Audrey, below is an alternative perspective on the subject.
--ED
PS: I hold no position on this issue yet.
Politics of Rape:
Debunking the Feminist Myth
By Trayce Hansen, Ph.D.
"Rape isn't about sex!" That's what feminists proclaim.
And they've declared it so continuously and persuasively over the
last few decades, most of our society have come to believe it. The fact
is, it's not trueit's a myth.
Rape used to be considered an act of sexual assault"sexual"
being the operative wordperpetrated by a man of weak moral
character and criminal inclination. But this commonsense truth has been
replaced with a politically-motivated myth that has had long-reaching,
negative effects on both rape victims and society.
The politicization of rape, and the denial of truth it required, was
spearheaded by feminists in the early 1970s. Since then they've
worked diligently to transform the way society views rape. Specifically,
feminists want rape to be seen as a politically motivated crime rather
than a sexually motivated one. And, to a significant extent they've
been successful in their effort.
Susan Brownmiller first popularized the politicized view of rape in her
1975 book Against Our WillMen, Women and Rape. The back cover of
Brownmiller's feminist tome boldly states "it [rape] is not a
crime of lust but of violence and power." Brownmiller's
contention, however, as well as the rape-isn't-about-sex myth it
helped propagate, had more to do with ideological goals and political
expediency than logic and scientific fact.
The feminists' re-defining of rape was, in part, a philosophical
necessity because of their belief in the interchangeability of personal
and political experiences (i.e., the personal is political). But there
were other reasons as well.
Feminism's political redefinition of rape was driven by three basic
ideological tenets, and, more critically, by one strategic decision.
First is feminism's ideological belief in "secular
creation," a view held by many on the left that presumes man is born
a blank slate, only becoming that which his culture teaches him to
become. Hence, rapists are societal creations whose tendencies can be
eradicated once the "culture of rape" is eradicated. Next is
feminism's ideological belief that all male-female interactions
must, by definition, be viewed through the lens of power and domination.
Naturally then, rape also must be seen through this distorted prism.
Third is the feminists' denial of any difference between male and
female sexuality, because, in their lexicon, different means inferior.
Thus, since these feminist women couldn't identify in themselves a
sexual urge to rape, then rape by men must also be other than sexually
motivated. Finally, and most importantly, feminists strategically
concluded that if rape was perceived as motivated "only" by sex,
then it would be of limited political value, but if instead rape was
seen as motivated by male desire to dominate and control women, then it
could be used as a powerful political tool for radical cultural change.
Specifically, feminists decided that if they could convince society that
male domination was the rapist's true motivation, then the end of
rape would necessarily require an end to the traditional patriarchal
culture said to support that domination. Rape would become the symbolic
sword that radical feminists hoped would help them slay what they
perceived as the evil dragon of "traditional" culturetheir
ultimate sociopolitical objective.
But feminism's ultimate sociopolitical objective is tragically
ironic, because it is living in a traditional patriarchal family that
most protects young women from the likelihood of rape, and young men
from the likelihood of becoming rapists. To put it simply, a young
woman's vulnerability to rape is greatly reduced if she lives with a
father or husband, and a young man is far less likely to become a rapist
if he grows up with a father in his home. Yet radical feminists
apparently won't allow this truth to impinge upon their political
agenda. Because, to paraphrase nationally syndicated radio talk show
host Dennis Prager, feminists' psychological animus towards men,
more than their love and care of women, is what most ignites their
sociopolitical passions.
Society's passions, however, must be ignited by truth. Even though
the raping behavior of a specific individual likely involves a complex
intertwining of motivations, the one common and overriding motivation of
all rapists is sexual. So let's examine some commonsense and
empirical truths about rape that debunk the feminist
rape-isn't-about-sex myth and support the contention that rape is
about sex.
First, rape is universal; it's universal across time, across
cultures and societies, and even across many species. This fact is
clearly validated by data in biologist Randy Thornhill and
anthropologist Craig T. Palmer's book A Natural History of Rape:
Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion. Specifically, Thornhill and
Palmer's documentation supports the contention that no rape-free
human society has ever existed and that many non-human animal species do
engage in raping behaviors. If rape were an act promoted or encouraged
by specific patriarchal or political environments, as feminists assert,
it's inconceivable that rape would be found in all societies
throughout recorded time. Similarly, if rape were an act solely
dependent upon patriarchal cultural learning, one would find it
difficult to explain the prevalence of raping behaviors among animal
species (other than homo-sapiens) without such a cultural influence.
Rape's universality thus emphasizes the point that rape is
"natural," though obviously not good, and that it isn't
created by any particular sociopolitical environment.
Second, the behaviors and motives of rapists are comparable to that of
other criminal types and, when analyzed in this straightforward manner,
the sexual motivation of rapists becomes apparent. Consider this. If a
criminal sees your money and wants it, he takes it. If a criminal sees
your car and wants it, he takes it. If a criminal sees you and wants you
sexually, he takes you. These are amongst the immoral tendencies of
criminalsthey take what they want with a callous disregard for
their victims. If you ponder the fundamental motivation behind these
various criminal acts, a parallel analogy holds true. The mugger is
motivated by his desire for your money, the car thief by his desire for
your car, and the rapist by his desire for you sexually. The primary
motives of all criminal types, including rapists, are easily
discernableno conspiratorial explanations are necessary.
