It seems that everyone repeats the mantra that rape is based in hate and power rather than lust and the desire for sex. However, what is the proof for this thesis? As a man albeit not a rapist it is my opinion that women vastly under estimate the strength of the male sex drive and the extent to which it drives their behavior.
It’s not something everyone repeats around here, actually. Personal experience tells me it may be about power sometimes, but definitely not all the time. I’m not sure the sex drive is at the root of the misunderstanding.
Personally I feel that it is an issue of power not lust because of reading interviews with various psychologically damaged people (including rapists.) Also, logically, lust is a desire to have sex, however rape is not sex just like masturbation is not.
Grabbing a girl suddenly while you’re drunk and can’t control your lust (just to snap out of it as soon as she shrieks) is a hell of a long way from stalking your old girlfriend who dumped you and raping her. (Most rapists know their victim.) Stalk + rape has zero to do with lust.
I would also point out that serial rapists who have been chemically castrated will get out of jail and start raping women with broomhandles and such.*
- According to Andrew Vachss
I don’t think all rapes are equal. Certainly, I think it’s fair to say that most date rape at least begins in sexual desire and not in power/hatred.
Beyond that I’ll leave it to wiser/more knowledgeable heads to speculate.
Lust doesn’t leave torn & avulsed flesh around the breasts & reproductive organs very often, you know.
I don’t know about “hate” but rape is definitely about power over another person and not about lust. And I can prove it: There’s a cure for lust. It’s called jerking off. Masturbating, spanking the monkey, choking the chicken, whatever you want to call it, it’s 100% effective for temporary relief from lustful feelings. And it’s much, much easier than raping somebody. Your body doesn’t know the difference between an orgasm you give yourself and one another person gives you. Therefore, the only reason to rape somebody instead of getting your own self off is the sense of power over that person. I defy anyone to come up with another reason. I’m confident that nobody can.
a) It’s not the kind of statement that’s readily falsifiable under laboratory conditions or anything. Someone said it, it rang true for a lot of people (especially after additional elaboration, such as you’re reading in this thread already). It may not ring true for you, but I doubt that you can prove or disprove it (or its converse) either.
b) Someone — I think it might have been author Timothy Beneke in Men on Rape — said something like “It’s often asserted that rape is not about sex, but in a world where so much of actual sex and portrayed sex is about domination, conquest, humiliation, and power, you could by the same logic state that a lot of sex is not about sex. Or, to put it another way, that rape has a lot to do with sex as sex exists in our patriarchal culture.” That’s not verbatim but that’s the gist of it, and he’s got a good point.
c) Rape tends to be accompanied by a lot of (additional) violence, violence that (unlike the rape itself) can’t be explained away as the results of lust, violence quite aside from and in addition to that necessary to subdue the rape victim in order to accomlish the rape. There’s also a lot of verbal assault and activity designed to humiliate and hurt and express contempt.
d) Rapists interviewed tend to express a sense of entitlement or lack of concern for the wishes of others in satisfying their own, and/or active anger towards women and defensive justification for raping them as if it were a retaliatory measure.
e) I do not think any degree of sexual appetite would lead a male who actually likes female people to rape one of them. My opinion.
f) Read what cuauhtemoc said above. What exactly is sexual appetite an appetite for? If it’s just an appetite for orgasm, why would it urge guys to seek out sex with women when we can just masturbate? And yet, if it’s more than that, you need to explore and define the concept in order to explain how it can lead to rape. Does sexual appetite work in combination with anger or hatred of women, (or with a dont-give-a-shit sense of smug entitlement for that matter), to cause rape? Maybe. But to attribute rape to horniness as a simple case just doesn’t cut it.
I think power is definitely a part of some and maybe even most rape. However, I don’t think it is the primary motivation. You guys are seriously underselling lust. I can remember as a young teen masturbating until my manhood was raw with my hand. After that got boring I looked for other materials, vegetables, toilet paper rolls anything to increase the excitement. I even graduated to anal penetration while smoking cigs, and masturbating before I found a girlfriend. Listen to what people like Jeff Dahmer and Ted Bundy said and they will tell you that it started with porn and masturbation and in their case graduated ultimately to eating the victims and doing dead bodies. It’s all the same game, namely lust. Its just that most of us find a happy medium somewhere between our right hands and death row. Lust can be like a drug except rather than kilos its currency is excitement, danger, and variety. If I had a dime for every time I wanted a woman out of lust I might be able to afford a membership here. Its only the thought of hurting someone, then going to prison and possibly suffering some eternal punishment that stops me. Its the same thing that stops me from robbing someone for their money. Unfortunately, some people don’t care so much about hurting people, going to prison or even Hell. In those cases robbery and rape are possible avenues to acquire their needs. Lust, like cocaine is a powerful drug.
