Rape of Males
The rape of males is significantly underreported. According to the Department of Justice, an estimated 123,000 men were the victims of rape attempts between 1973 and 1982—attempts in which the rapists were heterosexuals, homosexuals, or bisexuals. In 1994, 4,890 males ages 12 and over were raped.
Statutory Rape
Statutory rape means that the female victim is under the age of consent, usually defined as under 16 years of age, and that the male perpetrator is over that age. Women have also been accused of statutory rape: Jean-Michelle Whitiak, a 24-year-old swimming instructor, pleaded guilty to one count of statutory rape, admitting that for the previous 3 years she had had an affair with a 14-year-old boy. Women commit approximately 20% of the sex abuse against boys.
Rape: Statistics, Demographics, and Motivation
There is a plethora of statistics about the crime of rape. The figures can shed light on many different aspects of the crime, the criminals, and the victims. It is estimated that 1,871 women are raped in this country every day, one every 1.3 minutes. The National Women’s Study estimated that 683,000 adult women are raped each year. In 2005, 93,934 forcible rapes were reported. The group at highest risk is women between the ages of 16 and 24. The statistics show that about 70% of rape victims are unmarried. Many are quite young: almost one-fifth of the victims are between the ages of 12 and 15. Even so, women of all ages are at risk. One out of every four women will be raped at some point during her lifetime, but only 16% will report the assault to the police, and less than 5% of the accused offenders will go to jail. Nearly half—48%—of all rape cases are dismissed before trial. Of convicted rapists, 21% are released on probation, whereas an additional 24% are sentenced to a local jail, in which they spend only an average of 11 months before again being released. Since the first publication, in 1992, of these release figures, convicted rapists have been receiving much longer prison sentences.
Rapists tend to be older than most other criminals; most of them are between the ages of 25 and 44. The rape is rarely the rapist’s first sexual experience. Various studies show that anywhere from one-third to two-thirds of rapists have been married. This research suggests that the individual’s marital status or presumed ability to have consensual sexual relationships is not directly related to whether or not the person commits the crime of rape. Although the figures show that 51% of rapists are white, 42% black, and 6% have other racial backgrounds, these percentages must be viewed with the understanding that rape is so underreported that the attacker’s race may not be properly reflected in the statistics.
Power, rather than sex, is the major motivation for rape. This assertion is partially borne out by FBI statistics showing that 71% of arrested rapists have prior criminal records and that their prior crimes tend to be assault, robbery, and homicide. Further evidence for this contention comes from the fact that rape frequently occurs during the commission of another crime. In 20% of single-offender rapes, and in 62% of multiple-offender rapes, the rapists are under age 21. In 30% of all rapes, a weapon is used; 25% of the weapons are handguns, 44% are knives. Rape may result in the unintended death of the victim through excessive violence, or she may be intentionally killed to eliminate a witness to the crime. When convicted rapists are released from prison or from probation, 52% of them will be rearrested within 3 years.
Reported rapes occur close to home, often in the home. Many take place in the victim’s neighborhood, on a street or in a parking lot. Onethird occur in the victim’s home. Reported rapes happen more often in June, July, and August than in other months, and are more likely to take place on the weekends than during the week. Interestingly, the clustering of reported rapes on the weekends is more common for black victims than for white victims, and for the victims of group rape rather than for the victims of single-perpetrator rape. Rape, as with most other crimes against the person, is highly race-specific: 78% of white victims are raped by white men; 70% of black women are raped by black men. Rapes occur mostly at night, generally between the hours of 8:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m. Group rape occurs more frequently than single-perpetrator rape during those hours.
Aside from the physical consequences for the victims, which often are considerable, the psychological consequences are frighteningly severe. Many women who are raped experience posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, develop depression, and consider suicide. About half of the victims experience sexual difficulties in their own relationships within 15 to 30 months following the rape.
