Steven Pinker on Rape and Sexual Violence Towards Women

Obviously this discussion is about rape and sexual violence so there a TRIGGER WARNING here.

I could write several books critiquing Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate.

It's a text primarily arguing that ""All traits are heritable" [which] is a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much."  Pinker suggests just about everything we think, feel, do, desire etc. is genetic.   He argues this by setting up a strange straw man mythical cabal of postmodernists in society and academia who preach a naive tabula rasa (blank slate) ideology backed up by John Locke's theory, Rousseau's "noble savage" and a Descartian "ghost in the machine." He then argues that they are completely wrong by giving us lots of evidence to show that we're almost completely pre-programmed and our environment has little impact on the way we are.   He, of course, neglects to offer any counter arguments, ignoring the work of psychology (except for behaviourism), no Freud, Jung, Fromm, Adler, nothing on Attachment Theory, no Bowlby or Ainsworth, nothing on power or indeed sociology at all, no Foucault, Bourdieu, Weber, Durkheim.   This is odd, because he argues:

"But here are some sobering facts about what we know about the effects of parenting, many of them brought to light by the psychologist Judith Rich Harris in her book The Nurture Assumption.
First of all, most studies of the effects of parenting on which the experts base their advice are useless. They’re useless because they are based on the Blank Slate, and hence don’t control for heritability. They measure some correlation between what parents do and how their kids turn out, they assume that correlation implies causation, attributing the outcome to the parents. For example, parents who talk a lot to their children have children with better language scores; parents who spank their children have children who grow up to be violent; parents who are neither too firm nor too lax have children who are better adjusted. What these studies don’t take into account is that parents provide their children with genes as well as an environment. The studies may be saying nothing more than that talkative people have talkative kids, violent people have violent kids, and sensible people have sensible kids." [my italics]

Apart from the nonsense that sociological studies do not recognize genetics, Pinker himself ironically puts forth an argument that we're genetic not socialized without any 'control for socialization.' But...having inarticulate parents who use violence to control your behaviours have little effect on your success in life, behaviours, motivations, etc.   Sigh.   In fact parents have little effect (except in "extreme abuse" cases) on their children, argues Pinker.   It's clearly heritable genes which make educated, articulate, empathic children far more likely to have educated, articulate, empathic parents.   If you can swallow this then the book is for you.   If you believe that parents, peers and society itself shapes an individual then you'll probably hate Pinker's view.    I would like to point out that Pinker, in believing he has inherited his own abilities and, naturally, has passed on his abilities to his children, who will be barely affected by his influence and that of their peers so he decided it didn't really matter what school they went to and consequently enrolled them in the nearest run down inner city infant school.   He and his partner never bothered talking to his kids, never read to them, what's the point, they're genetically brilliant?   From a sociological and psychological and economic viewpoint the idea is utter nonsense.   Hey ho.

But anyway, I want to focus on one small chapter of The Blank Slate.

"Other than the gender gap, the most combustible recent issue surrounding the sexes has been the nature and causes of rape."

In his argument he pits Susan Brownmiller's 1975 text Against Our Will,

which suggests:

"Man's discovery that his genitalia could serve as a weapon to generate fear must rank as one of the most important discoveries of prehistoric times, along with the use of fire and the first crude stone axe. From prehistoric times to the present, I believe, rape has played a critical function. It is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear." [Pinker's italics]

as the voice of feminism against his preferred position, that of Randy Thornhill and Craig Palmer's A Natural History of Rape. 

In which the authors argue a biological evolutionary perspective of rape as an adaptation, and define rape in the opening paragraph of the book as:


"...Rape is copulation resisted to the best of the victim's ability unless such resistance would probably result in death or serious injury to the victim or in death or injury to individuals the victim commonly protects. Other sexual assaults, including oral and anal penetration of a man or a woman under the same conditions, also may be called rape under some circumstances."  [my italics].


Like Thornhill and Palmer, Pinker's rationale is to "eradicate rape."   Pinker likens rape to (if not actually suggesting it is) a medical condition:

""Any scientist who illuminates the causes of rape deserves our admiration, like a medical researcher who illuminates the cause of a disease, because understanding an affliction is the first step to eliminating it." [my italics]

Pinker argues that men raping women (specifically) is a natural (evolutionary) phenomena.   And because it's genetic it can be modified.  Hence elimination.   Like smallpox or scurvy.   Other diseases.

It's hard to know where to begin. 

In brief, Pinker argues that men rape for evolutionary reasons, genetic coding if you will, that rape is not about power but about sex, that it has nothing to do with patriarchy (as an anti-social constructionist he seems to believe that patriarchy does not exist), that feminist and sociological and psychological interpretations of rape (that it's about male power and dominance) are misguided blind ideology, that other animals rape and we are animals ergo..., that one can scientifically understand rape as a disease and eradicate it biologically. 

I'm going to try and pick apart his arguments on the basis of logic (Pinker's new book is, after all called Enlightenment Now, a celebration of reason and rationality), ideology, sociology and feminism and as the subject is emotive obviously, I'll obviously respond emotively, for there are some truly jaw-dropping moments in Pinker's argument.   It's easiest to critique the chapter sequentially.

"When the biologist Randy Thornhill and the anthropologist Craig Palmer published A Natural History of Rape in 2000, they threatened a consensus that held firm in intellectual life for a quarter of a century..."

The threat ended there because a relatively tiny section of scientific, psychological and sociological thinking supported their hypothesis.   They were, perhaps the equivalent of climate skeptics.

Pinker, like Thornhill and Palmer, dismiss feminist thinking or even female voices but reinforce the very patriarchal ideology they appear to claim does not exist.   In an authoritative voice Pinker tells us that feminists are misguided in their thinking, unscientific, irrational:

"Nowhere else in modern intellectual life is the denial of human nature more passionately insisted upon, and nowhere else, is the alternative more deeply misunderstood.  Clarifying these issues, I believe, would go a long way toward reconciling three ideals that have needlessly been put into conflict: women's rights, a biologically informed understanding of human nature, and common sense."

Nowhere else do people fly in the face of reason, he argues.   He goes onto argue this is about being "so steeped in the prevailing ideology." 

Any scholar of ideology has read Gramsci and Althusser I would hope.   Gramsci, of course, argued that common sense (from the Italian senso comune) had nothing to do with reason or logic but rather beliefs that are held commonly, things like religion and belief in God, for instance.

"These ideas are, for Gramsci, affected by institutions and hierarchies that expound ‘good sense’ – a relatively coherent set of ideas about the world that can be disseminated ever more widely. Here, Gramsci is thinking especially of churches and political parties. Hence, whether senso comune is ‘commonsensical’ is beside the point – what is important is its quality of being common, which more often than not entails vagueness." Marcos González Hernando

Despite Pinker continually portraying himself as an almost lone voice for reason against the dark forces of irrationality in academia his views are common currency.   There are hardly any public intellectuals now taking the position of Foucault, Bourdieu or the Frankfurt School.   Most of his opinions about capitalism as the best of all economic systems, of meritocracy, of biological determinism hold popular sway (our whole economic, medical and social culture are based upon these ideas; consumer capitalism, treating mental illness with drugs, success is based on merit).

