Psyche of Rapists

Psyche of Rapists

By Saniya Shekh

 Abstract 

According to NCB data, India lodged average of 86 rapes daily, 49 offences against women per hour in 2021. Delhi is notoriously called the ‘Rape Capital of India’, which is a horrendous reality for Delhiites. The All-India average rate of rape is 4.8, that is saddening and a major driving force behind this article. 

The rape is a heinous offence which alarmingly poses a menace to women’s safety and dignity across the globe. The solution of this grave issue lies in the fundamental question of ‘Why do men rape?’ It is essential to decipher the rapist’s motivation , thought processes and psychology, which is seldom talked about, in order to bring meaningful policy changes. This article seeks a change in approach concerned with rapes, shifting the focus from rape victims to that of rapists.  

Sherry Hamby, a research professor of psychology at the University of Southin Tennessee and founding editor of America Psychological Association’s journal named ‘Psychology of  Violence’, says “ If you don’t really understand perpetrators, you’re never going to understand sexual violence.” There’s an urgent need to develop methods of assessment & management of sex offenders to assist society in its battle against the scourge of sexual offences in India and the world. 

A rare research  

Dr. Samuel D. Smithyman, a US clinical psychologist, published a strange advertisement in newspapers in Los Angeles as ‘Are you a rapist?’ Much to his surprise, he received 200 anonymous calls frommen who confessed to having raped someone. Then he interviewed 50 of them and found out that these men had diverse backgrounds, social statuses & personalities, and concluded that a sexual offender can be any type of person; there isn’t one particular kind who commits such crimes. 

Madhumita Pandey, lecturer of criminology at the Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge visited Tihar jail to interview over 122 convicted rapists during her research which gives us valuable insights into the mentality of rapists. There was something common between Pandey and Smithyman’s research which is also contradictory to what we often label rapists as monsters. Researchers assert that when they talked to rapists, they sounded like sane or normal individuals. This doesn’t mean we should justify the action of their crimes, but in order to solve the problem we first need to understand the ‘rapists’ themselves. 

Do rapists show remorse? 

Researchers also state that most rapists show no remorse and don’t even believe that they have perpetrated any serious crime. Mary Koss, a professor of public health, asserts that when she asked rapists if they had forced themselves on the victims, they generally agreed. However, when she asked them if they ‘raped’, they would deny it. Studies have shown that even people who kept sex slaves during wars didn’t accept that they actually ‘raped’ their victims. Pandey also says that rapists don’t realise that they have committed a crime in reality and raped someone. They show no understanding of the concept of ‘rape’ itself and ‘consent’. They even blame the victims for the incident. 

Cognitive dissonance  

Rapists often convince themselves of an alternative reality and justify their actions. This is called cognitive dissonance. For instance, a 49-year-old who had raped a 5-year-old girl, in an interview with Pandey, said “The victim provoked me, her mother is also like her, having a questionable character, that needs to be corrected.” 

The implicit beliefs proposed by rapists, which are also proved by the research, are listed below: 

1. Women are unknowable: Rapists believe that women are fundamentally different from them and thus non-decipherable. Encounters with women would be deceptive about what they want in reality. They might develop a CD as ‘if she is wearing  outfits with visible cleavage, then she’s necessarily inviting them to have sex’. 

2. Women are sex objects: They believe that women are receptive to men’s sexual needs and they can’t be hurt by sexual activity unless physically abused. 

3. The male sex drive is uncontrollable: Men’s sexual desires can escalate to dangerous levels if women don’t provide them with sexual opportunities. 

4. Entitlement: Men’s sexual needs are more important and should be met on demand by women. 

Apart from 122 rape convicts, Pandey also interviewed 65 murder convicts and found out that the latter blamed themselves for their crimes whereas the former blamed the victims. Explaining this , she says “When you have a dead body, you feel far more accountable.” Her research shows that sex offenders do feel remorse, but not the kind one might expect. They expressed their regret by saying that the victim carries the stigma of losing virginity and thus would be unable to find a suitable husband. This mindset highlights a very regressive thought. 

