[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Even if it were "all about power" as the majority of folks here emphasize, what does that mean, anyway? Are we talking about asserting dominance in a social group when we say it is about "power?" Doesn't that have an evolutionary basis too?Two points about the "power" exercised in rape: it's not 'power,' so much as 'power over.' In my estimation that's a long winded way of saying bullying. (Or in today's parlance, extreme bullying.)
The FBI profilers give the information that serial killers are "sexually aroused" when killing. Killing certainly qualifies as power over in the ultimate extreme. Serial killers and serial rapists seem cut from the same cloth.
For the victims, none of this palaver is worth doodely. What the adult victim feels is that some despicable creature really wants to be a monster and will stop at nothing. The victims are also scared witless since the SOB could kill them as well as rape them. He could also further torture them, then kill them. Whether the rapist has his sexual feelings engaged is immaterial. Rape is not entirely lizard brain behavior, it has the overlay of bullying. Theoretically, at least, animals, not having eaten of the fruit-of-the-tree-of-knowledge-of-good-and-evil, do not feel violated, tortured, horrified, frightened, disgusted, offended, or any other emotions victims express having felt.
I'd be willing to bet that rapists feel rageful and, as bullies, want to find a victim for their rage. Bullies do not set up fair arguments/fights with the persons they're angry with. They're too cowardly for that. They want a substitute, one who is not as strong, as big, and who can be caught off guard.
For Minneapolis victims and potential victims, the most important thing to know is that places like Phillips are portrayed as being places where people are more likely to be raped since, theoretically, Phillips has more violent bad actors than other neighborhoods. My point in all this is that rape can occur at home with all the doors and windows locked--and does, more frequently than we'd like to think. A parking ramp in Edina is no safer than a parking ramp in Phillips and there are no fewer occasions when it would be fairly easy for the rapist to rape and not be noticed by anyone other than the victim. Further, rapists plan to rape, then take the opportunity when it presents itself. Unlike stranger rape, a rapist known to the victim has an edge in that he can more easily maneuver a victim into a situation where he can get the upper hand. The difference between an Edina rapist and a Phillips rapist is more likely to be no more than economic status.
I would also say that all those instances in which males, in particular, engage is pinching fannies, feeling up girls and women furtively and not so furtively, calling women and girls by disgusting names and slang for body parts are also bullying and done just because, in this society, it has been acceptable behavior for males. That rather enlarges the number of potential rapists because these are all bullying behaviors, even if all men are not rapists.
WizardMarks, Central ________________________________
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