# Does your gut say that violent rapists should be executed? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 27, 2009, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-your-gut-say-that-violent-rapists-should-be-executed/504487 "2009-07-27T22:03:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![PatriotGrrrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9dc877/32.png) [@PatriotGrrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotGrrrl)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-your-gut-say-that-violent-rapists-should-be-executed/504487/101 "2009-07-30T23:12:51Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Even my gut won’t go that far. Isn’t it a license to commit murder? (Unless you simply mean to say that defending oneself against rape should be a defense against a murder charge, with which I have no argument.) Where I live, it _is_. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-your-gut-say-that-violent-rapists-should-be-executed/504487/102 "2009-07-30T23:16:45Z")
> [@PatriotGrrrl](#): > > Where I live, it _is_. Oh, I think it is most places (I say based on virtually no data). I only took issue because of your usage of the word _execute_. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2009, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-your-gut-say-that-violent-rapists-should-be-executed/504487/103 "2009-08-01T14:51:27Z")
Personally I think kill them but make it slow and painfull,likewise kiddy fiddlers and people who mug/burgle old age pensioners. Scum like them have given up any rights that normal people are entitled to and they most likely realise this themselves even if bleeding heart do gooders haven’t. ---
**Author:** ![Chopper9760](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cdc98d/32.png) [@Chopper9760](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chopper9760)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2009, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-your-gut-say-that-violent-rapists-should-be-executed/504487/104 "2009-08-03T21:03:54Z")
My gut and indeed the rest of my body parts are in perfect agreement that rapists should be executed. ETA: Why do so many folks want them tortured? Dead is dead. ---
**Author:** ![AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-your-gut-say-that-violent-rapists-should-be-executed/504487/105 "2009-08-04T06:37:09Z")
> [@](#): > > I think that date rapists rape because they think they can get away with it, and maybe because they think it “doesn’t really” hurt the woman. Until they learn that they CAN’T get away with it, and that they WILL be held accountable, they won’t bother to learn communication skills. Why should they? They’re getting what they want! Lynn, I agree somewhat. There does seem to be a population of frat boy/Yah Dudes/generally fucked up sociopaths who have messed up ideals of sex. It’s hard to really quantify something like that…but I have to say I think both of us are right. I think there’s two forms of date rape…miscommunication AND frat boy entitlement. There’s a ton of miscommunication out there…and there’s also a ton of Yah Dudery/ sociopathic misogynetics (sp?) out there too. ---
**Author:** ![Carmady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f04885/32.png) [@Carmady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carmady)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-your-gut-say-that-violent-rapists-should-be-executed/504487/106 "2009-08-04T10:08:03Z")
No. My gut never tells me that anyone should be killed. Just locked up forever. However, my bias against killing does not mean I couldn’t be persuaded by logical arguments for execution. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-your-gut-say-that-violent-rapists-should-be-executed/504487/107 "2009-08-04T10:33:31Z")
> [@TWDuke](#): > > It occurs to me that “gutspeak” could be another word for “flatulence.” That’s because most of the time when you hear someone speaking from their gut, they’re talking out their ass. Case in point: Gut reaction is chemical castration and/or tattooing “RAPIST” on their forehead. Brain reaction is that it’s way too severe for a first offender. Second offense, however… ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-your-gut-say-that-violent-rapists-should-be-executed/504487/108 "2009-08-04T16:25:41Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#): > > Absolutely not. > > I personally find the idea of being sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole to be far more horrifying than the idea of being sentenced to death. so do I. I see the logic of adding to a life sentence some kind of physical hobbling so that others in prison cannot be harmed. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-your-gut-say-that-violent-rapists-should-be-executed/504487/109 "2009-08-05T03:19:09Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > That’s because most of the time when you hear someone speaking from their gut, they’re talking out their ass. > > Case in point: Gut reaction is chemical castration and/or tattooing “RAPIST” on their forehead. Brain reaction is that it’s way too severe for a first offender. Second offense, however… I don’t think (and I’m consulting my brain here, not my gut) that these options are too severe for a first offender. In fact, I think that tattooing “RAPIST” on someone’s forehead after his first rape conviction is a fine idea. I have to say, though, that I’ve been the attempted victim of a rapist twice. I take rape very seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-your-gut-say-that-violent-rapists-should-be-executed/504487/110 "2009-08-05T04:10:31Z")
