She actually says «raped», a statement certainly disturbing to every reader. The woman says “raped”, remains, however, with the man in question, and ultimately settles with him. Moreover, the author of this story is also a woman. I am referring to the novel “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand, published in 1943 and sold in 9 million copies.
Of course, since this is fiction, there never was a rape in reality. But this fiction incident occurs within a philosophical novel with an ideological and even political ambition. Rand has an agenda. So, what is this stated rape supposed to mean? In this article I shall explore various possibilities.
Today
Rand died in 1982. But she has followers alive and well today. In an interview about The Fountainhead done by Michael Knowles at The Prager U Book Club in 2023, one of the current followers, a certain Andy Puzder, the CEO of a fast-food chain in the US, but also with some academic commitments, was confronted with the rape. Puzder simply apologised. He said he wish “it” hadn’t been there, and, if he had been the editor of the book, he would have asked Rand to take it out. Knowls let Puzder go with that, but he added, plausibly in my opinion, that given that Rand is the author, any editor would have difficulty making that author change her mind.
Better then, in my opinion, to analyse this “embarrassing” detail of the book in search for something interesting. We should be open to meaning of different kinds. We should be open to conscious as well as subconscious meaning and we should be open to meaning which we find morally good as well as the opposite. After all, also when discussing a philosophically oriented author like Rand, we cannot rule out that she may have promoted ideas unconsciously. Interesting authors work in the grey-zone between conscious and subconscious and between good and evil. Doing that, they are at risk accidentally promoting what we can call the Devil’s agenda.
Rape in nature?
The human species has emerged from the animal kingdom. This biological aspect of our origin is countered by the Christian perspective, which says that God created us. The antagonism between the two perspectives has been subject to many a philosophical investigation, including attempts to reconcile the two.
The fact of our animal origin must be relevant to the question of rape. In spite of our wish to reach beyond nature, it is easy to see that rape has a potential for reproduction advantage. Is there rape in nature itself? Hardly, such a question would be misplaced. Humans are moral beings, whereas in nature, what happens, happens. Moral judgement is simply not relevant.
Still, animals do have some sort of a will, don’t they? I shall bring an observation from another fiction author, the Danish author Peter Hoegh. In the novel “The Woman and the Ape” (1996) he describes how a male panther is urged by its instinct to follow a certain scent trail through the jungle. The trail leads it to a female which the male then approaches from behind. Against all other instincts, the female is fixed by its instinct to allow this to happen. Nature is not harmonic, sometimes one instinct works against another.
Returning to humans, also we are familiar with disharmony. We can experience one will against another, obviously when two humans meet, but also within one.
Rape in an evolutionary perspective
Let us try then, to combine the animal perspective and the human perspective, and ask what the question of rape looks like in an evolutionary perspective. In evolutionary biology two “arenas” are important. We can call them the arena of general survival and the arena of sexual reproduction. The two are equally important. If you don’t survive, you cannot reproduce. If you cannot reproduce, you will be the last of your kind, however effectively you acquire food and otherwise survive.
Moreover, in the perspective of reproduction human females (and other primate females) are relatively scarce, whereas males are relatively abundant. It is in the interest of the female to seek out the best male – a manifold concept which for our purpose may remain unspecified. The males, to the extent that they are on one shared arena, will compete with each other for the mating. To the extent that the females can control it, they will choose the best. To the extent that they cannot control it, the male winner wins her.
Of the two arenas mentioned above, the reproduction arena is clearly a social one. You can succeed only in collaboration with at least one other member of your species (notwithstanding there is competition). It is possible for the reproduction arena to develop odd features which may even be in conflict with survival. A well-known example would be the tails of the male peacocks, which impress the females even if they are a burden in other contexts. Regarding humans, big female breasts may have the same combination of being impressive to the other sex and being unpractical in other contexts.
