be a much bigger problem than 'other poor whites in the vicinity' wandering onto the plantation for some raping.
I think that neither probably happened very much, for reasons along the lines of those elucidated by thrownaway.
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They presumably wouldn't have been guarding the honor of their "random enslaved field hands" so much as their productivity. A slave was an investment. Part of that investment particularly for female slaves was breeding potential. An unexpected pregnancy with unknown paternity eats into that investment.
Slaves were property and damaging the property of the elite is generally not tolerated regardless of whether or not they actually cared about the women.
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