Gut says yes, painfully. Good think my gut doesn’t run the show. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-your-gut-say-that-violent-rapists-should-be-executed/504487/111 "2009-08-05T04:14:49Z")
> [@villa](#): > > There is a similar result from acquaintance rape. Setting aside, for now, the fact that acquaintance rape can and often does involve equal levels of physical violence to stranger rape, studies show that victims of both kinds of rape suffer PTSD in comparable percentages. Acquaintance rape victims are more likely to blame themselves, more likely to be blamed/disbelieved by the network of friends and family they would otherwise rely on for support (as often that network will know the rapist), and more likely to consider the crime a betrayal of trust. Speaking of PTSD statistics, one thing I can add for the notion that rape IS in fact worse than any other sort of violent assault is the fact that one of the primary predicting factors of PTSD is whether the type of trauma is sexual assault. That is, if Group A experienced a non-sexual violent assault and Group B experienced childhood sexual abuse or rape, a larger percentage of people in Group B will have PTSD. This would seem to indicate that there is something particularly psychologically damaging about sexually based attacks. (I have a fantastic cite for this (a scholarly article, not online), which is on my other computer, and will provide it in the morning, I promise.) My gut says that violent rapists should be stopped from raping. There are so many motivations for sexual attacks, from sadism to good-old boy narcissism, it doesn’t really make sense to me to universally apply the same punishment. There is really no basis for the opinion that it would be easier on a hooker than a ‘‘respectable’’ woman. If there’s one thing I’ve learned studying PTSD it’s that it is extremely hard to predict how a given individual will handle a traumatic experience–there are so many factors–age, gender, race, civilian vs. military, instability of childhood, social support network immediately following the trauma (a HUGE one, probably one of the primary factors with the greatest effect size), severity of the assault, etc. It is not nearly as cut and dry and people are trying to make it here. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-your-gut-say-that-violent-rapists-should-be-executed/504487/112 "2009-08-05T05:01:39Z")
I think also that it must be harmful for a woman if she thinks that people just assume that the rape is no big deal for her. Like, if you know that people are thinking, “Well, she’s promiscuous/a prostitute,” it must be even worse because if you try to reach out for support, a lot of people will just assume you don’t need it. I think for that reason it’s important to be sympathetic to all rape victims and not think that it’s “less” for any person. As **olive** points out, it’s way too complicated. Only the victim of the crime knows how they really feel. ---
**Author:** ![AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-your-gut-say-that-violent-rapists-should-be-executed/504487/113 "2009-08-05T06:51:35Z")
> [@](#): > > My gut says that violent rapists should be stopped from raping. There are so many motivations for sexual attacks, from sadism to good-old boy narcissism, it doesn’t really make sense to me to universally apply the same punishment Very true. I have to say that I think violent rapists are not human at ALL! I’m sorry, but there’s just something beyond fucked up about someone who attacks someone that way. I mean…if someone went around physically assaulting someone, (especially someone random) they’d get put in an mental insistuion. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-your-gut-say-that-violent-rapists-should-be-executed/504487/114 "2009-08-05T09:37:53Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > I don’t think (and I’m consulting my brain here, not my gut) that these options are too severe for a first offender. In fact, I think that tattooing “RAPIST” on someone’s forehead after his first rape conviction is a fine idea. > > I have to say, though, that I’ve been the attempted victim of a rapist twice. I take rape very seriously. Without dismissing or diminishing your experience in any way, Lynn, I’m thinking that someone who rapes, is caught and convicted, serves his time and sins no more is a different sort of person from the one who does his time, is released and rapes again. The first may deserve a chance to start over after appropriate punishment, while the second is clearly an ongoing danger to society that no amount of jail time will fix. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-your-gut-say-that-violent-rapists-should-be-executed/504487/115 "2009-08-05T13:26:51Z")
My gut says no, and my brain agrees. Full disclosure - I’m a two-time rape victim. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-your-gut-say-that-violent-rapists-should-be-executed/504487/116 "2009-08-05T13:49:44Z")
