Sperm Wars

by Robin Baker

  For a few brief moments, the girl went quiet. Then her emotions took over. The mixture of fear and sexual excitement she had experienced as they struggled, the lack of release through either penetration or orgasm, and the disdain for him that had been growing throughout the afternoon – all erupted in anger. At every step during the last few hours he had dwindled in stature in comparison with his friend. She called him a bastard, told him he was pathetic, taunted him that he couldn’t even manage to rape her, and said she was going to report him.

  As she pulled on her bikini and moved to stand up, he shrank still further in her eyes. Post-climactic release had removed all trace of aggression and pride, and there were tears in his eyes. He apologised, said it wouldn’t happen again, and begged her not to tell anybody. As an afterthought he said he wasn’t really trying to enter her, that of course he would have succeeded if he had really meant to, and that it was just a game. He must think she was stupid if he thought she or anybody else would believe that, she told him – he was going to get what he deserved. With that, she threw his wet shorts at him, told him to cover his pathetic prick, and stalked off saying she was going to find the others and tell them what had happened.

  Even if she had found them, the others wouldn’t have been interested as they had just acted out a drama of their own. The naked dark-haired boy, penis still erect, had frog-marched the girl through the pine trees to the place where she said she had hidden his clothes. She had taken him into the darkness of the plantation. There was a soft bed of sweet-smelling pine needles beneath their feet, and they were hidden from the sky and the path by a regiment of ten-year-old trees. Both were high on the emotions of the past few minutes. The wrestling in the water as they had struggled with his shorts; the chasing, the arm-twisting, their state of undress - had all combined to produce in each of them a high of sexual excitement. There was no question in the boy’s mind but that when she had shown him where his clothes were, they were going to have sex. For him, there could be no other outcome. Sexual excitement always aroused in him aggression and an urge to dominate, even hurt. This happened every time he had sex, even without the rough-and-tumble foreplay and teasing he had experienced today. He wanted sex with this girl, but he also had a strong urge to humiliate her in the same way as she had tried to humiliate him.

  The girl continued to feed off his frustration, aggression and visible excitement. The rumours about her were true. She was still a virgin. Fingers, but not penises, had been in her vagina. In truth, she had a fear of real penetration, a fear that her vagina would split – the thought had kept her awake many nights. Yet, at the same time, she had a high level of sexual motivation. She masturbated often and enjoyed close contact with the male body. More than anything, she relished her mounting tension as she waited for the moment to deny penetration to a male who had aroused himself with her body. She knew this boy’s reputation for roughness and aggression during sex. He had, after all, had sex with nearly all of her friends over the past year. Nevertheless, she was convinced she could handle him.

  When she pretended just one time too many that she couldn’t remember where she had put his clothes, and then laughed at him, she gave him the excuse he was looking for. Again he twisted her arm behind her back until it hurt, pulled her against him, and asked where his clothes were. Still thinking he was joking, she repeated that she couldn’t remember and complained that he was hurting. The next second she was on the ground, face down on the soft bed of pine needles, and he was taking off her bikini, almost standing her on her head in his urgency to pull off her bottom half. For a few moments she was shocked, but still thought it was play. But when he sat astride her buttocks, put both arms up her back so it hurt, and pressed her face into the pine needles so that she could hardly breathe, her excitement rapidly began to fade. He was going too far and hurting her too much.

  He told her that if he got his clothes now, she might just get her clothes back before the afternoon was over. He grabbed hold of her hair, raised her head off the ground, and asked again. She said OK, but to stop hurting her. When he released an arm, she indicated a fallen branch ahead, about waist high. He dragged her to her feet, once more pulling both of her arms behind her and pinning them painfully against her back. Then he marched her over to the fallen branch, pushed her stomach against it, forced her to bend forward, and asked where. She cried that he was hurting her, pleaded with him to stop, and told him exactly where the clothes were. He saw them, and then told her he would teach her not to mess him about again.

  She was hurting where the branch was grazing her stomach and from the way he was pushing her arms up her back with his left hand, but still she didn’t realise what he was about to do. So far, everything had been physical, not sexual, and although she was in pain and surprised at how powerless she was to resist his strength, she was still exhilarated rather than afraid. It wasn’t until he began to push her legs apart with his feet that fear suddenly gripped her stomach. Almost before she could find the words to ask him what he was doing, he was inside her. She told him she wasn’t on the pill and begged him to stop. When she tried to cry out, the sound stuck in her throat. The force with which he was pressing her down over the branch and the pain from her arms, stomach and virginal vagina took her breath away. Each thrust was agony. She began to cry, and again and again begged him to stop. He didn’t, but at least he ejaculated quickly.