Biological vs cultural theories  

➢ Biology& evolutionary theory: According to this, rape is a reproductive strategy by men to ensure the continuation of their heredity. This concludes that every man tends to perpetrate sexual violence. Evolutionary biologist Randy Thornbill and evolutionary anthropologist Craig Palmer, believe that rape is motivated by sex – a  result of Darwinian selection & has evolved to increase the reproductive success of men. So it considers rape as natural and does not explain different rape rates in various countries. 

➢ Social and culturaltheory: According to this, sexual violence occurs due to societal,  cultural or man-made reasons. Sherry Hamby says “Sexual assault is not about sexual gratification or sexual interest, but more about dominating people”. She explains how toxic masculinity leads to rape culture. In her words, ‘A lot of sex offenders are young men and they maintain social status among their peers by becoming highly sexually experienced.’ There are elements in a culture that stigmatize being sexually inactive and assertmen’s dominance over women. Some psychologists are of the opinion that rape is driven by hostility towards women. 

Hamby says that in some cultures, dominance is defined as ‘dehumanisation’ in which women are seen as inferior beings to men, which make them easy targets of aggression. Also for men, part of their cultural training is to lose touch with their emotions. They don’t know how to deal with their feelings and even worse, when they have no idea about others’ feelings. The link between narcissism and rape seems strong when repeated offenders are concerned. One of the key features common between rapists and narcissists is to dehumanise others. 

What needs to be done? 

There are unfortunately few researches that could help us to curb biological factors that lead to rape, but we can certainly counter societal practices. Foremost, it’s imperative to admit the fact that there’s a problem with our society, which we often shield from criticism by labeling rapists as monsters or animals. We should rather focus more on our society and its practices. 

The death penalty is never a solution. It’s just a short-term solution to satisfy people but has no potential to solve the root problem. The Verma Committee, introduced after the Nirbhaya’s  2012 rape case, also stated that ‘capital punishment would be a regressivestep in the field of  sentencing and reformation, and thus not a viable solution.’  

Societal change requires an effort from all parts of society, which includes our family, peers and daily practices,to make a difference. Studies show that girls don’t attain their potential growth due to preference for boys and unequal distribution of resources. Also there are few women involved in the workforce. To solve this grave issue, we first need to address the root problems affiliated to it.  

To bring in societal change, legal and political systems must be reformed, ‘sex education’  must be made mandatory in the curriculum, nationwide campaign should be launched ( like  the Ministry of Women and Child Development released a short film  ‘Komal’ , to address the issue of child sexual abuse. It’s easy to put away four rape convicts in an encounter, but it’s way more tedious to interview 122 rape convicts, to understand the root cause of rapes and sexual offences, in order to find a better solution. 

References 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/health/men-rape-sexual-assault.html 

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/12/16/570827107/in-interviews-with-122- rapists-student-pursues-not-so-simple-question-why 

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-friday-edition-1.4556159/why-men-fight rape-and-kill-author-explores-the-psychology-of-male-violence-1.4556164 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-39945473 

https://www.vox.com/first-person/2017/2/6/14403490/dowry-india-bride-groom-dilemma https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/hyderabad-police-issue-safety-advisory-women after-brutal-rape-and-murder-vet-113299 

https://www.asianage.com/india/all-india/120319/unnao-rape-case-police-officer-charged-for helping-rape-accused-bjp-mla-granted-bail.html 

https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1981.tb01068.x http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.406.2338&rep=rep1&type=pdf https://arro.anglia.ac.uk/704101/1/Pandey_2018.pdf 

https://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/archive/01340/Justice_Verma_Comm_1340438a.pdf https://qz.com/india/379978/indias-preference-for-sons-has-created-a-nation-of-tiny-people

(The New York Times, 2017)

References

The New York TImes. (2017, October 30). What Experts Know About Men Who Rape. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/health/men-rape-sexual-assault.html