We don’t really need more evolutionary biology to see that some degree of aggression towards females may be beneficial for the male’s reproduction. I am not saying that no counter-argument can be made. You can, for example, imagine that some females go for a “tender” male, taking into account future care for the offspring. But our purpose is to study the relation between aggression, including rape, and morality, and for that purpose it should suffice that male aggression towards females to some extent can be beneficial in reproduction.
Why are we moral beings?
Human morality is both simple and complex. The simple thing is that morality exists. By our species life has “taken off” from survival – we are not satisfied by merely being alive. Complex, on the other hand, is sometimes what the morally right thing to do is.
Once this has been established, the question “why should we be moral?” as well as the individual question “why should I be moral?” are both poor questions. You might as well ask “why should I exist?”, which is also in my opinion a poor question.
I guess I should politely emphasize that the above two paragraphs is my opinion. Don’t you find it self-evident? In case you don’t find it self-evident, I believe it would not be of no use to argue. Indeed, I believe some philosophical questions are of this kind. Philosophers sometimes try to argue for the self-evident, which I think rather enhances doubt (until fatigue sets in).
Why humans do not rape
Better, then, to seek interesting specifications of the general principle that humans are moral beings. Why is rape morally wrong?
Also, at this point I think we are close to the self-evident. In order to live with other humans, any human individual shall have to grant the integrity to others which he/she requires himself/herself. Or, to put it in negative terms: if you co-live in such a way that you destroy the humanness of those you live with, you no longer have someone to live with. (The recognition-aspect of Hegel’s master-slave paradox.)
What is rape?
The interesting question about rape would be a different one, namely what is the difference between rape and other sexual intercourse. Of course, this is about willingness and force. But as soon as you talk about willingness, you enter the realm of the will, which is no simple matter.
In current debate over sex, willingness and force some people seek an easy way out by making willingness an absolute. This comes along with a taboo against any discussion about the nature of will in the context of sex. But as we know, in individual cases there may be doubt anyway. It suffices to mention the bitter court fights between allegedly raped women and allegedly innocent men.
The easy way out can only work in principle, as a kind of abstract statement or attitude. In real life you find doubt. This can obviously be the case if you are to make a judgement on other people. Regarding your own conduct, you may also sometimes find it hard to sort out your own will and the will of someone else, including someone close to you. Better then, to recognize the difficulty and see if further examination can offer a better way out.
The Fountainhead case
How could Rand include an alleged rape in a basically heroic novel? The hero is the rapist and the heroine is the victim, and at the end of the novel we understand that “they lived happily together ever after”.
We can seek explanations for the stated rape “intrinsically” in the novel or “extrinsically”on the part of the author. The most obvious approach would be seeking intrinsic explanations dealing with the fiction figures as if they were real persons and see if we, from what we know about them, and what we can plausibly infer, can clarify the case.
I believe a good novel can teach us something about real life. I shall seek intrinsic explanation, but also explanation on the part of the author. If we can conclude with some particular motive on the part of the author, and find a relevant explanation in her life, this can also tell us something about life.
In any case, I guess it is worthwhile mentioning that in the novel the alleged rape is mentioned only once. Technically, it would be very easy to fulfill Andy Puzder’s wish and take it out. No further rewriting would obviously be necessary – there is no court case, no discussion about it, no later mentioning of the incidence at all.
However, I will say that a good explanation is even more urgently needed.
A provocation?
In the Fountainhead case, when they meet, the woman is bored, and so is the man. The woman is wealthy, but hardly knows what to do with the wealth, which her father has made available to her. She has no real life of her own. The man with whom she has sexual intercourse (to put it neutrally) is also kind of bored. He is a talented architect who has found no outlet for his talent – at the time he is instead labouring as a miner in a stone mine. The bored man is kind of desired by the bored woman. She catches an interest in him, and has him sent to her house for some practical tasks. This is the setting when what the woman refers to as rape, occurs.
Does the woman provoke? What is a provocation?
