Is rape adaptive?

There is an interesting post over at bug_girl where she argues against the idea that rape is adaptive. Now before everybody gets their dander up. I am talking about non-human animals, and do not endorse rape as a human strategy- but only because it violates Kant's categorical imperative.. The idea is that there is that you can't (shouldn't) apply morality to evolution and natural selection. Regardless of whether rape is adaptive or not, it's adaptive value has nothing to do with the morality of the act.. Things can be very adaptive, yet very immoral. Rape is probably one such example.. Anyway, her post:

Women Scientists, and other issues.
EXCERPT:

In RT’s (Randy Thornhill's) case, he thought that rape was an adaptive strategy.

Uh. No.

He’s been flogging that idea for years, which is the main reason why we did not choose his textbook (which is otherwise quite good). He recently published a book arguing that human rape is an inevitable and adaptive strategy, based on animal behavior studies of forced copulation (including insects and birds).

I know it’s totally unprofessional of me to say it, but what a wanker.

Sure, forced copulation happens in non-human animals. (And so does infanticide and cannibalism, BTW.) But does a female duck that’s been mobbed by a group of males experience the mental trauma that humans do?

I (and a whole lot of other biologists) think that “rape” is a special case, and special word, that should be used only for humans.

I was going to leave a comment on the OP, but you have to be logged in to comment on her blog- which I might say if VERY annoying! As a result, I'll just say my piece here..

It seems to me that the general idea that rape is potentially adaptive is a good one- but only replace rape with alternative mating strategy, or forced copulation, etc. Certain words have such negative connotations that they best be avoided..

Does the definition of rape include the mental aspects- or only the physical? Not according to Webster.. The word rape describes the physical actions, not the inevitable mental consequences.. If this is the definition that is generally acceptable- then rape and forced copulation are synonymous.

This is not to mention that from the individualistic perspective looking at fitness- ie reproductive success, it probably does not matter all that much when psychological consequences.. Adaptive evolution is very Machiavellian in that regard huh..

Anyway- Thornhill's original idea goes like this.

1. In matters of sexual conflict- males can often use size dimorphism to their benefit.
2. Consequently, while females usually choose, males may be capable of enforcing choice.
3. In many animals, males may successfully gain copulations by forcing themselves on females.
4. Some low quality males may never be chosen by females. As a result, they may not mate and leave progeny.
5. Even low quality males may be able to use forced copulation to their benefit.
6. For some low quality males, their only opportunity to breed is via forced copulation (rape)
7. If this strategy is consistently successful for lower quality males (or any males for that matter) then one could consider it adaptive.

I can't remember where, but I believe that there was some empirical evidence that suggested that lower quality males used this strategy successfully- Maybe it was even humans. Low quality human males were more likely to be rapists.. (I'm not sure how they got around many logical co-variates like "rapists are criminals, and criminals are dumber than average, etc")