  With ejaculation, his aggression faded. He told her how good it had been and that she was the best yet. He said he was sorry if he had hurt her, lifted her gently off the branch, and tried to pull her towards him to hug her. She resisted. He was a bastard, she sobbed, and he had hurt her. He stroked her head, kissed her tears, and told her that he really hadn’t meant to hurt her; that he thought she had wanted it to be like that. For a while, they sat with their backs against a tree, him with his arm round her shoulders. She stopped crying, went very quiet, and began sucking her thumb. She was in pain, both mentally and physically, and at a complete loss as to what to do. Three thoughts kept going through her head: she had been raped; she was no longer a virgin; and her vagina could take a penis after all, even if it hurt.

  He spoke intermittently, saying at least three times how good it had been and how much he liked her. Just once, she accused him of raping her. He laughed and said that he supposed it was a bit like a rape. She said it wasn’t a bit like rape, it was rape. A little later, she said he should have used a condom. He apologised, said he had brought some and that they were in the pocket of the trousers she had hidden. Then he said she shouldn’t have got him so excited, and in the next breath tried to reassure her over pregnancy and AIDS. Eventually, they got dressed and made their way back to the river to join their friends.

  During the walk back to the car and on the drive home, the two girls and the boy who was driving were very quiet and withdrawn. Only the dark-haired boy chattered as if nothing had happened. Later that evening, with the boys gone, the two girls confided in each other. The driver’s girlfriend triggered their conversation by saying that she had been raped. She claimed it was the second time and told her friend about her previous experience with the dark-haired boy. Her friend then described her afternoon.

  They compared notes on what the dark-haired boy had done to them. Then they told each other the rumours they had heard about his treatment of some of their friends. They mused over why he forced girls when most of them, given time, would happily have sex with him anyway. Not very seriously, they considered reporting him to the police, to stop him raping others. Perhaps they should both go and report both of the boys for the afternoon’s incidents. They talked through the possible scenario at the police station, but decided that the experience might be worse than the actual rape. Besides which, it would mean their parents would find out and they would probably never be allowed out again.

  The driver’s girlfriend had no more to do with him, and within days began going out with another boy who had his own car. Whenever she met him, she snubbed him or call
ed him a rapist. She never missed an opportunity to tell her friends how pathetic he was and how she couldn’t understand why she had gone out with him in the first place. Once away at college, he rarely came home, anxious to avoid the people who thought so little of him.

  The day after the other girl lost her virginity, she went on the pill and, after turning the dark-haired boy down twice, eventually agreed to go out with him again. They carried on seeing each other for the rest of the summer, the longest he had ever stayed with anybody. She gained the appropriate kudos and aroused the jealousy of her friends for having landed the boy they all wanted. Despite occasional infidelities while at college, they continued to see each other on and off for the next three years. Eventually they began to live together.

  Their first intercourse in the pine wood set the style for their sexual relationship. In the years that followed, they re-enacted that and similar scenes with mutual consent. For them, intercourse was almost always aggressive and often painful. They enjoyed devising outrageous scenarios to generate fear and humiliation as a prelude to it.

  Four years after beginning to live together, they had their first child.

  Rough-and-tumble sex play is a common element in the courtship of humans and of many other animals, as they make decisions about whether to have intercourse or not. Such behaviour has many facets, most of which are illustrated in the scene – and all of them involve an interplay between mate selection by females and the display of quality by males. The females set tests of physical strength and sexual competence (Scene 27), which the males then either pass or fail. In their pursuit of reproductive success, the judicious use of rough and tumble can have important benefits for a woman – and a satisfactory performance can be equally beneficial to a man.

  On the vast majority of occasions, such rough-and-tumble games unfold without any harm being suffered by either the woman or the man. In fact, they both gain. The woman gets the information she wants and the man, if he behaves satisfactorily, may be allowed to have intercourse. Occasionally, however, such games can be dangerous. It is a short step from rough-and-tumble intercourse, across the boundary of mutual consent, to rape. This is date rape – when intercourse is forced by a man on a woman who has at least found him attractive enough to ‘date’, and often attractive enough to kiss and ‘pet’. It is not the random, predatory rape by a man who is usually a complete stranger to his victim (Scene 33).

  In principle, it should be easy to draw an unambiguous line between rough-and-tumble intercourse and date rape. If a woman says no, but the man forces intercourse anyway, then the intercourse was a rape. However, as all legal systems round the world acknowledge, the situation is not that simple. One of the problems is that, in many aspects of life, people often say no when what they really mean is ‘See if you can persuade me.’

  In Scene 28, we saw five incidents in which people said no. On two of these occasions they appeared to mean it, and on three they didn’t. First, the girls told the dark-haired boy not to splash them, but they didn’t mean it and within a few minutes were enjoying their retaliation. Secondly, the other boy had a genuine fear of the water, said no when invited to join the others, and pleaded not to be thrown in. The other three underestimated his fear, ignored his pleas, and threw him in. Thirdly, the dark-haired boy at first did not want to lose his shorts, said no, and fought to keep them. He soon changed his mind and decided that he would like to lose them. Nevertheless, he continued to say no and to struggle. Fourthly, the other boy’s girlfriend resisted her boyfriend’s attempts at intercourse. She said no and struggled. But when she realised he wasn’t capable of forcing intercourse she changed her mind at the very last minute and tried to help him penetrate. Yet she continued to struggle and say no. Finally, the dark-haired girl had a genuine fear of penetration. Although she had enjoyed the rough and tumble, she said no at the first indication that the boy intended to force intercourse, and struggled and pleaded thereafter as best she could. Underestimating her fear and not believing that she really meant no, he ignored her pleas and inseminated her.