"Everyone, accordingly, has a number of conceptions of the world. As indicated in Althusser's point of view, we absorb many of these worldviews, sometimes quite passively, from the institutions we live within (ISAs). We accept these beliefs as "common sense," according to Gramsci, uncritically, as natural and unchangeable, and therein as beyond question. Gramsci (like Althusser) asks us to examine common sense as potentially ideological; we need to practice intellectual skepticism at times in order to avoid misconceptions or a "false consciousness" as Gramsci calls it. Common sense contains elements of truth and elements of misrepresentation. Unfortunately, it is upon the contradictions that leverage can be obtained in the struggle suggested by the word hegemony, i.e. leadership or dominance, esp. by one country or social group over others."

Pinker invokes common sense quite a bit "let's apply common sense to the doctrine that men rape to further the interests of their gender."

In doing so, Pinker is, by proxy, showing us how ideology, in this case, patriarchy and the disease or medical model, are seen as common sense, as "natural."   It's peculiar double b(l)ind.   Feminism has told us that rape is about power, not sex, he argues, and this is an ideology that has become dominant, but Pinker is giving us an evolutionary, biological perspective, showing the false consciousness of feminism in the rape/power belief.   However, his perspective is not ideological, it's common sense.

I digress slightly but this is a key point.     Power is everywhere and "Power is something exercised, put into action, in relationships." Foucault on Power 

Pinker argues that we must research the biological causes of why men rape and "moral criticism would seem to be in order only for those who would enforce dogmas, ignore evidence, or shut down research, because they would be protecting their reputations at the expense of victims of rapes that might not have occurred if we understood the phenomenon better."

So if you're horrified at his argument on moral grounds you're not only stifling valuable research but letting down (or are even culpable towards) victims of rape, you are dogmatic, you're an unscientific yokel pitchfork wielding villager wanting to go and burn down the old mill, metaphorically. 

The problem for Pinker is that "current sensibilities, unfortunately, are very different.   In modern intellectual life the overriding moral imperative in analyzing rape is to proclaim that rape has nothing to do with sex."

Pinker's lone voice fighting the prevailing chattering classes borders on persecution mania:

"The mantra must be repeated whenever the subject comes up.   "Rape is an abuse of power and control in which the rapist seeks to humiliate, shame, embarrass, degrade and terrify the victim," the United Nations declared in 1993."    Yeah, what does the UN know?   Though I don't want to fall into the trap of suggesting that this is common sense and I'm blind to my own ideological viewpoint.

Pinker continues:   "The primary objective is to exercise power and control over another person," cites Pinker from the UN Report on the situation of human rights in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, 1993."

He goes on: "This was echoed in a 2001 Boston Globe op-ed piece that said "Rape is not about sex; it is about violence and the use of sex to exert power and control...Domestic violence and sexual assault are manifestations of the same powerful social forces: sexism and the glorification of violence."

Pinker counters this by bafflingly not quoting "an iconaclastic columnist [who] wrote a dissenting article on rape and battering" but quoting a criticism of said unquoted article (by Cathy Young, which I can't find, sadly, and Pinker doesn't even reference it) by "an educator and counselor...his wording - "men are socialized in a patriarchal culture" - reproduces a numbingly familiar slogan." [my italics]

And here we get to Susan Brownmiller.  Pinker ironically acknowledges that "until the 1970s, rape was often treated by the legal system and popular culture with scant attention to the interests  of women....Their style of dress was seen as a mitigating factor, as if men couldn't control themselves when an attractive woman walked by." [my italics]

Pinker argues that: "one can understand the repugnance at any suggestion that an attractively dressed woman excites an irresistible impulse to rape, or that culpability in any crime should be shifted from the perpetrator to the victim.   But Thornhill and Palmer said none of those things."

They didn't?

"If women today are to protect themselves from rape, and men are to desist from it, people must be given advice that is based on knowledge.  Insisting that rape is not about sex misinforms both men and women about the motivations behind rape--a dangerous error that not only hinders prevention efforts but may actually increase the incidence of rape...Current attempts to avoid blaming the victim have led to false propaganda that dress and behavior have little or no influence on a woman's chances of being raped. As a consequence, important knowledge about how to avoid dangerous circumstances is often suppressed. Surely the point that no woman's behavior gives a man the right to rape her can be made with-out encouraging women to overlook the role they themselves may be playing in compromising their safety." [my italics] There's lots more like this at Thornhill reading like a bizarre 1950s sex ed manual.

In the overview of their text at the publisher MITPress "They [ Thornhill and Palmer] also recommend that young women consider the biological causes of rape when making decisions about dress, appearance, and social activities. Rape could cease to exist, they argue, only in a society knowledgeable about its evolutionary causes." [my italics]

"Young women should be made aware of the costs associated with attractiveness…and it should be made clear that, although sexy clothing and promises of sexual access may be means of attracting desired males, they may also attract undesired ones." Thornhill and Palmer [my italics]

"In spite of protestations to the contrary, women should also be advised that the way they dress can put them at risk."   This is in the opening chapter of T&P.

Pinker tells us, invoking once more good old common sense: "Of course women have a right to dress in any way they please, but the issue is not what women have the right to do in a perfect world but how can they maximize their safety in this world.   The suggestion that women in dangerous situations be mindful of reactions they may be eliciting or signals they may inadvertently be sending is just common sense..."  Um, how does one be mindful of inadvertent signals?  Whatever words one couches it in, if you're advising victims of rape not to act in certain ways, you are suggesting a level of culpability.   Those irrational feminists call this victim blaming.

Pinker continues: "and it's hard to believe any grown up would think otherwise - unless she has been indoctrinated by the standard rape-prevention programs that tell women that "sexual assault is not an act of sexual gratification" and that "appearance and attractiveness are not relevant.""

Being really anal I had to try and hunt down where Pinker got his "rape-prevention program" notes from.    Owen D Jones in his piece: Sex, Culture, and the Biology of Rape: Toward Explanation and Prevention.   In which Jones puts forward arguments for the "rape gene" using data from "Randy Thornhill, the leading rape researcher in biology."   I couldn't find the quotes but I was struggling to fight my through Jones's exhausting trek trying to prove that men rape women because they are biologically programmed to and being a piece in The California Law Review it has a lot about legal functions like whether rapists should get longer prison terms if the rape a woman who is fertile.   It's hard reading.   And, of course, is based almost exclusively on Thornhill and Palmer's text, their data and quotes and deeply unpleasant and just plain illogical thinking.   So...

A key finding is "The mean age of rape victims in most data sets is twenty-four years old."