> [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](#): > > Very true. I have to say that I think violent rapists are not human at ALL! I’m sorry, but there’s just something beyond fucked up about someone who attacks someone that way. I mean…if someone went around physically assaulting someone, (especially someone random) they’d get put in an mental insistuion. I understand your feeling, it’s just that personally I don’t feel it helps to generalize in situations like this. Generalizations about what a rapist/child molester is contribute largely to the issue of blaming the victim–time and time again victims of acquaintance rape or childhood abuse are perceived as lying because nobody is willing to accept that the attacker would do such a thing… because he seems so NORMAL, because he’s just a stand-up motherfucking guy. In their head they have twisted perceptions about the kind of people who commit these acts and why. It hurts society. That’s all I’m saying. This is why I think these ‘‘hang-em-high’’ threads can be damaging… because when little Suzy comes to you and tells you that Uncle Bobby felt her up on the living room sofa, your gut reaction is NOT to castrate Uncle Bobby – it’s that Uncle Bobby drives a pickup, makes a mean BBQ and attends church every Sunday, therefore he couldn’t possibly be this monstrous inhuman person Little Suzy claims he is. And Little Suzy gets the shaft. The question is how my gut feels. That’s how my gut feels. My gut instinct is not hatred or revenge. I’ve known too many people who are psychologically unwell to believe that there is one singular motivation for these kinds of crimes. Once it’s over, we have to figure out why it happened and how it can never happen again. That may or may not involve rehabilitation, institutionalization, or prison for life. Now, as promised, my citation on PTSD. \*\* Meta-Analysis of Risk Factors for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Trauma-Exposed Adults\*\* by Chris Brewin (University College London) Bernice Andrews and John D. Valentine (University of London.) This is a meta-analysis of 77 pre-existing articles intended to find out what factors, if any, were predictive of PTSD. The study made the attempt to compensate for a possible bias in the literature by calculating the number of opposing studies that would need to be unpublished to render the results invalid. For all factors except age at time of trauma (which, despite being statistically significant, showed as the least predictive factor all around), at least 150 unpublished opposing studies would need to exist in order to nullify the results of this meta-analysis. [QUOTE=Risk Factor Estimates] The three factors relating to events during and after the trauma (i.e., greater trauma severity, lack of social support, and more subsequent life stress) convey the strongest risk of PTSD, with effect sizes that are individually small to moderate in Cohen’s (1988) terms. Next, there was a group of demographic and prior history variables that had similar effect sizes in the range of .10 to .19, including female gender; lower SES; less education; lower intelligence; a positive psychiatric history; a reported history of abuse, other trauma, or childhood adversity; and a family psychiatric history. These individual effect sizes are generally regarded as small, according to Cohen. Finally, two variables, younger age at trauma and race (minority status), had effect sizes that were weaker still, although highly significant because of the large numbers involved. [/QUOTE] What this would seem to indicate is that of the top three factors examined as predictive of PTSD, _two_ of the influencing factors had no direct relation to the trauma itself – it would seem that a large part of whether or not someone will develop PTSD depends on their circumstances \*immediately following the trauma \*–whether or not they are experiencing other life adversity and whether they have a strong social support network. Given your average ‘‘innocent’’ 16 year old abducted off the street, and your prostitute who is raped by one of her prospective johns, who do you suppose is likely to have more social support? Who is more likely to have greater life adversity at the time of the incident? [QUOTE=Discussion] Other reasons why pretrauma variables do not appear to be powerful predictors of PTSD include the possibility that their effects are mediated by later aspects of the trauma or of the person’s response to the trauma. That is, their effects are distal rather than proximal, and their impact is diluted by one or more intervening variables. For example, it has been shown that the association between childhood abuse and later PTSD is mediated by the experience of shame (Andrews et al., 2000). Alternatively, several studies suggest that early trauma interacts with level of combat exposure to intensify the risk of PTSD (e.g., King, King, Foy, & Gudanowski, 1996). Together with the fact that the predictor variables so far identified are very general ones, these findings suggest that our understanding of vulnerability to PTSD is at an early stage. [/QUOTE] It is worth noting here that even among the top three variables, the effect sizes were only moderate. It is, at present, given the information we have, _extremely difficult_ to make generalizations