Sperm Wars

by Robin Baker

  The only remaining question to answer here is why the rapist in Scene 33 was the winner of the sperm war inside his victim’s body. In fact, the contest was very one-sided. First, the girl’s boyfriend, because he normally used a condom, failed to enter an army until it was too late. The fertilisation trophy had already been claimed. Secondly, all week her holiday partner had also been using a condom. So when the day of our scene began, the girl contained no sperm. On the night of the rape, her holiday lover actually inseminated her. But this made little difference because his body, unable to allow for having used a condom previously (Scene 29), will have calculated that few sperm were needed to top her up, it being only a day since they last had sex. In addition, he had just inseminated another female and, as it was their first intercourse, he would have given her a large inseminate. The result was that the victim received from her holiday lover only a small inseminate, one rich in young killers and egg-getters but relatively low in immediate blockers. In addition, she had ejected the flowback from that intercourse before being raped.

  The overall result was that, when the rapist inseminated the girl, his seminal pool had her vagina to itself. Moreover, his sperm were confronted with only a minimal cervical filter and a small army of killers. He will have injected a large army, full of killers and egg-getters. Admittedly, the holiday lover had an hour or so’s start, but ovulation was still two days away. It is likely that by the time the egg-getters in her oviduct encountered an egg, they would virtually all have been from the rapist. Another set of rapist genes would have been passed on to the next generation.

  SCENE 34

  Soldier, Soldier

  A single shot rang out. A flock of large black birds flew noisily out of the trees as the five soldiers threw themselves to the ground. While the men lay quietly in the cover of vegetation by the side of the road, the birds circled briefly above them before re-settling one by one in the trees. Quietness returned. The soldiers looked at each other, checking first whether anybody had been hit, then whether anybody had any idea where the shot had come from. They waited for a while, then crawled along the roadside on their knees and elbows, seeking the cover of trees just ahead of them.

  Once sheltered, they discussed the situation. A few minutes ago, one of them had noticed a house. Almost hidden by trees, it was by the side of a rough path that joined the road. A sniper in the house might just have had one chance for a shot at them through the trees as they passed. They decided to investigate and planned their approach for maximum cover, splitting into two groups: three to enter the front of the house, two to go in by the back.

  The house was small and in poor repair, but obviously inhabited. There was no sign of a potential sniper at the windows, but the soldiers took no chances in their final approach. It was very hot and the group of three were soaked in the sweat of exertion and tension as they paused by the front door. When they burst in they found nothing more threatening than an elderly couple, a baby, and a young girl of about twelve. Nevertheless, the soldiers remained tense and alert. The girl ran screaming to her grandmother, who was holding the baby. Adrenaline still coursing through his veins, the soldier in command asked the grandfather who else was in the house. ‘Nobody,’ said the old man, fear in his eyes and voice. The soldier hesitated, very much on the edge. He pointed at the children and asked the whereabouts of their parents. The old man looked at his partner, then said they were dead, shot by people like them.

  The soldier looked around, told the old man that if he was lying he also was dead, then ordered his two companions to search the house. The pair moved tentatively towards the only other exit from the room. It had no door, but a makeshift curtain. As they reached the doorway, there was a sudden movement in the room beyond. They dodged quickly to either side of the exit, guns raised. One of them reached for the curtain just as they heard the back door burst open. The other two members of their patrol had arrived. There was the sound of scuffling, then the curtain was thrown back and the two soldiers appeared, pushing a woman in her late twenties in front of them. She fell to the floor. As she raised herself to her knees, her daughter ran to her and clung round her neck, sobbing.

  The soldier in charge pointed his gun at the old man.

  ‘You lied, you’re dead,’ he said.

  ‘You did kill their father,’ the old man replied.

  ‘And now we’re going to kill you,’ continued the soldier, ‘but maybe not yet. I think you deserve to watch us have our fun, first.’

  He ordered the others to check the house, inside and out. While they were out, he stood over his captives, gun in hand, waiting and smiling. The others returned. He ordered one to watch the back, another the front, and the other two to watch the old couple. The soldiers knew what was coming, and began to relax. This wasn’t the first time during this war they had been in this position.

  Their commander looked at the mother and her twelve-year-old daughter, sobbing in each other’s arms. Then he shouted to his companions, asking them which it was to be, the mother or the daughter. The mother shouted hysterically, clutched her daughter, and begged the soldier to take her, not the child. The soldier pulled the girl away from her mother and threw her back towards her grandmother. Then, prodding the mother with his gun, told her to stand up and take off her clothes. When she was naked he pulled her over to a table in the corner of the room, making her bend over to rest her face and chest on the table. He had chosen the location carefully, so that while standing behind her he could still see the room. Once satisfied with his vantage point, he threw his gun to one of his companions, opened his trousers, and entered the woman from behind. Throughout the intercourse, he was coolly vigilant, only losing his concentration during ejaculation itself. As he removed himself, he told the woman to stay where she was. Then he walked over to retrieve his gun and told the soldier who had been holding it that he was next.