This is used to back up Jones's (and Thornhill and Palmer's) and consequently Pinker's assertions.   Men rape women when they are fertile, proof that they are genetically coded to use rape not as a tool of power but of reproduction.   Pinker tells us:

"Victims of rape are mostly in the peak productive years for women, between thirteen and thirty five, with a mean in most data sets of twenty-four.   Though many rape victims are classified as children (under the age of sixteen), most of these are adolescents, with a median age of fourteen.   The age distribution is very different from that of victims of other violent crime, and is the opposite of what would happen if rape victims were picked for their physical vulnerability or by their likelihood of holding positions of power."

Where to start.   Easiest first.

"Females were victims in 52% of violence against the person offences recorded by the police in the year ending March 2015, with 48% of victims being male.

The proportion of police recorded violence against the person offences was highest among younger age groups and declined with age. For example, 16% of victims were aged 20 to 24, while this age group comprised just 7% of the population. Those aged 90 or over experienced less than 1% of violence against the person offences."  ons

The median age for all victims of police recorded violence is 24.   This is what happens if you ignore sociology.   Why might younger people be more likely to be involved in violent crimes I wonder? 

Pinker is simply wrong, most violent crime occurs among the 16-35 year demographic. 
So the "different from other forms of violent crime" is just plain wrong.   But the key point is the "fertility argument."   Let's think about median data.

Because child abuse is so disproportionally under reported* organizations such as the National Society for the Protection of Children (NSPCC) rely on research studies:

"Research studies give us an idea of the prevalence of child abuse. So a small sample of the population is asked about their experiences. The proportion of respondents who were abused is then extrapolated up to give an idea of what proportion of a wider population has experienced abuse." nspcc

*"The statistics for child abuse offences underrepresent the number of children who are abused because not all child abuse comes to the attention of the police. Even if the police know about the abuse, it will not be recorded as an offence if it does not amount to a crime as defined in law. There have also been some questions over the quality of police crime recording, leading in January 2014 to the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) removing police recorded crime's National Statistics status (UK Statistics Authority, 2014).

The child abuse offences do not tell us how many children have been abused, because one child may have been the victim of several different offences." NSPCC

"1 in 20 children in the UK have been sexually abused" yet "1 in 3 children sexually abused by an adult did not tell anyone." NSPCC

Getting any kind of reliable data on the prevalence of child sex abuse is next to impossible.   All agencies working in the area are convinced it's far more prevalent than reported.    If child abuse is, as every agency working in that area suggest, hugely underreported, median age of rape 'victims' is dubious at best. 

Rape Crisis offer data for the previous year in the UK.   The data is backed up by reports in the news this very week in France:  More than 1 in 10 French women raped, study reports.

"Half the victims were children or teens at time of attack."

That data might in fact back up Pinker's view.   Rapists target young peak fertility females.  Except the data all suggests that teenage girls are less fertile than women over 30.   In fact females on average have their first period aged just under 13 and the first six years anovulatory* to a degree for their first six years.   It would make little sense to target those under 19 to reproduce your genes.   Yet if you factor in the low incidence of child abuse reporting the mean age of rape 'victims' is likely to be well below the 24 years of age that Thornhill et al suggest.

*Anovulation is when the ovaries do not release an oocyte during a menstrual cycle. Therefore, ovulation does not take place.

Pinker argues "this is the opposite of what would happen if rape victims were picked for their physical vulnerability or by their likelihood of holding positions of power."

I have no idea what this means.     No one has ever argued that men rape physically vulnerable or, conversely, powerful women.   Have they?  The argument around rape, from a sociological, psychological and feminist perspective is that patriarchal socialization leads to the conditions where men use their position of power (as men) over women.    Certainly, when it comes to child abuse one could argue that all children are vulnerable.   As to powerful women, is Pinker confused by what power is?   One could certainly argue, from a feminist (and sociological, psychological ) perspective that female emancipation has threatened patriarchal discourse.    You only have to look around on the net to see the waves of (primarily white) young males pouring forth steams of invective against women, the rise of the alt right like Milo Yiannopoulos who are (or border on) misogynistic.   We have a "pussy grabbing" President.  They do indeed seem to hate women being successful in their spheres and generally just women having something close to an equal voice.

As to the question of vulnerability... If rape is a biological, evolutionary imperative in men to get sex with women (even if it means violence in the form of rape) in order to do what humans are created to do, reproduce, then why would men rape women who cannot reproduce?   Why would they rape other men?   And perhaps, most obviously, why would they rape pre-pubescent children?  "Legal scholar Owen Jones" (whom Pinker later extensively quotes  and honestly it's truly jaw-dropping)  clears this one up completely:

"Critics often misascribe the claims of evolutionists, and then measure the supposed failings of their theories by the yardstick of still unexplained phenomena that the theories never purported to explain in the first place. This comment is typical: "Still, if a primary motive is reproduction, it is harder to understand instances of child sexual abuse, homosexual rape, or sexual harassment that occur without sexual intercourse.'' [my italics]

Yes?

"Since the evolutionary theories have never claimed even to explain all instances of penile-vaginal rape (what theory, life science or social science, explains all instances of any human behavior?), it is nonsensical to fault them for not explaining more."

Huh?.   This is why men rape.   But only fertile women.   We cannot explain why they rape women of every other life stage and men too even though it doesn't fit our argument and makes our position completely illogical.   We never said we knew everything.   So we'll tell you why men rape women of a certain age group (and more, below) and suggest this can be extrapolated for all rape cases.   But not.   Don't expect our argument to not have holes the size of China.

Weirdly though, if that "numbingly familiar slogan" of "men [being] socialized in a patriarchal culture" were actually, you know, true, as it obviously is (and we have actual evidence) then that holds up for all cases of rape.   A man raping a woman of any age, or raping a man, can be effectively explained sociologically rather than by genetic biological behaviours.  A rapist seeks power over their victim.   That makes sense in all cases. 

Above all, in his argument Pinker (and Jones and Thornhill & Palmer) is making the 'cardinal sin' of conflating 'stranger rape' with all cases of rape.  He talks of rape being an "opportunistic tactic" carried out on "attractively dressed women" and extrapolates these 'factors' into all cases of rape (whilst oddly actually recognizing marital, date, child rape).  In fact, it's relatively rare for anyone to be raped by someone that isn't known to the 'victim', within their social or professional circle, familial circle or just actual kin.

In the recent French study, for example, rape "took place at home in 42% of cases."   "31% said they were raped by their partner, 19% by someone else they know and 17% by a stranger." 

"Only 15% had filed an official complaint."    Such incredibly low reporting rates (it's around 10% in the UK) make any statistics on rape problematic.   For instance, only 28% of reported rapes are referred to the prosecution services in the UK (CPS).   Most do not make it to court.   If they do then the woman's (or male victim/survivor's) sexual history is allowed to be used by the defence but the defendant's sexual history is not (to prejudice the jury).   "The government estimates that as many as 95% of rapes are never reported to the police at all."   Only 6.5% of criminal rape cases result in a rape conviction.

