Copyright 1997 Carolyn GageOriginally published in Mama Bear’s News and Notes, Oakland, CA, 1997.

Demonic Males: Sappho Meets Planet of the Apes

Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human ViolenceBy Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1996, 350 pp.,$24.95 hardcover.

Biological determinists --- those of us who believe that there is something more

seriously wrong with men than what can be accounted for by the way their mothers

raised them --- are given a place at the academic table these days next to the creation

scientists and the members of the Flat Earth Society. We are considered men-haters

by the male supremacists and obstructionists by the so-called progressive feminists,

cranks and crackpots, holdovers from pre-post-feminism, the willfully or the

unintentionally (but more-to-be-pitied-than-censured) ignorant.

This is why it is such a relief when a book like Demonic Males appears among the flood

of male apologist propaganda with titles like Boys Will Be Boys; Strong Mothers, Strong

Sons; and The Wonder of Boys.

Written by Richard Wrangham, a professor of anthropology and leading authority on

primate behavior, in collaboration with Dale Peterson, a former colleague of Jane

Goodall, the book is a difficult one for even the most determined cultural determinist to

dismiss. The bibliography alone is thirty pages, covering everything from Andrea

Dworkin's Intercourse to "Influence of Asymmetries in Resource Quality and Age on

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Aggression and Dominance in Black-chinned Hummingbirds;" and from "Sexual

Swelling, Receptivity, and Groupings of Wild Pygmy Chimpanzees Females at Wamba,

Zaire" to Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Not that the authors are pure biological determinists. In fact, they refer to the "nature

vs. nurture" debate as an intellectual red herring.

The "nature" advocates were very popular in the early part of the century, with their

zeal for the genetic engineering of a race of supermen (sic), but the discovery of the

Nazi atrocities committed in the name of a genetic "final solution," brought the world out

of denial about the potential horror of policies based on these theories. On the other

hand, the "nurture" advocates, following Margaret Mead's seriously flawed lead,

spawned a generation of anthropologists and historians hell-bent on locating heaven-

on-earth, as they literally dug up and fabricated ancient civilizations and primitive

societies supposedly devoid of male dominance. The authors of Demonic Males are

thorough and persuasive in their demolition of these so-called discoveries of utopian

goddess-worshipping matriarchates and idyllic, egalitarian aboriginal cultures. Human

male dominance, according to them, is a universal phenomenon present throughout

human history.

Wrangham and Peterson point out that the demonic behaviors of human males are the

result of both behavioral and cultural determinants. They put forward the theory that

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human males are violent because of their evolutionary heritage, but that this heritage

has been shaped by environmental and cultural factors.

What won the heart of this reader was the opening chapter, where the authors set the

stage for the story of their observations of primates in the wild. They begin with a

description of their transportation difficulties. It seems they couldn't just fly into Zaire in

1993, because the government, in a state of upheaval, had closed the airports and was

advising against driving, because of the threat of guerillas (not gorillas). The authors

decided to fly into Burundi, and then drive through Burundi and Rwanda to eastern

Zaire.

But Burundi was also at war. The Hutu president had just been assassinated and the

predominantly Tutsi army was massacring Hutus as a result of the coup. The authors

managed to land at a deserted airport and negotiate their way through numerous

roadblocks to get to Rwanda.

Rwanda, however, was also in the thrall of the testosterone-challenged. Seven weeks

after the authors crossed the border, the Rwandan president was assassinated. In this

case, it was the Hutus who controlled the army, and they began to slaughter Tutsis,

eventually killing as many as half a million. An estimated ten thousand bodies washed

up in Uganda along the shores of Lake Victoria.

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I'd like to see the author of The Wonder of Boys open with a story like this.

Wrangham and Peterson make the (obvious) case that humans are not the crown of

creation --- the topmost branch of the mammalian evolutionary tree, but rather one of

the lower and more divergent off-shoots. Reading Demonic Males was like uncovering

all the family secrets forever.

Yes, chimpanzees rape and batter. The males batter females from adolescence on in

order to achieve dominance, a dominance that will be used to facilitate sexual coercion,

because, of course, the one who propagates the most wins the Darwinian derby for

survival of the fittest. Chimpanzees also execute "lethal raids," in which small parties of

mostly male chimps ambush single chimpanzees and murder them in a frenzy of blood

lust and mutilation.

Rape is an ordinary occurrence among orangutans, accounting for one third to one half

of all copulations. Orangutans have been known to rape human females. It is the

small males who do the raping. They are apparently unable to attract willing partners,

because of their lack of manly attributes. In other words, rape is a way of handicapping

the derby to equalize competition among the machismo-impaired. Sound familiar?

Gorillas don't rape, but the females are totally subordinate to the males in their harem-

like societies. Over one third of all infant gorillas are murdered by adult males. From

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an evolutionary standpoint, this behavior appears at first glance to be self-defeating.

Rape, at least, propagates the species. But on closer inspection, one finds that survival

is still the motive behind the killings.