The Inner Life of Rapists
The brain is the potential rape organ. In human beings, most sexual acts have their origin in fantasy. Among rapists—in contrast to what happens with the sexual fantasies of “normal” people—the fantasies of control, domination, humiliation, pain, injury, and violence are acted out.
Rape is a crime of violence. Most rapists have the precise purpose of humiliating and harming the victim. The rapist finds sexual pleasure in the victim’s pain and fear. The victim’s sexual compliance may even increase the intensity of the rapist’s aggression. The expressed aggression may then further stimulate the rapist’s sexual arousal, in a spiraling cycle of violence.
No single psychological profile provides the answer to why people rape. Rapist typologies overlap and are constantly undergoing modification as new data accumulate. Not all rapists fit in these categories so neatly. It is important not to mistake the lens of classification for the real object: the uniquely individual psychology of each rapist. Even there, we can only view the rapist “through a glass darkly.” Yet being able to identify various groups of rapists by means of their characteristics, behaviors, motivations, and backgrounds can assist in helping to apprehend rapists. Classification also provides information for judicial decision making, law enforcement, treatment of rapists, and rape prevention.
Psychiatric studies have identified the following four basic profiles of rapists, each based on their motivations:
• Compensatory: sexual behavior is an expression of sexual fantasies.
• Exploitative: sexual behavior is an impulsive, predatory act.
• Angry: sexual behavior is an expression of anger and rage.
• Sadistic: sexual behavior is an expression of sexually aggressive fantasies.
Based on their degrees of aggressive motivation, rapists can be further classified into instrumental and expressive types. In the instrumental type, the rapist’s aim is primarily sexual. Aggression is used for the purpose of forcing compliance from the victim. In the expressive type, the aim is primarily aggressive. The aggression is intended to harm the victim. Instrumental rapists are the compensatory and exploitative types, whereas the expressives are the displaced anger and sadistic types. The classifications are further refined by adding the qualities of high or low impulse to each group. The rapist’s high or low impulsivity rating is derived from his or her behavior in nonoffense areas such as work, relationships, promiscuity, changes in residence, finances, and other life situations.
As noted above, less than 5% of all accusations of rape or attempted rape result in arrest and convictions. Therefore, rapists who are jailed (and studied) do not represent a random sample of all rapists, and the profiles may not encompass all the varieties of rapists. Again, the prevalence of acquaintance rape is vastly underreported. A rapist who confounds classification in this group of offenders, perhaps a professional, and who does not rape other men’s wives or daughters, but who does rape his own wife or girlfriend, is not likely to become involved with the legal system. Mental health experts do argue, however, that even such a man is describable as a rapist within the categories outlined just above, with their chilling mixture of expressed aggression and sexual fantasies.
Moreover, statistics and psychological profiles gathered from interviews with convicted rapists in prison are significant enough that an incontestable fact can be understood from them: rapists themselves were often the victims of horrendous childhood abuse and of pathological families. Someday w
e may find that specific kinds of child abuse predispose the victims to become adults who rape. No such specific set of factors has yet been found, nor do most abused children turn into rapists in their later lives. But one thing is abundantly clear: the most consistent element in rape of all kinds is an absence of empathy, the absence of an ability by the attacker to put himself or herself in the victim’s place. This can be traced back to the victimization of rapists as children, a victimization that results in their own emotional paralysis. Abused children who become rapists are those who grow up feeling martyred, vengeful, and entitled to abuse others as they were once abused. In these individuals, compassion is dead, and the world is a jungle in which they must hurt or exploit others to survive.
Every Man a Rapist at Heart?
The plain facts are that most criminal rapists are ordinary folks who generally live ordinary lives but are driven by their personal emotional demons to commit the crime of rape. Many rapists, like Henry Hubbard, hold down good jobs at which they are proficient. Many are married and have children. Just as important, most of these individuals are rarely out of touch with reality; psychiatrists define the state of being out of touch with reality as psychosis. Thus, rapists do not appear to be very different from the rest of us. In fact, they give the lie to the artificial separation of “us” and “them” that so often characterizes our discussions of law-abiding citizens and criminals.