When Pinker talks about "attractive women" who "gain greater freedom of movement because they are independent of men, will often find themselves in dangerous situations" he is simply conflating stranger rape with all rape.  As figures show, the chances of a woman being raped by a stranger in a public place are relatively slim as compared to being raped in a place of assumed safety by someone they know or implicitly trust.

"Victims of rape are more traumatized when the rape can result in conception.   It is most psychologically painful for women in their fertile years and for victims of forced intercourse as opposed to other forms of rape."

Scrape your jaw up then ask where is your evidence for this, Steven Pinker?   He really argues that PTSD effects women based on their fertility.   I can't even begin to...to begin to know where to argue...oh my.   On a simple rational plain, how would one measure that objectively?  I did track down his non-referenced evidence for this (it's from Owen Jones) and the findings in turn come from Randy Thornhill's own 'study':

"In a study examining a large and previously compiled data set of statistics on 790 rape victims in Philadelphia, "[r]eproductive-age victims were significantly more psychologically traumatized by rape than were pre-reproductive-age girls (0-11) or post-reproductive-age women (45+) ..."

Now, obviously you might be thinking, 0 to 11 year olds?   Hmmm.   But just taking Thornhill's Pinker's and Jones's stance for a moment that rape is a biological phenomena, not socialized, not psychological, then how would you objectively measure the 'victim's' trauma?   Something biological surely?

"This study measured trauma by using self-reports about factors including difficulty sleeping,
suffering nightmares, being afraid of unknown men, and having a fear of being home alone."

RD Laing famously criticized treating depression with pills by suggesting it was treating a psychological condition with a biological agent.   And those in the 'genes' camp are quite happy to use self reported data as evidence for their biological evidence.   Imagine diagnosing cancer by asking people if they felt like they had it.

Pinker then argues that males who are at their peak fertility are more likely to rape.   Young men are more likely to be rapists than old men or children.   Again the data is patchy, there would be obvious social conditions, if we're talking penetrative rape with a penis, as child abuse is horribly underreported among forms of rape, and as child abuse is a form of rape most likely to be performed kin/family members then such data is problematic.    After all, rape is almost non-existent in some religious countries or communities, Iran or among the Amish, for instance, and if you believe that then you'll believe anything, stuff like God or your prophet talking to angels or technology beyond the mid 19th century is not God's way.

"About 5% of rape victims of reproductive age become pregnant," Pinker argues.    "Ongoing consensual mating is not an option for every male, and dispositions that resulted in hit-or-miss sex could be evolutionary more successful than dispositions that resulted in  no sex at all.  Natural selection can operate effectively with small reproductive advantages, as little as 1 percent."

Woo.   That is, men of fertile age who cannot find women who will sleep with them (long enough to reproduce) seek out fertile women and opt for this hit-or-miss opportunistic sex with an unwilling mate in the slim hope of reproduction.   And that is why men rape women.

So, other than feeling sickened by such a biological approach to what is so obviously (common sensical!) a social phenomena, why rape non-fertile women?   Why children?  En masse?   Why family members (34% in the US)? Is Pinker suggesting only men who are not attractive to women rape?   Men who cannot find willing mates?   Oh yes, he is.   It's the rationale of why, if all men are genetically programmed to rape women, Pinker isn't saying, hands up, I'm guilty too.   You see...and I have to put this in bold big letters because it's simply Pinker's most astonishing assertion that "we must remember that...

rapists tend to be losers and nobodies, while presumably the main beneficiaries of patriarchy are the rich and powerful."

That is correct.   Rapists are losers and nobodies.   Rich and powerful men simply do not rape women.   In fact the data proves that.   That working class men are rapists.    Certainly working class women are statistically more vulnerable, it seems.   But then one has to remember that domestic violence as well as other forms of violence towards women are disproprtionally skewed towards working class women.   But then if one doesn't ignore sociology one can find very solid reasons why this is.   Middle and upper class women are far more likely to have better and financially more supportive systems of support, families, friends, and so on.   Conversely, those perpetrators from poorer backgrounds are more likely to be convicted (charged, taken to court, have poorer legal counsel). 

The idea that rapists do not cross class boundaries makes sense from Pinker's biological perspective.   After all, rich men can buy sex, as Pinker believes rape is about sex, not power.   Then why do rich powerful men rape women and other men?    If you've lived in a vacuum for the last ten years you might not have realized that the media has finally caught on to the idea that rape among wealthier more powerful men might be just as endemic as among poorer men.  Of course, there is a reason why the Weinsteins or Spaceys or, here in the UK, Rolf Harris or Saville etc. can get away with raping women, men, children for so long.   It's the very patriarchal economic system that exists that perpetuates their anonymity. 

To recap, rapists are losers and nobodies and Pinker elaborates just who these pathetic specimins of humanity are. 

"Male sexuality may have evolved in a world in which women were more discriminating than men about partners and occasions for sex. That would have led men to treat female reluctance as an obstacle to be overcome. (Another way to put it is that one can imagine a species in which the male
could become sexually interested only it he detected reciprocal signs of interest on the part of the female, but that humans do not appear to be such a species.) How the woman's reluctance is overcome depends on the rest of the man's psychology and on his assessment of the circumstances. His usual tactics may include being kind, persuading the woman of his good intentions,
and offering the proverbial bottle of wine, but may become increasingly coercive as certain
risk factors are multiplied in: the man is a psychopath (hence insensitive to the suffering of others), an outcast (hence immune to ostracism), a loser (with no other means to get sex), or a soldier or ethnic rioter who considers an enemy subhuman and thinks he can get away with it."

Psychos, weirdos, ugly bastards and soldiers in a war.   Other than these discrete categories, men do not rape women. 
Apart from the sheer absurdity of trying to categorise rapists by psychological conditions or their looks and appeal etc. Pinker, as he so often does, offers no evidence whatsoever for this.   Has he gone through the data of large samples of convicted rapists and found they were outcast losers? 
So are successful, good looking, mentally well balanced civilians safe for those attractively dressed women to hang out with?

"Certainly most men in ordinary circumstances do not harbor a desire to rape."

What?   This is certain?  How?  What? Where? 

"According to surveys, violent rape is unusual in pornography and sexual fantasies..."

If you wish to be disabused of this fantasy then pop in "tube porn" on any search engine.   That's just sheer nonsense.   There are numerous studies linking not only pornography to rape but other sociopathic behaviours. effects of pornography

"...and according to laboratory studies of men's sexual arousal, depictions of actual violence
toward a woman or signs of her pain and humiliation are a turnoff."

What studies?   Oh you'll never guess.   Yep, Thornhill and Palmer claim this in their book but I found no reference to actual peer reviewed studies.

