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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 28, 2024

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This topic is cursed, so I'll keep my thoughts brief.

From an evolutionary biology standpoint:

Some meaningful percentage of humans in the early history of the species were the product of coerced sex.

Males being naturally stronger than females is the reason it would normally be males doing the coercing.

Females who aggressively fought back against coerced sex were more likely to be injured or die by said males.

Thus, females who fought back would not be passing genes on to the next generation quite as often.

Likewise, females who 'accepted' coerced sex and adapted to bear and raise any resulting child were more likely to pass on their genes.

After 1000 generations, the genes of women who accepted it would be more prevalent than those who resisted.

The inverse is probably true for males. Weaker males who didn't/couldn't coerce sex probably lost out overall.

So we would expect there to be some innate tendency for some women to find coerced sex 'appealing'. Call it a survival mechanism if you want. Being forced into an act but at least being able to 'enjoy' it means you don't get killed in the process.

Then tie that into the need to filter partners for 'Fitness' (as defined by prehistorical norms), and a male being strong enough to overpower and take a woman without her cooperation is an imperfect but not entirely incorrect proxy for a male who can produce and protect strong offspring.

So a complex set of factors and the way intersexual dynamics work would make it not too surprising that women and men would have some kind of urge to engage in 'coerced' sex acts because that's a way to signal one's fitness as a mate on a very primal level. How strongly one experiences this urge, especially compared to other competing urges probably varies a lot. So even if I believe the urge/desire is common, it doesn't mean everyone actually experiences it as an overpowering desire.

Thus, females who fought back would not be passing genes on to the next generation quite as often.

Then tie that into the need to filter partners for 'Fitness' (as defined by prehistorical norms), and a male being strong enough to overpower and take a woman without her cooperation is an imperfect but not entirely incorrect proxy for a male who can produce and protect strong offspring.

Aren't these two factors contradictory? If the woman does not fight back, then there is no fitness filtering. Meanwhile, a rapist who kills his victims won't pass on his genes either.

Meanwhile, a rapist who kills his victims won't pass on his genes either.

Well, he won't pass on his genes with that woman. Even assuming that he never finds a woman who offers little enough resistance to leave alive, he could still have children in a consensual relationship separate from the rape.

I mean, if a woman is strong enough to fight back and escape a man, that's either an abnormally strong woman or an abnormally weak man.

So I should perhaps phrased it as those who effectively fought back versus merely offered impotent token resistance.