The infanticides are committed by males outside the troop. The mother, although

strongly bonded with her infant, will leave her current mate to join with the murderer's

troop --- of her own free will. It is adaptive for her to bond with the male best able to

protect his offspring, and clearly the old mate has just dropped out of the race. The

female gorilla will transfer her affections to the murderer of her baby. Good for the

species, perhaps, but what an evolutionary price to pay! One wonders how much this

"survival of the most dissociative" has been passed along in the genetic coding of the

human female.

But every family tree has its success stories and the primates are no different. In this

case, the species we can all point to with pride is the bonobos. Because of their

resemblance to chimpanzees, the bonobos were not identified as a separate species

until 1928. Relative latecomers, it seems they only split off from the family tree

between 1.5 and 3 million years ago. (Humans branched off between 4.5 and 6 million

years ago.)

Bonobos don't rape, batter adult females, kill babies, or indulge in lethal raids. The

bonobos, unlike orangutans, gorillas, humans, and chimpanzees, do not exhibit any

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traces of male dominance. Why?

The answer is female power, girl gangs. The females bond to defend each other and

attack any male who steps out of line. The males, on the other hand, do not cooperate

with each other either to attack or to defend. Because of this, the sons' closest

relationships are with their mothers, and the support of the mothers is critical to the

sons' success in competing with other males.

And just what is the basis for this female bonding? It's not kinship. The female

adolescent bonobo, like the female chimp, leaves her family and migrates to a new

community. Obviously, her support systems are not a given; she must create them

herself.

How does she do this? Here is a description fom one researcher's observations:

"... each of the [female] adolescents targeted a particular (and different) adult

female. The adolescents started out by sitting close, alert to their target adult,

clearly subordinate but showing quite an interest. The adolescent initiated most

of the interactions. Constantly alert to the glances and intentions of the particular

other, shyly waiting for a signal to approach and be friendly... It looks like falling

in love." (p. 209)

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Finding the expression "genito-genital rubbing" to be too tame to describe what

happens next, the authors use a Monganda expression, "hoka-hoka:"

"The adolescent female sits watching the older one. When the older female

wants hoka-hoka and has seen that the adolescent is waiting, she lies on her

back and spreads open her thighs. The adolescent quickly approaches and they

embrace. Lying face to face, like humans in the missionary position, the two

females have quick, excited sex. Their hip movements are fast and side to side,

and they bring their most sensitive sexual organs --- their clitorises --- together.

Bonobo clitorises appear large (compared to those of humans or any of the other

apes) and are shifted ventrally compared to chimpanzees... [it is believed] their

location and shape have evolved to allow pleasurable hoka-hoka --- which

typically ends with mutual screams, clutching limbs, muscular contractions, and

a tense, still moment. It looks like orgasm." (p. 209--210).

The bonding deepens as the adolescent and adult sit together, groom each other, and

hoka-hoka. Furthermore, dominant females respect their subordinates. Unlike the

males, the dominant females don't display aggressively at each other, nor do the

subordinates give submissive signals. When there is tension, the two make up quickly.

Female bonobos also hoka-hoka with females from other communities in order to

diffuse tension.

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Another key evolutionary development for the bonobos is the nature of the female's

ovulation. The males can't tell when it's happening. Because the male chimpanzees

can detect a change in the female's odor at the time of ovulation, there is intense

competition among chimps for copulation with the ovulating female, resulting in rape

and other forms of male aggression. The bonobos, however, remain ignorant, and this

ignorance translates to bliss in terms of decreased sexual aggression.

Wrangham and Peterson draw some interesting conclusions from their research, but

they are too timid to draw the obvious one. They do suggest that the solution to the

problem of demonic human male behavior lies in the conscious construction of female

systems of power, but they are quick to point out that these systems are difficult for

women to build or maintain, because of women's (sic) dependence on and competition

for men.

The final chapter in the book is a familiar retrenchment and probably a capitulation to

the (justly) anticipated barrage of demonic male criticism that would greet the

publication of the book. The authors cite an example of a young male chimpanzee who

exhibited an unusual affinity for a stick of wood during his mother's pregnancy. Could

this log have been a crude prototype for a doll? Was the young male chimp evidencing

signs of maternal nurturing instincts that might in turn signal an evolutionary advance in

the species? Could this tendency be a harbinger of things to come in human male

evolution, and could it become the basis for a major genetic shift --- one that could

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redefine manhood and save the planet from the ravages of demonic males in, say, five

million years, give or take a few millennia?

The log upon which the authors place so many of their hopes sounds like just another

chip off the old block of patriarchal lies to me. The stakes in the Great Darwinian Derby

are simply too high these days to bank on the long shot of male evolution. The species

with the best track record is clearly the bonobos, and, with the Doomsday Clock ticking

away, the odds for survival are heavily in favor of any primate species that can emulate

the bonobo bonding strategies. Fortunately, human females, with our top-heavy

cerebral cortices, don't need to wait for the ventral migration and enlargement of our

clitorises (however delightful the prospect of these evolutionary advances) in order to

participate in these strategies. In fact, the vanguard of our species, the lesbians, have

already done much of the work to prepare for the new social order. All it will take from

the rest of the female human population is a little imagination --- that, and a lot of

hoka-hoka.

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