Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sociobiological theories of rape1

• Seems highly POV. Should be merged into an article about the book. RickK 19:39, Jul 13, 2004 (UTC)
• It is an article about a theory presented in the book, but the book is not the source of the theory. I will expand on the article (it was originally just a small section). Mbac 19:47, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• Have corrected typo in spelling. No strong opinion about retention of article - MykReeve 19:59, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• Merge into rape or create series of articles Sexual motivations for rape, violent motivations for rape, socio-political motivations for rape, etc.) jengod 20:00, Jul 13, 2004 (UTC)
• Merge, I guess. It sure sounds like a belief/theory that's calculated for controversy. Geogre 20:21, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • Better with its current title & can be kept, though I'm no fan at all of the theory. "Trolling" sounds about right to me. Geogre 14:04, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• Rape is such a touchy subject. I agree with Jengod, but I'm not very informed on the other motivations. I've reworked the article, but there's a lot more to add to bring it together, such as disclaimers and more references. Stubified. Mbac 20:36, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• Retitling is probably a good idea, as per Jengod's advice. I think this is interesting material, but incorporating it in an objective way might prove challenging. Jeeves 20:41, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• I believe this material could be merged into rape, and would serve quite well, if treated appropriately. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 20:44, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• Merge into rape. -Sean Curtin 21:30, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• My concern is to the factuality of this. If it's true, great, incorperate it into as many articles as applicable Keep, or whatever. But can somebody verify if it's true or not somehow? Sam [Spade] 21:37, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• Keep as Evolutionary pyschology of rape or somesuch. It's become a matter of (mostly feminist) belief that rape is a crime about "power", not "sex"; in this the liberal feminists are supported by right-wing fundamentalist who wish to avoid discussing rapes as sex, for fear of opening up discussion about sex in general. But if rape is motivated by power considerations rather than sexual, why are the vast majority of rapes of women by men? Some evolutionary biologists have been roundly criticized for pointing out this inconvenient fact, and that under certain conditions rape can be an evolutionarily successful strategy. Because to naive readers this suggests the justification of rape via naturalistic fallacy, and because it contravenes reigning theories of the Standard Social Science Model that humans are perfectible tabula rasae, entirely shaped by culture, these scientific theories of rape have been angrily denounced. The article, while something of a sketch, is an honest first attempt to explain this. -- orthogonal 23:52, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• Merge into rape. A note in "rape" that said something like "Some researchers have suggested, controversially, that some forms of animal rape (i.e. in ducks) may be evolutionarily adaptive", with a source, would be more than enough. I don't even think that the authors of "A Natural History of Rape" go so far as to assume that just because it applies to ducks, it applies to humans (much less in the vast majority of rape cases), nor has any real dictation on social policy, etc. The current article also includes poor representations of what "evolutionary theory" says, with a poor representation of sexual selection. And if this didn't come from "A Natural History of Rape", then where it is from? If you're going to do something controversial, something which looks like it is espousing a theory rather than describing it, you'd sure as heck better cite it a bit better, or else it looks a whole lot like your own personal opinion or individual research, which is not what Wikipedia is for. --Fastfission 00:51, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• The book most certainly suggests that human rape is evolutionarily adaptive. I also did a few minutes of googling and found other sources that suggest the theory (and linked one that was linkworthy). My apologies if I'm not the greatest champion for the cause -- I did mark it as a stub. :D I've renamed it to Evolutionary psychology of rape as per orthogonal's suggestion. Mbac 04:04, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• Valid enough to keep, under Evolutionary psychology of rape , and content doesn't seem to fit exactly into rape, but it could be merged, if created as a separate section. —siroχo 04:09, Jul 14, 2004 (UTC)
• Valid topic, current treatment needs a lot of work; current title is better than the original. Note that Thornhill is not that highly regarded among evolutionary psychologists or sociobiologists - I've heard people express the view that he is trolling at the so-called standard take on rape rather than doing careful analysis. Also, this area is so controversial that any facts alleged in the article should be referenced to primary sources, not just back to a book that may or may not cite such sources. I would vote against deletion, but we should keep some kind of health warning on the page until a number of people with knowledge of the field and different views about it have worked on it and got a stable consensus. seglea 07:41, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

As seglea is (apparently*) a Professor of Psychology at Exeter (and visiting prof. at UC Berkley), so I'm more than willing to accede to his opinion on this matter. (*Of course there's always the possibility the user seglea has simply appropriated the Prof's identity to gain gravitas on wikipedia, but there's no evidence of this.)-- orthogonal 12:14, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Did I mention that I was the Pope? Because if I did I prob. shouldn't have... ;) Sam [Spade] 14:31, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

• Please keep it out of the rape article - it was part of the article and removed as being largely irrelvant by virtue of being a single opinion. Refdoc 09:29, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • What is that supposed to mean? If its accurate, its not an opinion. If its just an opinion, represent it as such. How does its theoreticaly singular nature restrict it from being a valuable addition to the main article? My only concern is accuracy. Sam [Spade] 12:26, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• I have just had to rewrite sperm competition because the original by User:Mbac was utter bollocks. Unfortunately, I suspect the same may go for the rest. In need of desperate peer-review. Dunc_Harris|☺ 14:44, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• I may have erred in not pointing out the more precise biological definition, but I've seen sperm competition referenced in multiple places in the context of human sexuality as opposed to its strict biological definition (which you prefer). For example, in Skipping Towards Gomorrah, Dan Savage interviews swingers and learns that sperm competition is a desired effect from swinging as it enhances sexual pleasure. If you disagree, in that this aspect of sperm competition does not belong in the definition, that's fine. But there's no need to be offensive. Mbac 18:08, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

My opinion is that it shouldn't go back into rape in the present form; I was the one who removed it from rape in the first place, but that may not have been the best thing to do. If consensus is to merge back in, so be it, although I do feel that it should be condensed or more firmly backed for NPOV reasons. It's a touchy subject no question.Jeeves 19:48, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

• Delete. Most of it seems like nonsense to me, as evidenced by this absolutely dogmatic statement: "Males are known to become aroused by depictions of rape...." All males? Some males? A few males? To make my own dogmatic, equally ill-informed, declaration, it sounds to me as if this article was written by someone who gets off on rape fantasies and wants to justify his weirdness. If it's kept at all, it should be moved to "rape" and be heavily edited and peer-reviewed.Hayford Peirce 22:51, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• Merge with rape and correct POV issues. User:SocratesJedi (sig added by Sam [Spade] 21:06, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC))
• Keep as one contemporary theoretical perspective on why rape occurs. Denni☯ 01:40, 2004 Jul 18 (UTC)

• This isn't supposed to be a place where there are discussions of "contemporary theoretical perspective", it is supposed to be an encycl. that deals with facts. Within an article on "rape", there may be mentioned three or four theories as to why it occurs, but there should not be a separate, long, theoretical article such as this.Hayford Peirce 01:52, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • Do tell. I guess that means we have to remove most of the social and political science articles, and everything to do with religion. Probably should ditch psychology, psychiatry, and any of the "soft" medical science articles, and since art is not "fact", see you, Picasso, old buddy. I'd also like to point out that it is a long-standing practice here (and in other encylopedias which deal with "facts") that sub-articles may be broken away from more general articles when there is sufficient merit to a separate discussion. Denni☯ 18:48, 2004 Jul 18 (UTC)