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Comment by yeukhon | Hacker News Reader

It is so sad that rape is a common war crime in every war since very ancient time. Rape during WW2 was probably one of the biggest crimes after mass genocide. I am familiar with the Japanese’s rape crime but this is the first time I am hearing about this. Allies are no exception.

The psychology behind committing such crime is beyond the “sexual urge” excuse.

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I'm not sure what the correct psychology is. Add together 'shell shock', depression, a continuous fear of impeding death, repeated exposure to unimaginable horrors, separation from home and family for years at a time, and despair at ever reuniting with your loved ones. I wonder at those able to endure all that, and end up anything like normal.

You also have to assume that a certain percentage of the soldiers would be or already have been rapists in civilian life, and now they perceive great opportunity in that regard.

Edit - is this controversial? It’s simply a fact that some men do that, throughout history, in almost all cultures, hence the entire topic... Sometimes units of soldiers are even formed from criminals.

The assumption seems correct, but hardly significant in explaining the scale of the phenomenon.

And by scale, do you mean the amount of victims or the number of perpetrators?

The latter, as estimated from the former.

It is probably insignificant for most wars, but it isn't uncommon in history. For example, throughout ancient Chinese history, it was common for bandits to serve in army either after they had surrendered or when government paid them to fight (mostly because these bandits knew the terrain well and had strong combat experience). Many of the bandits were rapists and killers, as one would expect.

I think rape (at least in those contexts) is mostly about power

> Allies are no exception.

Absolutely. As Robert E Lee eloquently said: "It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it."

In war there is no good. It's just evil. The only difference is between winners and losers.

> The psychology behind committing such crime is beyond the “sexual urge” excuse.

Isn't it innate nature? In the wild, whether it is chimps or lions, you vanquish the males and rape/procreate with the females. For much of human history, rape wasn't a crime. One of the reasons for going to war was for women. Women were considered spoils of war. You can find it in seminal western texts like Iliad or the bible. The entirety of european colonization ( from africa to china ) was mass rape of women. As has been in pretty much all human cultures since we kept records.

> The entirety of european colonization ( from africa to china ) was mass rape of women

I was with you up until then. European colonisation was about exploiting the natural resources of the Africa and the Orient, not the women.

I don't think it was the goal. Just the side effect.

> European colonisation was about exploiting the natural resources of the Africa and the Orient, not the women.

I meant for the entirety of european colonization ( its duration ), that the mass rape of women from africa to china was the norm. Not that rape was the only motivating factor. I think that was fairly obvious if you put that within the context of my other points.

Women, along with resources, land, slaves, etc were part of the equation. It wasn't the sole reason.

> Isn't it innate nature? In the wild, whether it is chimps or lions, you vanquish the males and rape/procreate with the females. For much of human history, rape wasn't a crime. One of the reasons for going to war was for women.

It's very deppressing but apparently shape of human penis is very good for shoveling sperm of the guy that was before you. In tribal or pre-tribal times it's possible that war gang rapes were common enough to shape evolution.

The evolutionary psychology of primitive war very likely includes these "reproductive opportunities". Going to war without benefit to the genes driving the impulse? We'd probably have stopped doing it a long time ago.

We'd like to replace these, uhm, traditional benefits of war with, say, increased status at home for veterans, but have such efforts been going on long enough to erase the underlying psychology?

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