"What about the more basic question of whether the motives of rapists include sex? The gender-feminist argument that they do not points to the rapists who target older, infertile women, those who suffer from sexual dysfunction during the rape, those who coerce nonreproductive sexual acts, and those who use a condom."

Oh ho.   But Pinker has a very good argument (two, in fact) to counter those gender-feminists:

"The argument is unconvincing for two reasons. First, these examples make up a minority of rapes, so the argument could be turned around to show that most rapes do have a sexual motive. And all these phenomena occur with consensual sex, too, so the argument leads to the absurdity that sex itself has nothing to do with sex."

Really?   A minority of rapists use condoms?   Where be this data?   Intuitively, you would have thought that rapists have heard of DNA.   And I just don't get the logic of  "so the argument could be turned around to show that most rapes do have a sexual motive."   Why?   Because these are a minority?   Ergo the majority of rapes are of younger women by sexually active males not using a condom and that proves my argument?   But so far that argument makes no sense and doubly so if one is arguing that rape per se is for this reproductive function, why would a number of rapists buck that reproductive trend by raping older women, using a condom or raping children or other men?   None of it makes any sense.

I'm sure there's a logical fallacy term for Pinker's thinking: "And all these phenomena occur with consensual sex, too, so the argument leads to the absurdity that sex itself has nothing to do with sex."  It's probably called a logical fallacy.   Because a man rapes a woman and rape is a sexual act and sex is a sexual act then saying rape is not about sex is like saying sex is not about sex.   That's just stupid reasoning because rape is not the same as sex.   Unless one considers sex to be the same consensually or not.

The second reason is even more illogical.

 To clarify the point, Pinker  is proposing that Brownmiller's claim that rape "is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear" stands as all feminist thought on the subject.   Of course, Browmiller's assertion that rape and patriarchy are conscious is deeply problematic. Apart from this one quote I've never heard anyone, feminist thinkers such as Greer, Spivak, Hooks, Steinman etc. suggest that all men consciously oppress all women.   Indeed patriarchy is an ideology that is socialized and thus invisible until challenged.   Even though no one I've ever read suggests the conscious angle that Brownmiller espouses let's run with Pinker's argument.   He suggests:

"But Brownmiller's theory went well beyond the moral principle that women have a right not to be sexually assaulted. It said that rape had nothing to do with an individual man's desire for sex but was a tactic by which the entire male gender oppressed the entire female gender."

 "And date rape is a particularly problematic case for the not-sex theory. Most people agree that women have the right to say no at any point during sexual activity, and that if the man persists he is a
rapist but should we also believe that his motive has instantaneously changed from wanting sex to oppressing women?" [my italics]

So "date rape is a particularly problematic case for the not-sex theory" because though women can say no at any time "if the man persists he is a rapist."  Thus both the woman and the man have changed their roles.   This is a hypothetical, of course, both are consensual in having sex.   However, as Pinker acknowledges, the man has gone from being a consensual lover to a rapist.   So in fact he has indeed shifted perspective.   Just on the simplest, most unpalatable level, why would anyone want sex with someone who did not want sex with them other than control and power?   To have sex with someone who does not want sex with you is not sex is it?   Not within the parameters of what we think sex to be, no?   So indeed, the male has shifted from wanting sex to wanting something else in the instant that a woman indicates she does not want sex.   What that something else is could be debated but not that there has not been a shift. 

Going back to the pornography argument.   There are many studies on why men use pornography.   I mean, one could argue that pornography is sex (of various sorts) with someone who doesn't consent to have sex with you.    The same is true of prostitution.   Many look for similar biological reasons for porn use and suggest men are hardwired to like it.   Of course, neuroscience merely records the effects not the cause, watching porn lights up this brain part but would wiring up that part make men crave porn?   From a sociological viewpoint, porn (and prostitution) is about control.   The man is in complete control of  the situation, there are no variables, the performers are paid to please you. 
It's impossible to prove but it seems logical that rape is about control in a similar way.   Thus the proverbial rapist of Pinker's scenario does indeed go from being in an equal exchange on the date to enforcing power over his unwilling 'victim.'   He does in fact become emblematic of male power.  Of patriarchy.   In the moment that the hypothetical women decides she is not consenting the power roles switch from an equal expectation to one of domination. 

For Pinker Brownmiller's assertions:

"This grew into the modern catechism: rape is not about sex, our culture socializes men to rape, it glorifies violence against women. The analysis comes right out of the gender-feminist theory of human nature: people are blank slates (who must be trained or socialized to want things); the only significant human motive is power (so sexual desire is irrelevant); and all motives and interests must be located in groups (such as the male sex and the female sex) rather than in individual people."

Obviously the theory does not come out of Pinker's definition of a blank slate a tabula rasa where nothing is encoded in human nature, that's just silly.   Brownmiller does not suggest this.   She does suggest patriarchy is the driving force behind rape.   That men are socialized into patriarchal society.   That society glorifies violence against women (see pornography, the current spate of "women in peril' thrillers with "The Girl" in the titles, crime and thrillers in general, video gaming (though that is changing)).   "The only significant human motive is power (so sexual desire is irrelevant)."  This is correct.   I repeat, who would want to have sex with someone who does not want to have sex with them other than someone who wants power over the other?    "And all motives and interests must be located in groups (such as the male sex and the female sex) rather than in individual people."   Well, the alternative to believing that rape is a socialized (group collective) phenomena is that it's carried out by "individual people" for some various purpose.   Hasn't Pinker suggested that rape is a collective phenomena (biological, genetic) rather than individual (psychological)?   Me confused by the rationale.

Pinker loves logical fallacies:

"The Brownmiller theory is appealing even to people who are not gender feminists because of the doctrine of the Noble Savage. Since the 1960s most educated people have come to believe that sex should be thought of as natural, not shameful or dirty. Sex is good because sex is natural and natural things are good. But rape is bad; therefore, rape is not about sex. The motive to rape must come from social institutions, not from anything in human nature."

What drivel.   No one is suggesting that sex is good because sex is natural and thus good and rape is bad, therefore rape is not about sex.   "Gender feminists" (just like me) believe that rape is not about sex because it involves power relations.   Sex doesn't.   It can if you want, if that's your thing.  But it fundamentally is a consensual thing that often people do when they're in love.   Rape is not consensual sex, ergo the 'victim' does not have control or power and thus the perpetrator does.   It just seems so patently obvious that anyone should be able to see this.   If rape was a natural phenomena as Pinker suggests then all men are (in an actual biological sense) rapists, to misquote Marilyn French.  Pinker, me, every man.   We should, in theory, every time we want sex, find the nearest fertile female and rape them.   While I agree with the character in The Women's Room, that all men are rapists, I've always, as most feminist thinkers do, taken this as meaning all men have the potential to be a rapist.   And that's true.   Women do not rape.   Men do.   Pinker suggests this comes down to their status.   But then why would men with high status rape women?   I go around in circles. It makes no sense.   The only logical conclusion is that it's either psychological (and that's silly because there's no evidence whatsoever) or sociological.   I'm a man, Pinker's a man.   We're both biologically the same.   We're biologically the same as other men.  Rapists are men.   Pinker believes rapists are biologically programmed to rape.   Blah blah.   Pinker's assertion that only soldiers and social outcasts rape women is nonsense.   I don't know a better argument so the sociological patriarchal one at least stands up to scrutiny.  Isn't this how science works?