  One by one the soldiers took it in turns to inseminate the woman in front of her daughter and parents. Throughout her forty-minute ordeal, the woman occasionally sobbed but, afraid that they might turn on her daughter instead, did not once ask them to stop. When all of the soldiers had had their turn, she slumped to the floor in the corner, unable to look at anyone. The soldiers allowed her daughter to run over and join her, but made her stay naked, not allowing the grandmother to take over her clothes.

  For a while, the soldiers sat around, smoking and laughing, recovering from their exertion. Inevitably, somebody eventually suggested that maybe they should have the daughter anyway. A heated discussion broke out. Two of them voiced their disapproval and swore at their companions for even considering the prospect. But the soldier in command was keen. He told the other two they could abstain if they wanted, but he was going to make the most of their find. When the mother tried to stop him from taking her daughter, he knocked her unconscious with the butt of his gun.

  When three of them had raped the young girl, their commander decided it was time to leave. They were just about to open the front door when he told his companions to stop. Turning to the grandfather, he asked the old man if he had really thought he would forget to do what, on first arriving, he had promised; then he shot him. Next, he turned his gun towards the old woman, who was still holding the baby. He paused, finger on trigger, then smiled. Telling her that her family had given him enough fun for one day, he lowered his gun.

  Two children were conceived that day, one by the mother and one, against all odds, by the twelve-year-old girl. However, the soldiers would never know nor care which of them was the father, in either case. No sooner were they clear of the house than they were all dead, gunned down by guerrillas. The young girl’s father had seen the soldiers approaching and gone for help.

  We have already discussed the presence of predatory rape in the male sexual repertoire (Scene 33). Our conclusion was that rape is a strategy by which a man can increase the number of women who might have his children. Any child sired in this way is a bonus, an addition to those fathered via a convent
ional long-term relationship. And in order to gain this bonus, a rapist has to negotiate successfully the defences that surround a woman. Rape is a risky strategy, and incompetent rapists lose out rather than gain from their behaviour.

  We have also discussed why women should do everything possible to avoid being raped. Having been raped, however, a woman may gain, reproductively, by then conceiving.

  All of the arguments rehearsed in Scene 33 apply with equal force to the ‘gang rape’ we have just witnessed (which is loosely based on a documented event in a recent war). Before examining gang rape in humans, we shall first look at the phenomenon in other animals. Males of at least one species of monkey are known to band together for this purpose. But the most detailed information is available for birds, in which gang rape is particularly common and has been described for many species. On his own, a male bird finds it almost impossible to force copulation on a female. Intercourse in birds involves the male balancing precariously on the female’s back, then bending his tail under hers. Most do not have genitalia as such, but simply a small sac which they have to evert. Male and female sacs are similar, and sperm are transferred by the male and female pressing their sacs together once the male is in position. On his own, a male can easily be dislodged from a female’s back. Moreover, she can avoid accepting his sperm simply by not everting her genital sac. A group of males, however, can effect copulation by forcing her to the ground through weight of numbers and then continuing to peck and attack her until she accepts sperm transfer. Females who do not comply have been known to die in the mêlée.

  There are more benefits to gang membership than simply being able to force insemination. A gang is also more able to brush aside the female’s defences, either her own or those of guarding males. In some species of duck, for example, the gangs divide their labour. On discovering a female and her partner, some of the gang chase and keep away the guarding male, while the others rape the female. Members of the gang swap roles, so that over a period all benefit from their membership.

  The benefit of gang rather than individual rape to male birds, therefore, is that through cooperation they each increase their chances of inseminating an unwilling female. The cost is that on each occasion their sperm have to engage in warfare with sperm from other males in the gang. Whether a male gains an overall advantage from being a gang member depends on how these costs and benefits balance out. Mainly, it depends on whether the greater number of females a male inseminates through gang membership compensates for his reduced chance of fertilisation on each occasion. If he is a member of a gang of four, he has only a one in four chance of fathering any child produced by their activities, so only if the gang as a whole manages to inseminate more than four times as many females as the male could on his own is his membership worthwhile. For this reason, gangs tend to be rather small. A group of ten will not be twice as effective at raping females as a group of five – yet a male in the larger gang has only half the chance of winning sperm warfare of a male in the smaller.

  As far as humans are concerned, a significant proportion of all predatory rapes are gang rapes – even in peacetime. Some estimates suggest that 70 per cent in industrialised societies are gang rapes. Others suggest about 25 per cent. Inevitably, human males gain all the same reproductive benefits from gang membership as other male animals. The same arguments apply and the size of human gangs tends to be small, usually four or five individuals.

  In our discussion of predatory rape in Scene 33, we left open one very important question. If rape can be a successful alternative reproductive strategy for men, and if conceiving via the more competent of rapists can be a successful reproductive strategy for women, why is rape not more common? There are two extreme possibilities, just as there were for prostitutes (Scene 32). One is that rapists are a genetic minority, like bisexuals (Scenes 30 and 31). The other is that all men are potential rapists – but that rape still remains rare because few men ever encounter a situation in which the potential reproductive benefits of rape outweigh the potential reproductive costs (many of which are imposed by the wider society (Scene 33)). Of these two possible explanations, the latter seems likely to be nearer the truth – because in wartime the incidence of all forms of rape, including gang rape, increases dramatically.

