Sexual Violence: Rape

Violence is one of the scariest aspects of sexual perversion.  Its most common expression, rape, is not only appallingly common in North America, it seems to be increasing in frequency. 

By some estimates, over a million women are raped in the United States every year. 

Some of the statistics I've seen (I can't vouch for their accuracy, but they're worth considering):

• More than one in five women in the U.S. have been sexually assaulted.
• Around three quarters of rape victims know the attacker.
• Three fifths of rape victims are under 18 years old.
• Fewer than one in six rapes are reported.

But what causes rape to happen?  What turns a man (almost never a woman)  into a rapist?  What can be done to prevent it? 

I have to say, even as a man I don't understood the appeal of rape.  The closest I've come to being a rapist myself was once when I was in my early twenties, when my wife and I started arguing in bed.  Not surprisingly, she decided that she didn't want have sex after all, but I was pretty horny at that point and kept kissing her and trying to get my cock into her until she bit my tongue.  I was shocked, and she was furious.  She said she felt as if I was trying to rape her, and I realized she was right.  It made me understand how important "no" is, even if it's said in the middle of sex, even between two people who are married.  I hadn't mean harm by it at the time, it just seemed like part of the argument, until I realized what a violation it was for me not automatically to recognize her right to choose any time she felt like it.  Since then, I've never been tempted to approach that line again, with her or with anyone else — it would destroy for me everything I want and care about in sex. 

So I ask myself, what is it that makes men decide to rape?  Why would they be willing to give up the precious and beautiful sides of sex for a kind of release you get can just as well without hurting anyone else by masturbating? 

Of course, there isn't a single answer.  A page on Paralumun divides rapists into four profiles that could be characterized as follows:

• The Player — Accounts for about 45% of rapes.  A macho guy trying to assert his power by having non-consensual sex.  He's a bar rapist, the guy who will slip a drug in your drink or take advantage of you when you're drunk or take you home and threaten you until you have sex with him, and then feel good about it afterwards. 
• The Hater — Accounts for about 30% of rapes.  A very angry man, who rapes in rage, out of hatred, brutally, as part of a beating, to "get even" with women. 
• The Fantasist — Accounts for about 20% of rapes.  A man who resorts to rape to try to live out a fantasy to compensate for not having the kind of real-life relationships he wants. 
• The Psycho — Accounts for about 5% of rapes. This guy wants to take his time and feel complete control over a woman, imprisoning her and often tying her up, savoring his power, tormenting her. 

Even though rape is a sexual crime, the dominant motivation in most cases seems to be anger, not lust — only a tiny fraction of hard-core repeat rapists say sexual desire is a significant motivation for them. 

One of the things that is most scary about rape is that the difference between many rapists and "ordinary guys" in American culture seems to be one of degree, not some clear-cut psychological difference.  A strong correlation between alcohol consumption and rape suggests that many men are being restrained from raping only by their social inhibitions. 

I can't say I'm an expert on Internet porn because I'm generally not willing to pay for it, but I've been appalled at how much misogyny shows up out there.  There seems to be a large male population who all have somehow gotten the idea that women are the perfect target for cruel and mindless fraternity pranks, and that's what sex is about.  It's the kind of mindset in which women are adversaries and rape wouldn't be any worse than any other kind of sex you could get. 

Why?  Why do so many North American men fear and hate women?  Where did they get such low expectations of sex? 

The war-of-the-sexes answer says that's how men just naturally are.  Various evolutionary theorists have pointed out that for males who are otherwise inferior suitors, rape is a good (and possibly the only) breeding strategy.  It may actually be that we're programmed to become rapists if we believe we're otherwise not going to get a mate.  Note, though that this is a sub-optimal reproductive strategy that is much less likely to produce surviving human offspring than a nurturing pair-bond would be — it's a strategy of desperation, from an evolutionary perspective. 

I don't believe that men are dumb, irresponsible animals and women are dumb irrational bitches — nothing in my life experience has led me to believe that.  What I have observed is that people are full of fear.  And what the male rapist mentality keeps reminding me of is the callous cruelty of teenagers, to whom maturity has not yet taught compassion and who desperately project their insecurities onto people they perceive as weaker. 

When you look at adult life in most of North America, rape seems like a weird, violent anomaly.  But when you look at schools, when you realize how dangerous and violent all aspects of student life are for so many kids, rape is just one more form of remorseless cruelty.  The killing sprees that have drawn attention to teen "bullying" are just the most dramatic cost of our indifference to our adolescents — rape statistics testify to far more widespread and deeper problems. 

I believe rape is as big a problem as it is because we don't take good enough care of our children during their teenage years.  I think we "stay out of it."  It's a problem with the schools.  The kids are unmanageable anyway.  We tell ourselves they need more discipline — I know parents who have betrayed their children's trust by sending them to foreign "boot camps" where they are physically abused in ways that are illegal in this country. 

Our high schools are incredibly hierarchical, with rigid pecking orders that derive mostly from sports.  Teachers and administration do little or nothing to break up such hierarchy — in many cases, it's hard enough to ensure that kids aren't bringing knives and guns to school to defend themselves. 

Courtship in high school often takes place in a vicious context of power and failure.  Girls only go with cool guys.  If you're seen with an uncool guy, you're uncool.  Most teenagers have an incredibly hard time finding any kind of safe space in which to explore their newfound, confusing, embarrassing and often rampant sexuality. 

A great many teenagers of both genders come out of their high-school years with a deeply rooted conviction that they're losers for life... and in a male, that seems to be a recipe for the kind of hopeless alienation that makes rape tempting. 

So what could we be doing different?  Well, one good place to start would be better sex education.  We should be teaching kids safe techniques for exploring their sexuality, and should encourage them to experiment responsibly with their friends when they feel like it.  We should be teaching sexual etiquette, so kids don't have to figure everything out for themselves at one of the most difficult times in their lives.  Every kid desperately wants to grow up and succeed — with a little more help, a lot more of them would find it's not as hard as we've been making it.

As Jocelyn Elders got fired for pointing out, we should be encouraging girls to masturbate rather than jumping right into vaginal sex.  It would be great if we actively encouraged dating couples to learn technique with each other through mutual hand jobs — not only would there be a lot less risk of pregnancy, it would be clear that the primary objective of the transaction is mutual pleasure.  The whole negotiation of getting what you want by telling the other person what to do would be a lot more straightforward in that context.  Kids would have an easier time asserting control over their own bodies.  The criteria for success would also be clearer, and easier to achieve. 

If we could bring more adolescents of both genders to maturity with a sense of sexual confidence and success, I believe that we would see the terrifying phenomenon of sexual assault diminish dramatically.