  At first sight, the second and fifth of these events fit into one category, and the remainder into another. Unfortunately, the situation is not that simple. As far as date rape is concerned, there is a further complication – the reaction of girls who have been date-raped in the weeks that follow their experience.

  In a study of American students published in 1982, it was found that girls who were exposed to an attempt at date rape were three times more likely to resume their relationship with the man concerned if his attempt succeeded than if it failed. Presumably, the fact that all of these women had claimed the man had attempted rape means that at the time they said no and meant no. Yet, if the man succeeded in forcing intercourse, nearly half (40 per cent) later resumed their relationship with him, just like the dark-haired girl in the scene. If he failed, then nearly nine out of every ten of the women (87 per cent) refused to have any more to do with him, just like the girlfriend of the less popular boy in the scene.

  This reaction of women makes it even more difficult to draw the line between date rape and rough-and-tumble intercourse. In the discussion that follows, we shall make no further attempt to distinguish between the two – that is a job for the legal profession, not a biologist. The phenomenon under discussion is rough-and-tumble intercourse, and the arguments that follow are concerned with the influence this behaviour may have on male and female reproductive success.

  In Scene 27, we discussed how much men and women have to learn in order to get the most out of their earliest sexual opportunities. We also discussed the link between learning and mate selection, particularly the way that a female needs to set tests of competence for males as part of her process of selecting.

  This testing is an important process – a woman uses it to identify which men will give her sexually competent sons and grandsons. But when such testing involves rough-and-tumble sex play, as in Scene 28, it can become a dangerous business. Nevertheless, even in the scene, both girls survived relatively unscathed and both came to a decision about their respective partners. To judge from each girl’s subsequent behaviour, one of the boys passed that afternoon’s tests, the other failed. So what were these tests, and what insight do they give us into the function of rough-and-tumble sex play in humans and other animals?

  Before we can answer this question, we have to be clear over precisely how a man and woman’s interests differ when they begin such behaviour. Many of the important factors are touched on elsewhere in this book, but in the discussion that follows they become crucial – and this is because here we are primarily concerned, as in the scene, with a couple’s first intercourse.

  Once a man and woman have established a long-term relationship, the costs and benefits that they each experience from intercourse become similar (Scene 16), even though the function may differ (Scene 2). But with first-time intercourse the situation is very different. Apart from the chance of contracting disease, which is a risk they share, their potential costs and benefits are not at all the same – especially if there is a strong possibility that their first intercourse together may also be their last. A man, like all male animals, has much less to lose and much more to gain from a one-off intercourse than a woman.

  From the viewpoint of reproductive success, and disregarding here any social pressures to which the man may be exposed, the siring of a child with a woman other than a long-term partner need not be expensive for him (Scene 13). Having inseminated her, he can if he chooses attempt to avoid all further contact with both her and the resulting offspring. A single intercourse need have no greater cost than that involved in fending off future claims for help and support if she does have a child. Against what could be, therefore, a relatively minor cost he can set the chance of producing a child. If he does not take each opportunity to inseminate a new woman as it arises, he may never get another chance. In which case, whoever fathers her next child, it will not be him. A man’s reproductive success depends to a sig
nificant extent on his ability to make the most of one-off opportunities.

  The situation is very different for a woman. For her, conception is a major event. It may commit her at least to months of pregnancy and usually to years of dedicated effort. The man concerned might desert her (Scenes 8 to 11, and 16). Moreover, conceiving via a man later proved to be genetically inferior could result in her raising a less successful child than if she had waited for a more suitable man (Scene 18). Together, these two dangers mean that an incautious, one-off intercourse can considerably reduce a woman’s reproductive success. Her priorities need to be when (Scene 16) and with whom (Scene 18) she has one-off sex, rather than how often. Caution and selectivity are of maximum importance.

  Of course, women are not always cautious. The primary situation in which a woman might abandon caution, though not usually selectivity, is when she has a one-off opportunity to collect sperm from a particularly desirable man. Usually, this is a man who she has already judged from a distance would make a good genetic father for her next child (Scene 18). In this book, we have seen several women behaving in this way (Scenes 6, 17, 19, 21 and 26). Most often, as in those scenes, such behaviour is within the context of infidelity. Once a woman has a long-term partner, the costs of one-off intercourse are reduced as long as her infidelity remains undetected (Scenes 9 to 11). Her long-term relationship provides a springboard from which to exploit the genetic benefits of one-off sex with selected men without risking too much. She does not have this freedom, however, if she does not have a partner.