Rape fantasies are common. Research has consistently demonstrated that some “normal” men, who have no history of sexually aggressive behavior, are aroused by rape stimuli that involve adults. In a study of 94 men’s erotic fantasies during masturbation or intercourse, 33% fantasized about raping women. In a survey of college men, 35% indicated that they would rape, if they could be assured of not getting caught. But rape fantasies are not exclusively confined to the mental domain of men. Women undergoing intensive psychotherapy occasionally reveal fantasies that involve raping men or other women. Among female patients with multiple personality disorder, a male alter-personality may come forward that harbors intense rape fantasies. Moreover, controlled aggression plays a role in normal sexual relations—it can add playfulness, creativity, variety, and additional gusto to consensual sex. Some evolutionary psychologists have even found that the psychological profiles of rapists are practically indistinguishable from those of non-rapists, leading them to take the hugely controversial position that the proclivity to rape is an evolved behavioral adaptation that is universally present in normal human males. These researchers conclude that under certain appropriate, reproductive risk-benefit conditions, any normal man is likely to commit rape. An immediate caveat must be added to this contention: the presence or frequency of conscious or unconscious rape fantasies does not make every man a rapist, nor does it make every woman a willing victim. Fantasy, however powerful, cannot come close to the actual rape experience of degradation and violence.
Most of those who imagine sexual sadism confine themselves to fantasy and never engage in a sexually sadistic act, much less in a sexually sadistic crime. Even among the group that do act out their fantasies, most sadistic behavior is limited to lawful or quasi-lawful behavior with consenting or paid partners. It is only a small group of sexual sadists who act out their fantasies at the expense of an unwilling partner. Unfortunately, it is an even smaller group that comprises those who are apprehended and criminally charged with rape.
The question still remains: Are all men rapists at heart? I think not. I know of no scientific research that would support such a conclusion. The enormous psychological differences among the billions of men on this earth alone would preclude such a sweeping generalization. Everyone must contend with the base, the foul, the ugly within themselves, but not every man’s dark side harbors a rapist. Bad men do what good men dream, but not every man dreams about doing all the things that bad men do.
The Compensatory Rapist
Rape is a crime of aggression. The rapes of infirm 80- and 90-year-old women are examples of pure hate and aggression. In instrumental aggression, the amount of force used does not go beyond that which is necessary to coerce the victim’s compliance. If the victim is injured, that is usually accidental. If the victim resists, the instrumental rapist does not usually become angry in response. Sometimes, if the victim becomes aggressive, or screams and fights back, the rapist may stop and flee. The compensatory rapist—a subcategory of the instrumental rapist—exhibits behaviors that emanate both from sexual arousal and from compensatory ideas about himself or herself.
The compensatory rapist’s rape is usually planned or premeditated. His sexual behavior toward the victim is driven by elaborate sexual fantasies. These may involve having a Hollywood-style romantic sexual relationship, fending off homosexual fears, and the indulging of passive sexual wishes by putting himself in the shoes of the victim, to give just a few examples. The sexual behavior of the rapist may also serve nonsexual purposes, such as attempts to deal with deflations in self-worth, reverse a passive lifestyle, compensate for fears and inadequacies arising from child abuse, or defend against a threatening emotional or mental collapse. Such rapists fantasize about, or live out, a variety of sexual perversions, including voyeurism, exhibitionism, cross-dressing, fetishism, the making of obscene telephone calls, and bizarre masturbatory practices. High sexual arousal may lead to loss of control and to distortion of reality. For example, the rapist may expect the victim to respond sexually and accept a “date” after the assault.
The compensatory rapist is more likely than other rapists to give the victim his name and address, or to allow himself in other ways to be identified. He is more likely than other rapists to fondle, caress, engage in foreplay, and perform cunnilingus on the victim. He may ask to look at the victim naked, ask her to kiss him, or engage her in conversation that intends to reassure her—and himself. Premature ejaculation is common. In summary, the compensatory rapist attempts to make up for severe feelings of male inadequacy and failure.
