nods
Yes, the rapists have such distorted thinking that they’ve convinced themselves that they didn’t rape the woman…and not just a date rape misunderstanding sort of dealie. (I have to say that I think date rape while a legitimate problem is different from stranger/violent rape, since the motervations are different)
Granted it’s easy to understand why stuff like date rape happens since in our society women are socialized to go along with what guys want. But how the hell can something (since stranger rapists are not even HUMAN) that REALLY honestly violated a woman convince themselves that they didn’t really rape a woman?
Humans have a very high capacity to believe what they choose to believe. Hence the source of all the intractable conflicts of the world. When it comes to something involving the lower brain functions of violence, sex, power, gratification, etc., that capacity is nearly infinite.
Also, this is a self-selecting phenomonon. Precisely the people who are able to convince themsleves they’re not doing bad (or don’t care) are the ones who go on to do bad. They may only be 0.001% percent of the US population, but that’s still 15,000 bad men.
What is surprising to me is that this would be surprising to anyone.
I’m sure there are hard statistics of prisoners exonerated of rape with new dna tests.
It seems like a lot of the old rape convictions from the 1980’s and early 90’s often get cleared with modern dna testing. Some states are so embarrassed they’ve stopped allowing new testing on old cases or they just won’t consider a new court hearing.