My hypothesis is testable. If rape is about sex then rape rates should be markedly lower in places where cheap, legal prostitution is available. Is this in fact the case, I really don’t know.
And just where is there such a thing as “cheap, legal prostitution?” I mean, in order that your theory can be tested?
But whatever the cost, or lack thereof, sex is readily available morst places. So a guy who breaks into a house at night and rapes the woman who’s alone there, in not out for sex per se, but for power and violence.
Personally, I think anyone who avoids rape only because he’s afraid of going to jail, and really doesn’t CARE if it hurts a woman has problems that aren’t about lust.
If you are going to insult me then at least read what I post correctly. I said if it were not for not wanting to hurt someone and go to jail and go to hell then rape would be a viable option. Besides the issue is not whether or not I’m a saint or the next Ted Bundy. Rather we are discussing the relevence and accuracy of the common pronouncment that rape is based in power and hate rather than lust.
I’m sorry, I didn’t necessarily mean you. However, it seems like you are saying, “Well, see, yeah, rape is bad, but LUST is just so powerful, that someone might not care!”
A lot of rapists are getting off on the fact that they DO harm their victims. Some deviants like Bundy and such, usually can only achieve orgasm BY harming someone.
Yes they are sick fXXXX’s in my opinion who need to face either life in prison or death. Its just that I think a good deal of rape (and certain types of murder) are lust rather than power based.
As for cheap legal prostitution I’m not sure either. Let me throw out some candidates and those of you more informed than I can tell me how their rape rate compare. Canada, Germany, India, Thailand, some areas of The Down Under, Phillapines especially around Luzon. Is rape in these areas as common as it is here? How about Nevada? It’s not cheap, but prostitution is at least available. Of course Las Vegas with its round the clock drinking, is a huge confounding factor since there are many more opportunities for date rape scenarios. How about the rape rates for Nevada exclusive of Vegas? I would bet that the Nye County rape and sexual assault rate is less than what you might expect for a compariable demographic area. Of course it can be argued that prostitution also trivializes women and makes men more likely to assault them (the same can also be said of certain video games, music et). It may be that the trvialization aspect of prostutution is sufficient to overcome any benefit offered as a sexual lust outlet in terms of rape reduction.
Prostitution is not legal in the Philippines, though I have to admit that it is prevalent in some areas. I’m not sure if the incidence of rape is higher here, but basing solely on news reports (I know…this is so un-scientific), I would say that it’s the same.
I covered a few rape trials in my reporter days.
Explain to me exactly where lust comes in when a man breaks into a 75 year old woman’s home, starts stealing whatever he can find and, when she wakes up, binds her, gags her, rapes her and kills her.
The case you allude to clearly points to one where lust may be less of a factor over power. On the other hand the offender may have seen the older lady as a lust target of opportunity. I know many men who look a porn for instance involving old people and even “little people”. Again, I think you are looking at lust through the eyes of a normal healthy person. Instead, you need to envision lust from the perspective of those that society would call perverted, sick and demented. For me lust may involve a voluptuous thirty year old woman for Michael Jackson it may mean something else, and for the type of person you describe something entirely different.
Are you claiming that all orgasms are the same?
I don’t either, but regardless I think you’re oversimplifying. The kind of person who is willing to sex with an unwilling partner may not the kind of person who rationally weighs his options - “hmm… I’m horny. Should I have sex with a prostitute, or just find someone I already know and take advantage of them? Or grab a stranger? What are the various pluses and minuses?”
And there are other potential disincentives to visiting prostitutes, like the risk of disease or simple social pressures.
It seems as though this discussion has focused mainly on stranger rape; what about date rape?
I’ve never thought that rape was about lust; too many very ugly conclusions would follow (imo). It smacks of Camille Paglia ‘men’s sex drive is powerful, animalistic and uncontrollable; women find that intensity attractive; when it gets out of control (date rape) you shouldn’t be surprised since you were playing with fire. Rape is just another permutation of that intensity of desire.’ Such an argument (and the OP’s) seem to be predicated on men being unable to control their drives (I emphasize men because I can’t think of an analagous uncontrollable drive for women, excluding mental illness). That’s pretty damn insulting, I think.
Most men do control their desires and therefore don’t commit rape. I also don’t see how saying that rape is often a function of lust is any more or less insulting than saying that rape is a function of power and domination. I base my hypothesis on my first hand experience as a man, and my observations and conversations with many other men. I simply believe it to be a better explanation for much if not most rape than the rape is about power explanation. Many if not most men will if they are honest and introspective tell you that their desire for sex has profoundly influenced multiple aspects of their behavior at various points in their life.