'The Raft': The true story behind one of the strangest social experiments of all time which had sex, aggression and mutiny
In 1973, a Mexican anthropologist called Santiago Genoves decided to test out a hypothesis on the connection between violence and sexuality
In 1973, Mexican anthropologist Santiago Genoves decided to test out a hypothesis that was really bugging him. He wanted to know what drove people to become violent and if it was related to sexuality in any way. To test this theory, he started researching the behavior of monkeys and focused especially on the connection between violence and sexuality in their troops.
Genoves soon noted: "Most conflicts are about sexual access to ovulating females." This startling discovery made the anthropologist think about what the result would be for humans. Thus, The Acali Experiment was born.
Genoves asked a British boat builder for help and together they came up with a 12x7-meter raft that was named The Acali.