I think it's about the point in the argument where you claim those who oppose you are delusional and that you've backed up your argument with unequivocal evidence:

"I believe that the rape-is-not-about-sex doctrine will go down in history as an example of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds. It is preposterous on the face of it, does not deserve its sanctity, is contradicted by a mass of evidence, and is getting in the way of the only
morally relevant goal surrounding rape, the effort to stamp it out."

It's the equivalent of a lazy ad hominem attack, you're delusional in disagreeing with me.   And Pinker backs up his argument with loads more evidence statements like:

"As for the morality of believing the not-sex theory, there is none."

Here's the evidence.

"If we have to acknowledge that sexuality can be a source of conflict and not just wholesome mutual pleasure, we will have rediscovered a truth that observers of the human condition have noted throughout history."

I have no idea what that means.  S&M?   Conflict?   I...I don't understand...

"And if a man rapes for sex, that does not mean that he "just can't help it" or that we have to excuse
him, any more than we have to excuse the man who shoots the owner of a liquor store to raid the cash register or who bashes a driver over the head to steal his BMW."

Wow.   Rape is an accountable crime. 

"The great contribution of feminism to the morality of rape is to put issues of consent and coercion at center stage. The ultimate motives of the rapist are irrelevant."

He's spent most of this chapter refuting the claims that rape is about males exercising patriarchal power then claims that "gender feminists" find this motive irrelevant.   How odd.

"Let's also apply common sense to the doctrine that men rape to further the interests of their gender. A rapist always risks injury at the hands of the woman defending herself."

If you aren't shaking your head at this horrendous assumption then shame on you.   Just on the simplest level, what about rapists raping small children?   The argument is just nonsense.

"In a traditional society, he risks torture, mutilation, and death at the hands of her relatives."

In many "traditional societies" it's the 'victim' who is tried for adultery.  See many countries such as Saudi, Yemen, Iran, etc.   Further, in "traditional societies" like Saudi the man escapes punishment if he promises to marry the woman he has raped. 

"In a modern society, he risks a long prison term."

See the data above.   About 5% are believed to be reported in the UK.   28% of that 5% (god, the maths) go to the CPS and even fewer go to court.   The conviction rate for rape is under 10%.   The chances of being convicted are beyond my maths capabilities but it's definitely looking well below 1%.

"Are rapists really assuming these risks as an altruistic sacrifice to benefit the billions of strangers that make up the male gender?"
No, you are correct Steven, that is a stupid assertion as a conscious act.   But as a widespread phenomena of patriarchy one could argue that each act of sexual violence in turn legitimises other acts of sexual violence by other men simply by making acts pervasive and thus appear somehow part of man's nature.

"Men do sacrifice themselves for the greater good in wartime, of course, but they are either conscripted against their will or promised public adulation when their exploits are made public. But rapists usually commit their acts in private and try to keep them secret."

I think, and I'm just throwing this one out there, that men are secretive about raping women because it's against the law.   Sigh.

"And in most times and places, a man who rapes a woman in his community is treated as scum."

Unless they're sports stars.  It doesn't seem to effect their popularity at all.

"BROWNMILLER ASKED A revealing rhetorical question:

Does one need scientific methodology in order to conclude that the anti-female propaganda that permeates our nation's cultural output promotes a climate in which acts of sexual hostility directed against women are not only tolerated but ideologically encouraged?

"The answer is a clear and simple yes.' One needs scientific methodology to verify any empirical claim."...One of the casualties of the new dogma on rape has been research. It is no longer (sexually correct' to conduct studies on the causes of rape, because-as any right-thinking person knows there is only one cause: patriarchy. Decades ago, during the heyday of liberal feminism and sexual curiosity, the approach to research was more sophisticated."
McElroy's suspicions are borne out by a survey of published studies "of rape that found that fewer than one in ten tested hypotheses or used scientific methods.""

How does one test for patriarchy?  Unfortunately, while I like to think of myself as a rationalist, enlightened, a believer in science as the only thing that can answer things like where do humans come from, how do we cure this disease, etc. I don't ever expect science to quantify love or tell me how happy I am or how much compassion I have.   Though, oddly Pinker is happy to measure happiness in individuals by self reporting (ooh science) and in a recent interview on BBC Hardtalk was found out when he suggested human compassion has risen, when asked by the interviewer how you measure compassion Pinker replied "well...yes...um, of course, you can't measure compassion."

Some things are just beyond science, feelings, emotions, abstract, often irrational behaviours.   Get over it.  However, any hypothesis that can by tested is up for grabs.   So I'm happy to await the discovery of the "rape gene" as Jones puts it.

But what be this science, once more that Pinker speaketh of?

"Scientific research on rape and its connections to human nature was thrown into the spotlight in 2000 with the publication of A Natural History of Rape.Thornhill and Palmer began with a basic observation: a rape can result in a conception, which could propagate the genes of the rapist, including any genes that had made him likely to rape. Therefore, a male psychology that included a capacity to rape would not have been selected against, and could have been selected for. Thornhill and Palmer argued that rape is unlikely to be a typical mating strategy because of the risk of injury at the hands of the victim and her relatives and the risk of ostracism from the community. But it could be an opportunistic tactic, becoming more likely when the man is unable to win the consent of women, alienated from a community (and thus undeterred by ostracism), and safe from detection and punishment (such as in wartime or pogroms)."

Ah science.  Science, I repeat is based on a method where one tests a hypothesis and after finding no other hypothesis fits one assumes this to be correct unless another theory replaces it.   It's how things like Natural Selection have come to be taken as fact.  It's not a fact but it's far more likely than a man in the sky creating things in seven days. 
So I've proved Thornhill and Palmer's assertion to be wrong in this nobody and loser blog.  If  "a rape can result in a conception, which could propagate the genes of the rapist, including any genes that had made him likely to rape" is the basis for the biological view then why do rapists rape children?   The rest is equally nonsensical unless one assumes Pinker's assertion that rapists are only "losers and nobodies." 

Pinker backs his assertion up with more startling scientific evidence:

"Thornhill and Palmer then outlined two theories. Opportunistic rape could be a Darwinian adaptation that was specifically selected for, as in certain insects that have an appendage with no function other than restraining a female during forced copulation. Or rape could be a by-product of two other features of the male mind: a desire for sex and a capacity to engage in opportunistic violence in pursuit of a goal. The two authors disagreed on which hypothesis was better supported by the data, and they left that issue unresolved."

