Sexual Coercion in Primates and Humans

Martin N. Muller is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico. Richard W. Wrangham is Ruth B. Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University.

The science that allows us to understand sexual coercion by males is drawn directly from Darwin’s own work on sexual selection. There is, however, another layer here, because of course one cannot talk about the evolution of sexual aggression in male primates without pondering the social consequences of the same behavior in our own species. Are domestic violence and sexual assault simply human homologues of the same conduct seen in chimpanzees and baboons? Many social scientists bristle at this suggestion, with its invocation of biological determinism. This volume’s authors, many of them female researchers, do an excellent job of sensitively exploring the boundary between phenotype and environment that is the stuff of which human behavior is made… The editors of this volume deserve high praise for having avoided the weaknesses to which such collections are prone—the book is uniform in tone, and the papers are all of high quality. There are no polemical rantings here, nor are the contributors concerned with political correctness; the empirical evidence is what matters to them, and their analysis of it is perceptive and nuanced… Sexual Coercion in Primates and Humans is an important work and will be a valuable addition to the bookshelves of specialists and nonspecialists alike.

• Introduction and Theory * Male Aggression and Sexual Coercion of Females in Primates Martin N. Muller, Sonya M. Kahlenberg and Richard W. Wrangham * Evolution of Sexual Coercion with Respect to Sexual Selection and Sexual Conflict Theory Jana J. Watson-Capps * Inter-Sexual Conflict in Primates: Infanticide, Paternity Allocation, and the Role of Coercion Parry Clarke, Gauri Pradhan and Carel van Schaik Sexual Coercion and Mate Guarding in Non-Human Primates * Orangutans: Sexual Coercion Without Sexual Violence Cheryl Knott * Male Aggression Against Females in Mountain Gorillas: Courtship or Coercion? Martha Robbins * The Causes and Consequences of Male Aggression Directed at Female Chacma Baboons Dawn M. Kitchen, Jacinta C. Beehner, Thore J. Bergman, Dorothy L. Cheney, Catherine Crockford, Anne L. Engh, Julia Fischer, Robert M. Seyfarth and Roman M. Wittig * Female-Directed Aggression and Social Control in Spider Monkeys Andres Link, Anthony Di Fiore and Stephanie N. Spehar * Male Aggression Against Females and Sexual Coercion in Chimpanzees Martin N. Muller, Sonya M. Kahlenberg and Richard W. Wrangham * Sexual Coercion in Dolphin Consortships: a Comparison with Chimpanzees Richard C. Connor and Nicole L. Vollmer * Male Aggression toward Females in Hamadryas Baboons: Conditioning, Coercion, and Control Larissa Swedell and Amy Schreier Sexual Coercion and Mate Guarding in Humans * Coercive Violence by Human Males Against Their Female Partners Margo Wilson and Martin Daly * The Political Significance of Gender Violence Lars Rodseth and Shannon Novak * Intimate Wounds: Cranio-Facial Trauma in Women and Female Chimpanzees Shannon Novak and Mallorie Hatch * Human Rape: Revising Evolutionary Perspectives Melissa Emery Thompson Female Counterstrategies *"Friendship" with Males: A Female Counterstrategy to Infanticide in Chacma Baboons of the Okavango Delta Ryne Palombit * The Absence of Sexual Coercion in Bonobos Tommaso Paoli * Sexual Coercion, Patriarchal Violence and Law Diane L. Rosenfeld Summary and Conclusions * Sexual Coercion in Humans and Other Primates: The Road Ahead Richard W. Wrangham and Martin N. Muller * List of Contributors * Index