A provocation is an action towards somebody which seeks a reaction, or at least takes a possible reaction into account. Typically, it is about dominance. The provocateur seeks to enhance his/her dominance towards another person. Either the other person reacts, in which case a struggle follows, or he/she does not react, in which case the provocateur has strengthened or confirmed his/her dominance.
Children sometime provoke. In fact, you can say it is part of growing up to provoke adults. In most cases (if there are real adults around) a child’s provocation lead to limit-confirming reactions. The provoking child is put in place. But sometimes the adult refrains from an authoritative reaction, and instead comments on the misbehaviour, leaving to the child to decide if it really will uphold the provoking behaviour. This may at first surprise the child, who then finds itself granted a higher level of independence and responsibility. In fact, seizing opportunities of independence and responsibility is part of growing up.
Returning to the case of The Fountainhead, does the woman provoke the rape? The answer I think is yes, albeit this is not confirmed by concrete details in the novel. You can only infer from the context. If the man had not “forced sexual intercourse on her“, she had probably lost interest in him. But having reacted by raping her, to him she subordinates, at least by the aspect of love. From then on, she loves him – and ultimately joins him (after having married and divorced two other men).
Again, this is my opinion. If you read the book, you can infer from the context yourself.
The extrinsic perspective
Could Rand have a personal purpose for including the somewhat puzzling rape incident? I shall suggest a theory.
To rape or not to rape – is that a question? If so, it is a question almost exclusively for men. Having doubt about this would be a men’s burden. I think Rand by the rape incident does burden male readers with doubt, but why would she do that?
I shall try to answer those questions by first addressing a somewhat easier question. A man can seek dominance by less drastic means than outright rape. This includes exercising physical strength as part of sexual behaviour (again: without raping). I guess the decisive difference to rape is that the woman basically accepts.
In a time where not only rape, but all kinds of dominance on the part of men, are seen as inappropriate, only utterly playful behaviour in this direction is considered acceptable. A couple playing a sado-masochistic game is for example ok. For a man to exercise physical strength is otherwise questionable at best, any tendency in that direction is more or less risky, and any desire in that direction, provoked or not provoked, is likely to be accompanied by self-doubt.
Doubt and self-doubt are “killers” in sex as well as in love-life overall. Does Rand want to kill sex and love-life? Probably not consciously, but I will not exclude the possibility of a subconscious agenda. Rape can be seen as the ultimate sexual strength. If you let yourself lure into considering Rand’s rape incident to be a constructive one, you are (as a man) lured into doubting your own non-raping conduct as less than fully satisfactory.
Rand herself was, of course, a woman and had a husband whom she allegedly admired. But she was far more famous, and far wealthier, than her husband. In this particular perspective, she was dominant. This may have left Rand with some envy of men and women who live together on more equal terms (or with some dominance in the opposite direction). Inflicting doubt by the alleged rape incident in her novel could be her envious “revenge”.
In conclusion
I think three possible explanations for the rape incident in “The Fountainhead” can now be crystallized:
- “Rape” is part of nature, and we humans are not quite out of it.
- The woman figure of the novel provoked the man hoping for his dominance.
- The rape incident is inflicting self-doubt on couples living on equal terms, or under some male dominance. This is Ayn Rand’s „revenge“ against male dominance, which she could not enjoy herself.
I guess the three explanations are not mutually exclusive. Sometimes quite different motives can lead to one and the same action.
However, even if you find my extrinsic theory about Rand’s motivation (third point above) “unbelievable”, we can take her “stated rape” as a provocation on her part to men in general. “Hey, contemporary men, I find little reason to admire you, and now I shall drag you even further down, unless you react.”
In the latter perspective, of course, Andy Puzder’s suggestion is a complete failure.
On my part, I will suggest the following men’s response to Rand – the gauntlet being consciously or subconsciously thrown down to us:
1. No, human males don’t rape.
2. Pushing another person, including one you love, however, can be done without raping. In fact, this is part of normal life including normal sexual behaviour.
3. Yes, also a relationship whereby there is male dominance, can be a good one.
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