As Frans B. M. de Waal, professor of psychology and director of the Living Links Center for the Advanced Study of Ape and Human Evolution at Emory University suggests:

"The authors draw parallels with the scorpion flies studied by Thornhill, which have a physical adaptation for rape. Male scorpion flies have a so-called notal organ, a clamp that serves to keep unwilling females in a mating position...I'd suggest looking less at flies and more at our fellow primates for answers. In monkeys and apes there is a clear link between power and sex. High-ranking males enjoy sexual privileges, and are more attractive to the opposite sex.

Wouldn't one assume that among our ancestors, who lived in small communities, rape was punished and so may have reduced rather than enhanced a male's future reproduction? If rape is about reproduction, why are about one-third of its victims young children and the elderly, too young or old to reproduce? Why do men rape lovers and wives, with whom they also have consensual sex? Perhaps some of these issues could have been resolved if the authors had not lumped all kinds of rape.

[Thornhill and Palmer] depict rape as a product of Darwinian selection. As a biologist myself, I am prepared to listen. After all, rape can lead directly to gene transmission. But for natural selection to favor rape, rapists would have to differ genetically from nonrapists and need to sow their seed more successfully, so to speak, causing more pregnancies than nonrapists, or at least more than they would without raping. Not a shred of data for these two requirements is presented."

De Waal also echoes my own brilliant deductions by suggesting that in Thornhill and Palmer's book (and by extension Pinker's) "female and feminist voices are dismissed as ideological; scientists -- like the authors -- engage in the objective search for the truth."

Right on.

But what if rape actually helps womankind in some utterly victim blaming peculiar way asks Pinker:

"The idea that most men have the capacity to rape works, if anything, in the interests of women because it calls for vigilance against acquaintance rape, marital rape, and rape during societal breakdowns."

Wow, so rather than those gender feminists' assertion that "our culture..."teaches men to rape"" men raping women teaches women how not to be raped.   Brilliant. 

But is rape psychological agony because of the trauma or because of, you know, woman's nature?

"Most important, the book focuses in equal part on the pain of the victims. (Its draft title was Why Men Rape, Why Women Suffer.) Thornhill and Palmer explain in Darwinian terms why females throughout the animal kingdom resist being forced into sex, and argue that the agony that rape victims feel is deeply rooted in women's nature."

So, men who are raped...what do they feel?   What about children? 
I mean why should the most traumatic event that any woman can experience in life be so traumatic?

"Rape subverts female choice, the core of the ubiquitous mechanism of sexual selection. By choosing the male and the circumstances for sex, a female can maximize the chances that her offspring will
be fathered by a male with good genes) a willingness and ability to share the responsibility of rearing the offspring, or both. As John Tooby and Leda Cosmides have put it) this ultimate (evolutionary) calculus explains why women evolved "to exert control over their own sexuality, over the terms of.their relationships, and over the choice of which men are to be the fathers of their children,"
They resist being raped, and they suffer when their resistance fails, because control over their sexual choices and relationships was wrested from them,"?"

It's as if humans hadn't created the most complex social system on earth which is consistently used by scientists to allow such things as testing on other species because we have more complex feelings, society and understanding of our place in the world, or consciousness, if you like.   We're just animals responding to positive or negative stimuli.   And women feel trauma after rape because they've had their choice of father for their potential child wrested from them.   As ever, even though it's a repugnant idea, it still doesn't stand up in the case of male-male rape, non fertile women and children. 

But are women just being neurotic?

"Thornhill and Palmer's theory reinforces many points of an equity feminist analysis. It predicts that from the woman's point of view, rape and consensual sex are completely different. It affirms that women's repugnance toward rape is not a symptom of neurotic repression, nor is it a social construct
that could easily be the reverse in a different culture. It predicts that the suffering caused by rape is deeper than the suffering caused by other physical traumas or body violations. That justifies our working harder to prevent rape, and punishing the perpetrators more severely, than we do for other kinds of assault."

Other key points that Pinker uses for his argument:

"Coerced copulation is widespread among species in the animal kingdom, suggesting that it is not selected against and may sometimes be selected for. It is found in many species of insects, birds, and mammals, including our relatives the orangutans, gorillas, and chimpanzees."

Other animals rape, animals are natural, rape is natural.   See de Waal expert on why primates use rape.

"Rapists generally apply as much force as is needed to coerce the victim into sex."

Apart from not offering any evidence for this it doesn't make any sense as Pinker's argument is that all sex involves coercion, the metaphorical flowers on a date being a token for will you have sex with me.   So, you could reverse the logic of all rape is sex and suggest all sex is rape.   It's nonsense.   It's always about consent.   And because children aren't able to consent it might take no force at all to rape a child.   It's unpleasant even trying to logic this out because it's so trite.

"THE PAYOFF FOR a reality-based understanding of rape is the hope of reducing or eliminating it."

Because looking at rape as a social phenomena isn't reality based you see.   And if we look at it scientifically, as Pinker suggests, we can eradicate it in some magical genetic way without changing any social conditions.

"Gender feminists blame violence against women on civilization and social institutions, but this is exactly backwards.
Violence against women flourishes in societies that are outside the reach of civilization, and erupts whenever civilization breaks down."

Shock horror, Pinker offers no evidence for this assertion.   Has he figures of incidence of reported rape in Syria in the present war?   Of course not.   And if one were to assert that rape is more prevalent in say, a situation like the Russian invasion of Nazi Germany, that merely reinforces the notion that rape is used as a tool of power not sex.   Why would Russian soldiers suddenly have a huge rise in sexual desire as they neared Berlin? 

"Equity feminists have called attention to the irresponsibility of such advice, in
terms far harsher than anything by Thornhill and Palmer."

Yes, desperation leads to straw man arguments.   Who be this noted equity feminist?

"Camille Paglia, for example, wrote:
For a decade, feminists have drilled their disciples to say, "Rape is a crime of violence but not sex:' This sugar-coated Shirley Temple nonsense has exposed young women to disaster. Misled by feminism, they do not expect rape from the nice boys from good homes who sit
next to them in class.....
These girls say,"Well, I should be able to get drunk at a fraternity party and go upstairs to a guy's room without anything happening."And I say,"Oh, really? And when you drive your car to NewYorkCity, do you leave your keys on the hood?" My point is that if your car is stolen after
you do something like that, yes, the police should pursue the thief and he should be punished. But at the same time, the police-and I-have the right to say to you, "You stupid idiot, what the hell were you thinking?"

