Straw men and fairy tales: evaluating reactions to a Natural History of Rape.

In this paper we respond to two frequent criticisms of our book, A Natural History of Rape (Thornhill & Palmer: 2000). The first criticism portrays the book as little more than a "just-so" story that human rape is an adaptation, We demonstrate that this portrayal is not accurate. The second criticism reflects a common response to the book's challenge of the popular assertion that rapists are not motivated by sexual desire but instead commit these crimes motivated by the urge to power; domination, and violence, and the urge to degrade and humiliate women. We demonstrate that such…