about who is more likely to develop PTSD as a result of trauma. We know that subsequent factors play a larger role than pre-existing factors, we know that to varying degrees severity of trauma, gender, SES, etc. play into it, but we cannot with any great reliability look at a given person and predict whether or not they will be afflicted by PTSD. One factor, which is not evaluated in this study but which I, personally, find of particular interest, is treatment following the trauma. There is good evidence (much of it contained in the following article) to indicate that certain treatments intended to mitigate the effects of trauma (such as debriefing) actually increase the liklihood of PTSD. Now, to address the other issue, we move to **Does Early Psychological Intervention Prevent Posttraumatic Stress?** by Richard McNally, Richard A. Bryant and Anke Ehlers. [QUOTE=Exposure to Trauma and PTSD] Among traumatic stressors, those involving intentional acts of violence are especially likely to produce PTSD (Yehuda, 2002b). In one epidemiological survey, PTSD developed in 11.6% of respondents who had experienced a sudden injury or accident, but in 22.6% of those who had experienced physical assault and in 80% of female rape victims (Breslau et al., 1991). [/QUOTE] To me, that difference is striking. It would seem there is something about rape that makes it especially psychologically damaging. Taking into account what we also know, > [@](#): > > Breslau, Chilcoat, Kessler, Peterson, and Lucia found that men are more likely to be exposed to trauma than women, but that trauma-exposed women develop PTSD at twice the rate as do trauma-exposed men, mainly because exposure to criminal violence precipitates PTSD at a much higher rate in women than in men (35.7% vs. 6%). My wag is that the reason women are more likely to develop PTSD than men is because in the case of criminal violence, that trauma is more likely to be rape. Another factor may be that a woman, because the issue is rape vs. another type of criminal violence, will consequently have a harder time finding social support for what happened. I’m guessing the reason that rape is so godawful bad is because it drags in a number of those other factors that increase the risk of PTSD, such as the mediating effect of shame. But all of that is just my speculation. ---
**Author:** ![drm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e57/32.png) [@drm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drm)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-your-gut-say-that-violent-rapists-should-be-executed/504487/117 "2009-08-05T19:59:22Z")
Chemical Castration comes to mine. ---
**Author:** ![Chopper9760](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cdc98d/32.png) [@Chopper9760](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chopper9760)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-your-gut-say-that-violent-rapists-should-be-executed/504487/118 "2009-08-05T22:10:31Z")
A person who has raped another person is not worthy of rejoining society. Ever. Nor are they worth the tax dollars to imprison. Try, convict, kill, all in a timely fashion. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-your-gut-say-that-violent-rapists-should-be-executed/504487/119 "2009-08-05T23:05:43Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Without dismissing or diminishing your experience in any way, Lynn, I’m thinking that someone who rapes, is caught and convicted, serves his time and sins no more is a different sort of person from the one who does his time, is released and rapes again. The first may deserve a chance to start over after appropriate punishment, while the second is clearly an ongoing danger to society that no amount of jail time will fix. I don’t care if the first guy never rapes (or gets caught at it) again. He’s used up ALL of his chances, as far as I’m concerned. He deserves nothing less than death. I’ll be content if he gets life, though, as long as it’s truly life. Your statement implies that he gets less than a life sentence, too, in “serves his time”, and I’m only OK with a life sentence if it means that the rapist (or any criminal who is sentenced to life) has to spend the rest of his life in prison, and dies there. Remember, I was only the ATTEMPTED victim of two rapes, I was able to fight my way free. It really traumatized me, it changed my whole life in very bad ways. I don’t know if I could have survived an actual rape. And yeah, both guys got away with it, I didn’t know them, I couldn’t even describe them very well. Who knows how many teens either of them were successful with? ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-your-gut-say-that-violent-rapists-should-be-executed/504487/120 "2009-08-06T03:08:19Z")
No. I simply can’t get into a mindset where someone deserves to be executed. Locked up forever, sure; that’s protecting the innocent public. But execution is vengeful, and I don’t quite understand it, on a gut level. Possibly this is due to extreme innocence myself, in which case I’d like to stay innocent, thankyouverymuch. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-your-gut-say-that-violent-rapists-should-be-executed/504487.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-your-gut-say-that-violent-rapists-should-be-executed/504487.md?page=7)