Looking at it from the other end.
If a sexual act is more likely to result in a child capable of reproducing than another sexual act, it's likely that it may be selected for genetically.

If the woman is more likely to lose the pregnancy, or die to being unable to hunt, or the child is likely to be killed, than if she has a partner, it is not quite unreasonable to hypothesise that 'legitimate rape' might have lower conception rates.

Simply as the womans genetic code is more likely to perpetuate itself if she can have a child in a supportive environment, as that child is more likely to reproduce.

Unfortunately, ethics committees tend to stop proper research in this area once you bring up the mention of rape.
I mean, one even called the police, when I got out my experimental apparatus.
(speedevil, Mon 10 Sep 2012, 17:53, 1 reply)

I appreciate what you're getting at
but it doesn't really work that way, for two reasons. Firstly, because the act itself has no influence, genetically, on the the offspring, unless "rape" DNA is somehow different from "normal" DNA, and also because a child less likely to reproduce once born (this is something that you've definitely got a point about, but it doesn't work quite like you've put it) is a negative genetic propagation. In other words, if the child doesn't reproduce, nothing is positively or neagatively selected for.

The only way it could work is if there was a genetic trait to either not implant or spontaneously miscarry an embryo resulting from rape. Which, I suppose you could argue might carry a genetic advantage of not wasting resources on a child less likely to reproduce if it was raised in a different environment. Except that rather bridges genetic black and white with assumption, nuture and memetics. Again, complicated but I grant you might be possible, although it relys on human traits and behaviours that have existed across a far shorter timescale than human evolution works on

But the biggest problem with that idea is that it would rely on the female body, at a cellular level, knowing the difference between "rape" and "non-rape" sperm or DNA, and that just isn't going to happen.

Oh, shit, this is the internet. You're wrong, you fucker, and worse than Hitler, or sutin. Am I doing it right again now?
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Mon 10 Sep 2012, 18:07, closed)

I appreciate that evolution is a very complex process
When I wrote the original post, I was thinking along the lines that differing mental states between having consensual sex and being raped might have an effect on hormone production, which could in turn affect the early development of the foetus.

Edit: Also that males perceived as "attractive" are likely to be superior in some way, so there might be an advantage in having children by males that a female finds attractive than those she does not.

I realize that this argument is predicated on the idea that attractive males are less likely to resort to rape, which is a whole other argument in itself.


Further edit: I feel should add (for the benefit of those people who seem to have got the wrong idea) that I'm talking in very general terms in this whole thread and I'm not really referring purely to humans, but to animals in general.
( MatJ LOOK, Mon 10 Sep 2012, 18:41, closed)

There might be a grain of truth in it somewhere, but if you could observe any trend at all, it'd be more likely to be "fewer children brought to term" than "fewer instances of conception". You'd have to look at things like whether rape was more prevalent in less affluent areas, and if it was, factor in variables such as diet, environment, general health, and so forth. Also, you'd have to allow for the fact that rape victims may seek some sort of termination - pennyroyal tea (and other things) have reputedly been used for such purposes since Roman times, or earlier. I would imagine there are a staggering number of variables to consider.

So, at a guess - conception rates roughly the same (presuming roughly equal health in rape victims/willing partners), amount of babies born possibly a little lower. That said, I really have no idea.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Mon 10 Sep 2012, 19:34, closed)

Oh, no, I understand what you're getting at, even if it could have been maybe expressed better
it's obviously a very, very difficult subject. The hormone idea is not potentially without merit - but I think there's been a lot of studies of miscarriage rates in different scenarios and there's no evidence that the rate is particularly higher in rape cases. But that's likely because while the emotions ivolved are staggeringly complex, the hormonal system is pretty simple, and a pathway that triggered loss in the case of rape would likely be triggered by by a million other traumatic scenarios and that wouldn't be a trait that would be evolutionarilly selected for. But it's massively complex and that's just me speculating. Imagine. On the INTERNET, as well.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Tue 11 Sep 2012, 11:03, closed)