Apart from equating the stealing of a car with rape and shifting the responsibility of rape onto the shoulders of the victim, it was her fault for not sensing the danger, Paglia as equity feminist is pretty hilarious.   "Elaine Showalter calls Paglia "unique in the hyperbole and virulence of her hostility to virtually all the prominent feminist activists, public figures, writers and scholars of her generation." (from wiki).
She's renowned for making a living out of just being a contrarian and criticizes anyone who happens to disagree with her, you know, like the who's who of equity feminism, French, Millett, Greer, Wolf.
"Gloria Steinem said of Paglia that, "Her calling herself a feminist is sort of like a Nazi saying they're not anti-Semitic.""

I think Paglia is about as strawy a straw woman as could be to back up your argument.

In summing up, Pinker reasserts his doctrine that men rape women because they are biologically programmed, though not all, only losers and nobodies who rape women of fertile years who in turn feel trauma much worse than other women is the logical argument and that  Feminists in thinking that men rape women to gain power and control over them is a kind of delusion "I believe that the rape-is-not-about-sex doctrine will go down in history as an example of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds."    Which is "contradicted by a mass of evidence, and is getting in the way of the only morally relevant goal surrounding rape, the effort to stamp it out."
The evidence being the aforementioned fertility, nobodies, trauma, animals rape and we're animals...stuff. 

The problem for Pinker with the feminist patriarchal power argument is about "an academic clique committed to eccentric doctrines about human nature." His idea that only 'nobodies' are rapists and they attempt to rape only fertile women in order to reproduce is completely rational.   Not at all utterly barking mad, faced with evidence that rape crosses all social, ethnic divides, that it's only men who carry it out and that most rapes are not stranger rapes but very often family and children. 

"Eliminating discrimination against women is important, but believing that women and men are born with indistinguishable minds is not."

Where he gets that idea from I've no idea but he throws it out there as if it were a fact, as if these delusional feminists have actually said that.   That will be good enough to confirm any biases in the reader.   He throws more claims he's putting at the door of feminists that I've never heard before:

"Freedom of choice is important, but ensuring that women make up exactly 50 percent of all professions is not."

Actually, seeing as women make up 49.5% of the population he hasn't even got the maths right if we're being so picky.

I think to conclude it might be good to pull out the old 'I'm all for equality but women are just emotional' argument.

"No one wants to accept sex discrimination or rape. No one wants to turn back the clock and empty the universities and professions of women, even if that were possible. No reasonable person can deny that the advances in the freedom of women during the, past century are an incalculable enrichment of the human condition.
All the more reason not to get sidetracked by emotionally charged but morally irrelevant red herrings." [my italics]

Morally irrelevant? 

Finally, Pinker offers up an answer:

"Anyone who is incensed by the very idea of mentioning rape and sex in the same breath should read the numbers again."

What numbers?

"In his thoughtful review, Jones explores how the legal issues surrounding rape can be clarified by a more sophisticated understanding that does not rule the sexual component out of bounds. One example is 'chemical castration;' voluntary injections of the drug Depo- Provera, which inhibits the release of androgens and reduces the offender's sex drive. It is sometimes given to offenders who are morbidly obsessed with sex and compulsively commit crimes such as rape, indecent exposure, and child abuse. Chemical castration can cut recidivism rates dramatically-in one study, from 46 percent to 3 percent. Use of the drug certainly raises serious constitutional issues about privacy and punishment, which biology alone cannot decide. But the issues become cloudier, not clearer, when commentators declare a priori that "castration will not work because rape is not a crime about sex, but rather a crime about power and violence."
Jones is not advocating chemical castration (and neither am I). He is asking people to look at all the options for reducing rape and to evaluate them carefully and with an open mind.
If a policy is rejected out of hand that can reduce rape by a factor of  fifteen, then many women will be raped who otherwise might not have been. People may have to decide which they value more, an ideology that claims to advance the interests of the female gender or what actually happens in the world to real women."

Apart from the continued "feminists are ideological but I'm just wanting to solve this problem" blindness to his own ideological position and the illogical weapon Pinker continually uses, you're for or against this or that, for saving women by this punishment or irrationally against it and not doing anything about the situation.
Of course, this fallacy is based on the presumption that chemical castration works.   Pinker cites one study which he doesn't reference and there's a reason why, it's taken from Jones's article and those figures are not from a study but a "report" in The Sunday Telegraph in 1994 that is unfortunately not available online.   And Jones himself suggests:

"Most such studies are dated, based on small samples, or both. Studies on chemically treated "sexual aggressives," some of whom were rapists, suggest recidivism rates lower than those for untreated sexual aggressives.   But the results, while generally consistent with prediction, are not fully compelling. So the effectiveness of existing state chemical castration initiatives remains to be convincingly demonstrated."

Jones himself comes up with the startling answer to stopping men raping women (again):

"Indeed, if rape behavior is at all increased by reduced access to willing sex partners, and if having been incarcerated makes one a less desirable sex partner than before (through decreased status and opportunity cost to lifetime earnings) incarceration might marginally increase the likelihood
of recidivism."

Apart from the astonishingly dubious observations he comes up with putting men in prison.

There's a reason why Jones rejects chemical castration as the 'answer.' 
Pinker argues against "pro-feminist therapy," that is, forms of counselling and education of convicted rapists (which I'm confident in saying that I've never heard any feminist arguing in favour of) would not work because:

"Savvy offenders who learn to mouth the right psychobabble or feminist slogans can be seen as successfully treated, which can win them earlier release and the opportunity to prey on women anew."

Shock horror, the argument against chemical castration (where convicted rapists voluntarily take a course of anaphrodisiac drugs) is exactly that:

"...Men who accept the negative effects of hormonal treatment in exchange for shorter prison sentence are distinct in that they value freedom from incarceration higher than men who rather stay in prison for a longer time than face the side effects of chemical castration. These scientists explain apparently lower recidivism as an artifact of men who accept chemical castration being more engaged in hiding the evidence for reoffending, and that paroling such offenders constitute a risk of releasing criminals who commit as many new crimes as others but are better at hiding it. These criminologists also argue that police investigators treating castrated men as less likely to reoffend than non-castrated men may cause an investigation bias and self-fulfilling prophecy, and that men who sell some of their prescribed medicines on the black market for drugs get a hidden income that improve their ability to afford measures to hide recidivism that is not available to men without such prescriptions."

In the end, I suppose it comes down to whether you are willing to believe the argument that because some male animals rape some females of their species (though it's noted that not all animal species seem to) and that rapists are biologically driven to rape women and by rapists I mean all men as we're all biologically the same except that some men don't rape women because they are somebodies and winners and that rape is about men wanting sex even if that means humiliating and violating a non consenting female who could be any age and is quite possibly as likely a pre-pubescent child as a fertile woman and it's fertile women that rapists really want to have sex with because they're trying to reproduce except the ones using condoms to avoid DNA or the ones not carrying out penetrative sex or those raping another man and I've forgotten the point of this sentence. 

If you prefer to believe these ideas without a shred of evidence that holds up in any convincing way as opposed to the universally accepted understanding that any sexual violence towards females or males is about power and control then I suppose anything I've said here won't change your mind.