Human rape: Adaptation or by‐product?

This paper examines two alternative evolutionary explanations of human rape. One explanation sees human rape as a facultative male reproductive tactic. The other explanation sees human rape as an evolutionary byproduct of certain evolved differences in the reproductive strategies of human males and females. These two explanations generate alternative testable predictions concerning cross‐species, cross‐cultural, and modern societal data on rape. Existing evidence is found to be insufficient to warrant an adaptive explanation of rape per se in humans. The question of whether the search for adaptations needs to be shifted from behavioral categories to the underlying psychological mechanisms is discussed.