Without rape, most animal species would go extinct

[The Grand Nudger]

Interestingly, though, men remain fertile pretty much up until their death.  Unlike women who experience menopause.  What is the purpose of men being capable of fathering children up until their death?

You should have known you were on the wrong track when the word purpose cropped up. 

For the crushing majority of our time here on earth, human females have died well before that was ever an issue....men, even earlier. Didn;t really matter how long either of us could reproduce, sinc neither of us lived more than a fraction of whatever that timeframe is or was.

Everyone of us here would have been a veritable village fuckin elder in days gone by. Hell, there'd probably be an altar dedicated to Min somewhere, by now.

[vorlon13]

[The Grand Nudger]

You too...I;m thinking a huge stone phallus pointed at a cave?  Mins could be near a geyser.

(kinda puts real altars in context, when you think about it, lol)

[CapnAwesome]

I don't think animals have a conception of consent. I would be hesitant to label any animal sex as rape.

[Anomalocaris]

I don't think animals have a conception of consent. I would be hesitant to label any animal sex as rape.

Animals have a concept of no concept. It is often expressed through claws, teeth and hooves.

[The Grand Nudger]

I wouldn;t be too quick to rule them out.  There may be differences between our concepts, but that doesn;t mean that their concepts aren;t concepts.  

I;d refer to the difference between whatever concepts we hold as a reason that animals may not be moral agents, rather than their lack of concepts..because I struggle to make sense of the claim that animals lack ideas or general notions or intent or plans. They express these things, frankly, in alot of the same ways we do..and we also have a habit of expressing ourselves with claw tooth and hoof, as it were.

We're not really different in those ways, even if there is some difference in our moral agency.

[The Industrial Atheist]

We're almost perpetually fertile.  Considering how long it takes to raise us up to the point of maturity (not our idea of it, viable size for survival on our own steam) it would be far more unlikely for us to have survived if we weren;t always down to fuck than if rape was somehow impossible for us.

Well I won't say it doesn't have some reproductive advantage that might have been important when numbers were few.

[The Grand Nudger]

Practically, it makes it so that numbers being few isn;t a likely scenario in the first place. Though.,yeah...it helps when disaster strikes, that we can quickly repopulate in better (or optimal) conditions. Mitigated, obviously and again, by long gestation and extended periods of juvenile development.

LOL, higher order mammalians with an infestation model of reproduction. A bit like mice and other pests, but nastier.

(anyone else catch that study that came out the last few days, about us being .01% of the mass of biota)

[CapnAwesome]

I wouldn;t be too quick to rule them out.  There may be differences between our concepts, but that doesn;t mean that their concepts aren;t concepts.  

I;d refer to the difference between whatever concepts we hold as a reason that animals may not be moral agents, rather than their lack of concepts..because I struggle to make sense of the claim that animals lack ideas or general notions or intent or plans. They express these things, frankly, in alot of the same ways we do..and we also have a habit of expressing ourselves with claw tooth and hoof, as it were.

We're not really different in those ways, even if there is some difference in our moral agency.

Basically every species if cat scratches and claws at each other, they also go into heat for those forays. I don't think you could classify it as rape, it's just how cats breed.

I think the idea that animals have a concept of consent is human projection. Animal mating works way differently than humans. Way way differently.

[The Grand Nudger]

I wouldn;t call cats scratching rape either...but..I didn;t.............. so........?

Meanwhile, we do note that some animals appear to behave in the manner that we associate with consent or a lack thereof.  We can be different in many ways and similar in others, obviously. I doubt that they are moral agents if we take ourselves as the minimum standard for a moral agent, but I don;t doubt that animals are volitional by the same standards. Some human beings fail our minimal standards, and are volitional.

Personally, I;d call what we do an elaborate version of what many other animals do...and, remember, I was commenting on whether or not they had concepts, or concepts of concepts. Something I think we're likely to share with anything with a reptilian brain or better.