Third, most rapists use only enough force to accomplish their goal of
sexual access. If a rapist's goal was other than sex, such as a
desire to inflict violence upon his victim, why do most rapists not
inflict high degrees of physical injuries on their victims? They
certainly have the opportunity to do so. In 1991, Lee Ellis of Minot
State University reported that studies of "date" rapists clearly
demonstrate that these men try many tactics first (i.e., encouraging
intoxication, professing love, verbally pressuring) before they resort
to physically coercive tactics. Based on these particular facts it must
be concluded that, at least for "date" rapists, a desire to have
sex is the motivating factor, and only after exhausting less coercive
tactics did these rapists resort to physical domination. As an aside, a
small minority of rapists are sadistic and therefore are additionally
motivated by a desire to violently aggress against, dominate, and
humiliate their victims. But sadistic rapists are the exception and not
the rule and are readily differentiated from most rapists by their
tendency to mete out more violence than is necessary to subdue their
victim. The majority of rapists, however, both stranger and
"date," use only enough aggression to accomplish their sexual
goal. This is where feminists and others have become "confused";
they've obscured the distinction between the tactics used and the
goals sought during rape. For the vast majority of rapists, aggression
and control are simply the means to the end, the end being sexual
access.
Fourth, a desire for sexual access is the only motive underlying rape
that's both necessary and sufficient. In contrast to this assertion,
Palmer and Thornhill point out that the feminist theory of rape holds
that it's a non-sexual motive that is both necessary and sufficient.
But are any of the motives feminists posit (i.e., political oppression,
violent domination, control, etc.) both necessary and sufficient? Ask
yourself the following questions (although you can substitute any
motivation for the one chosen as an example): Is it necessary for a man
to have a desire to politically oppress a woman before he can rape her?
Is a rapist's political motive, in the absence of any sexual motive,
sufficient for a rape to occur? The answer to both of these questions is
no!
On the other hand, it is necessary for a man to have some type of sexual
desire before he can rape. And a rapist's sexual motive, even in the
absence of all other motives, is sufficient for a rape to occur. Some
desire for sexual access is always necessary during rape and is even
sufficient unto itself; no other motive is both.
Fifth, demographic data on rapists and rape victims point to a sexual
motive underlying rape. The majority of rapists are men between their
teens and 20s, a time of life during which men are the most sexually
driven. Next, consider the fact that the majority of rape victims are
between the ages of 16 and 24, the age group in which women are
considered the most sexually attractive. The result of this analysis is
straightforward; the men who are most sexually driven are the ones most
likely to rape and they're most likely to rape women who are
generally considered to be the most sexually attractive. Additionally,
according to data in Thornhill and Palmer's book A Natural History
of Rape, rapists are more likely to engage in penile-vaginal
intercourse, as well as in multiple acts of intercourse, when the victim
is in this most-sexually-attractive age category. Coincidence? Does
anyone really believe that if a rapist were offered a roomful of women
from which he could select a rape victim, that every women in that room
(old and young, ugly and beautiful, thin and fat) would have an equal
chance of being "selected"? Of course not!
Sixth, most rapists themselves say that sex was the motivating factor
underlying their crimes. Professor Lee Ellis of Minot State University
wrote, "Even among rapists who victimize strangers, self-reports
have given little indication that their real objective is to dominate
their victims (or women generally), except to the extent that doing so
aids in gaining copulatory access." Thornhill and Palmer concur with
Professor Ellis and specifically mention a doctoral dissertation
authored by S. Smithyman that found 84% of rapists reported that sex, in
whole or part, was the motivating force behind their actions.
Contradictory research, often referred to by feminists, which claims
that rapists report power and control as their motivation, frequently
contain serious flaws. For example, many were done with incarcerated
rapists, or other rapists who'd already been "re-educated"
to give the "correct" response, while still others were done
with rapists who may have believed that proclaiming a non-sexual motive
was more likely to lead to their being deemed enlightened and thus
"cured." Although self-reporting is by definition biased, the
least confounded proclamations by rapists supports the contention that
sex is the driving force behind the act of rape.
Finally, and perhaps most empirically supportive of the hypothesis that
sex is the fundamental motivation behind rape, are the results of
surgical and chemical castration research.
John Bradford, M.D. authored a chapter in Sexual Deviance: Theory,
Assessment, and Treatment where he summarized results of surgical
castration research. Although surgical castration studies are
unreplicatable today due to "ethical" considerations, they are
theoretically important because, as Bradford writes, surgical
castration's "mechanism of action
is the reduction of
plasma testosterone, the principal hormone for the maintenance of sexual
behavior in males and the hormone involved in sexual drive."
Surgical castration studies therefore can shed considerable light on the
degree to which a rapist's sex drive is involved in his raping
behavior. Bradford reviewed several studies that examined both pre- and
post-surgical castration recidivism rates of sexual deviants, mostly
rapists and child molesters. The results of these studies (which
included large numbers of subjects over long periods of time) reported
significant reductions in sex offender recidivism rates ranging from
more than 70% precastration to under 5% postcastration. