by Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer

About the authors: Randy Thornhill is a University of New Mexico Regents professor of biology. Craig T. Palmer is an anthropologist at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. They are coauthors of A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion.

For the last quarter of a century, attempts to prevent rape have been guided by the social-science explanation of rape.

This explanation holds that the motivation to rape has little, if anything, to do with sexual desire. Instead, it holds that rape is an attempt by men to dominate and control women. It also contends that rape only occurs when males are taught by their culture, directly or indirectly, to rape. In our new book, A Natural History of Rape (MIT Press), we challenge this established social-science explanation...