The following example depicts a typical compensatory rapist:
Mike, a 27-year-old married man with two children, a daughter age 8 and a son age 6, was apprehended shortly after raping a woman and giving her his telephone number. When his psychiatric history was taken, it provided a classic illustration of the development and behavior patterns of a compensatory rapist. During the previous 6 years, Mike had been engaging in frequent episodes of exhibiting himself, voyeurism, and the wearing of women’s underwear. On the day of the rape, he had first exposed himself in his car to a woman who was just getting off a bus. He had previously watched this woman get off the bus at the same time for a number of days. She was tall, well-dressed, and attractive. He experienced intense sexual fantasies of domination toward her. In his fantasy, she began by strenuously resisting him but was overcome by his sexual prowess and the desire it aroused in her.
This day, he stopped the car and opened the door to expose himself, fully naked. She reacted with surprise and fear. He interpreted this reaction as sexual arousal on her part. Stimulated, he drove on but circled back and forced the woman into the car at knifepoint, then demanded that she remove her clothes. She resisted, but complied after he threatened to cut her throat. He fondled her breasts and forced her to perform oral sex. He then attempted oral-vaginal contact but was unable to complete the act because she was wearing a tampon. He ripped out the tampon and flung it in her face. She cried uncontrollably. After he made many attempts to reassure her, saying “I will not hurt you,” her crying subsided. Now she was frozen with fear. He attempted intercourse but ejaculated prematurely after the first penetration. Interpreting her paralysis as quiet acquiescence and a sign of sexual arousal, he gave her his telephone number and dropped her off at the original bus stop.
In his childhood, Mike’s family consisted of an abusive, alcoholic father, a passive, compliant mother, and three older sisters. The father was frequently in drunken rages. In such states, he would beat Mike for minor infractions and berate him as a “loser
.” Mike felt terrorized by the father, yet longed for a loving relationship with him. As the youngest of four siblings, and the only boy, he also was subject to secondary abuse: one of the sisters, who had been sexually abused by the father, in turn sexually abused Mike by performing enemas on him. He witnessed the physical abuse of his mother and heard brutal sexual encounters between his parents. From his adjacent bedroom, he would hear his mother crying and whimpering. At other times, he heard her and his father laughing together in bed. He imagined his father hurting his mother and her sexually enjoying it. Unconsciously, Mike identified with his mother as a means of obtaining the yearnedfor love from his father.
As an adolescent, Mike was involved in the vandalizing of cars and homes. He was ignored by his peers. Shy, he did not date, but he began engaging in peeping-tom activities and masturbating while dressed in women’s clothing. He spent long periods of time alone, fantasizing about women undressed and how he would dominate them. In these fantasies, he felt very powerful. In his scenes, the women did anything that he requested, but if they refused, he forced them to comply with his wishes. After their initial resistance, the women would experience erotic ecstasies and become his sex slaves forever. These fantasies of sexual dominance allowed him to compensate for his feelings of alienation and male inadequacy and to fend off his father’s scathing definition of him as a loser.
In school, Mike performed poorly. He was unable to concentrate and left formal education at age 16. He held a succession of menial jobs and then joined the military, where he completed 4 years of service but had numerous disciplinary actions brought against him. He had a brief, superficial courtship with a woman—his first—and asked her to marry him. As the wedding date approached, his exhibitionistic activities escalated. For instance, he would display himself from the window of his apartment or from the taxi he drove. The marriage proved turbulent. His wife drank excessively and berated him for his many real and imagined inadequacies. After receiving emotional bashings from his wife, he felt deflated and depressed. He then would perform exhibitionistic and masturbatory activities in women’s clothes. His relationship with his daughter was distant, and he spent little time with her. It was after a particularly hateful, withering verbal attack from his wife that he raped the woman who stepped off the bus.
Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream: A Forensic Psychiatrist Illuminates the Darker Side of Human Behavior Page 9