Animal rape?

This week I have witnessed what I believe to be a pigeon mating ritual: a highly ruffled-up male pigeon doing a weird head-bobbing dance, while following a female pigeon. I've seen this a couple of times in the same place, so I'm not sure if it's the same pigeon(s) each time. However, on each occasion the female is beating a hasty retreat, while the male is getting himself all worked up.

It's made me think: how often is animal mating 'rape' as we define it (i.e., sex without consent)? I mean, I know about animals being on heat, and mating cycles etc., but more often than not, I see male birds persisting in chasing seemingly unwilling female birds. Intrigued, I did a bit of 'net research, and while I haven't been able to find any authoritative writings on the subject (guess I'd have to go to a proper library for that) I did find some interesting forum postings.

There were debates on whether we can apply a 'human' term to animal behaviour; debates on what constitutes lack of consent in animals; and reports about 'rape-like' behaviour in dolphins, mallard ducks, dogs and a variety of monkeys. It appears that some animal behaviour definitely falls under our definition of rape. I doubt if anyone has measured how widespread it is though. Maybe because, if found to be prolific, it could fuel dangerous thoughts in male humans?

In a stupid question post John Ruch tells us:

"...animal rape has been a major controversy between biological determinists and social scientists for 30 years. The former think that animal rape demonstrates that rape may be genetically hardwired into human males, while the latter say that’s a weak inference and that consciousness and culture make our behavior much more complex than that. (I only caricature the extreme positions; there are many middle-grounders.)"

Hmmmm. Instinct vs. Evolved consciousness? That's a debate for another day.