  There are three main reasons why this is so. First, having routed its enemy, a successful army has effectively removed the males who might otherwise defend the women. Secondly, the mobility and confusion of war make it very difficult for rapists to be tracked down. Thirdly, because of the ever-present risk of imminent death, the prospect of social recrimination for rape seems trivial. On balance, therefore, unlike in peacetime, men in the midst of war are much more likely to chance across a situation in which the reproductive benefits of rape outweigh the costs.

  The increased incidence of rape during warfare is due to more men becoming rapists, not to a limited number of men raping more often. This pattern is much more what we should expect if all men were potential rapists, rather than if only a fixed genetic minority had rapist inclinations. Unpalatable though this might be, it should be no more so than that other facet of male behaviour highlighted by war – that all men are potential killers.

  The soldiers in Scene 34 were essentially ordinary young men who, had they been born at another time in another place, would have proclaimed themselves incapable of either rape or killing. Yet, in a wartime scenario, they found it within themselves to commit both. This should not be so surprising. As we discovered in Scene 33, we all possess the genes of rapist ancestors. For the same reasons, we all possess the genes of past killers.

  First, let us consider wartime killing. Few people would deny that the predisposition to wage war against neighbouring communities has a biological basis. Similar behaviour is shown by many social animals, from insects to primates. Neighbouring communities of chimpanzees, for example, each forty or so strong, have been seen to engage in what can only be described as inter-group warfare. One social group was observed over a period of several months systematically murdering individuals from the other group, until none were left. As far as humans are concerned, historical inter-village battles in New Guinea and South America should be regarded as little different, either in scale or in territorial motivation. Only the distance from which the people could kill each other was different. And although modern human warfare between nation states is clearly greater in terms of scale and mayhem, the behaviour, motivations and fears of the individuals concerned as they kill each other are just the same.

  Distasteful though it might be to accept, most people are alive today only because at some time in the past the wider society in which their ancestors lived successfully waged war and killed people. That society either successfully attacked or defended itself in warfare against an enemy intent on territorial defence or expansion. History books are full of civilisations and societies that have been annihilated by their neighbours. Obviously, we are more likely to be the descendants of the killers, and not of the ones who were killed, so we all have the potential to kill. Whereas in wartime, many people are continually encountering circumstances in which the benefits of killing another person far outweigh the costs, in peacetime far fewer people encounter such circumstances.

  Next, let us consider wartime rape. We have all inherited our genes from those men amongst our wartime ancestors who took their opportunities to reproduce when they could, even when it involved rape. We have not inherited the genes of men who opted to wait for a safer and more conventional opportunity in a future that for them never came. Those men in Scene 34 who decided not to rape the young girl did not live to produce more children who would inherit their compassion, whereas one of the men who raped her did produce a child to inherit his lack of compassion. It is by this process of weeding out genes that do not enhance reproductive success that evolution has saddled the majority of men with the propensity to behave as rapists in the appropriate situation.

  Wartime rape and murder also combine to shape our charac
teristics in the process known as genetic infiltration. Warfare displaces and sometimes annihilates whole lineages by this process. The invading armies annex lands and rape the women. Then subsequent settlers establish relationships and have children in less aggressive ways. By this means, whole genetic stocks can be infiltrated and diluted almost out of existence by more successful genetic lines. There are few people in the world today who do not contain at least a few genes from ancestors who, two thousand years ago, lived in a completely different geographical area. Wartime rape is one of the key elements in this ebb and flow of genes across the earth’s surface. Not one of us would be precisely the person we are today if one of our ancestors had not taken advantage of the relative immunity of war to commit rape and murder.

  Biologically, it might seem strange that the men in Scene 34 considered a twelve-year-old girl a suitable target. But, unfortunately, it is not. Authenticated records show that women have conceived at all ages between seven and fifty-seven, with unconfirmed reports of women conceiving up to the age of seventy. Reproductively, therefore, a predisposition to find any woman between these ages to be sexually attractive is not totally futile. Pre-pubescent girls may ovulate before their breasts and pubic hair develop and before their first show of menstrual blood. Post-menopausal women may conceive up to at least eighteen months after their last period. In between, as we have discussed at length (as in Scene 2), men are totally unable to judge whether and when a woman is fertile.

  As far as rape is concerned, young girls and older women are in a sense victims of their gender’s success at unconsciously confusing and deceiving men. Unable to decipher female fertility, the male body has responded evolutionarily by a blanket approach – inseminating whoever and whenever it can. As we have noted, given the choice it will prefer women in their most fertile years (twenty to thirty-five), but under some circumstances it will find even very young and very old women attractive. Faced with four females, one a baby, one twelve years old, one in her late twenties and one in her sixties, all of the men in Scene 34 wanted to inseminate the woman in her late twenties, three wanted to inseminate the twelve-year-old, and none wanted to inseminate the older woman or the baby. Under different circumstances, with a more restricted choice for the men, the older woman might also have suffered rape.