Rape/rape offender profiles

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Kelley sent us this:
>                             Why Men Rape
>Prevention efforts will founder until they are based on the
>understanding that rape evolved as a form of male reproductive behavior
>                    BY RANDY THORNHILL AND CRAIG T. PALMER
>
>Consider the following facts:
>• Most rape victims are women of childbearing age.
>• In many cultures rape is treated as a crime against the victim’s husband.
>• Rape victims suffer less emotional distress when they are subjected to
>more violence.
>• Rape takes place not only among human beings but also in a variety of
>other animal species.
>• Married women and women of childbearing age experience more psychological
>distress after a rape than do girls, single women or women who are past
>menopause.

Three fundamental problems.  (1)  Animals "rape"?  Silly anthropomorphism
dies hard.  (2) The projection of social onto biological -- a common
strategy of sexism.  (3)  Shoddy empirical work ("Rape victims suffer less
emotional distress when they are subjected to more violence"; "Married
women and women of childbearing age experience more psychological distress
after a rape than do girls, single women or women who are past menopause").
Now, onto the research into fantasy (also posted by Kelley):

>FANTASY
>
>     The published research of the NCAVC over the past ten years has
>established that fantasy occurs well in advance of the crime in the cases
>of serial sex offenders, serial rapists, and serial sexual
>killers(i.e. [10],[11], & [12]). For most of society, fantasy is a
>means of escape or a means of entertainment. It is temporary and generally
>understood as unreal. For the violent serial sex offender, fantasy evolves
>into something compelling and complex until it becomes the central behavior
>of choice, rather than a brief, unrealized mental distraction.
<snip>
>CONTROL--The fantasy provides an offender with a means of controlling
>a situation. As long as he can keep the world he creates with the victim
>true to his  fantasy, he is in control.. Levin & Fox, [6], put it this way:
>Domination unmitigated  by guilt is a crucial element in serial crimes with
>a sexual theme. Not only does sadistic sex--consensual or forcible
>--express the power of one person over another, but in serial homicides,
>murder enhances the killers sense of control over his victims." The
>offenders engage in behavior that
>establishes that they are unquestionably in control.

In the above, it is said that "Not only does sadistic sex--consensual or
forcible--express the power of one person over another...".  The
distinction between presence and absence of consent needs to be made more
clearly -- otherwise, the category of rape as a crime disappears.

>Investigators may gain insight into
>the elements of the crime that are the most stimulating to the offender by
>examining those providing behaviors closely. I.E.--examine still
>photographs taken by the offender for a reoccurrent body position, props
>such as shoes, or point of view.

Investigation into the recurring elements of fantasy by examining props,
etc. might help detectives in the process of searching and apprehending
serial rapists & killers, but I think that cops -- no stranger to the work
of finding patterns of behaviors -- already know this.

>The most basic values of the escalable
>fantasy to he offender are 1) provision of control 2) disassociation from
>the victim/crime to support the superficial personality veneer & 3)
>provision for later reenactment and fantasy fueling.
>CONTROL--The fantasy provides an offender with a means of controlling
>a situation. As long as he can keep the world he creates with the victim
>true to his fantasy, he is in control.  Levin & Fox, [6]
>One such way to establish control is a fantasy theme of extended
>periods of victim degradation and devaluation.
>Disassociation [& control, etc.] is not an aberrant human characteristic.
>It is something that we all do  to some extent, like the careful superficial
>behavior many individuals exhibit with their co-workers vs. their
>emotional transparency with close family. Violent serial sex offenders
>merely carry a human self-protective behavior to an unhealthy extreme.
>Violent serial sex offenders are successful criminals.

Rapists & serial killers bring common themes -- fantasies of control &
domination, disassociation & superficiality, reenactment of acts in
fantasies -- that exist in a given historical period to their extremes.  No
surprise there.

In any case, in both studies, *gender* disappears from rape.

Yoshie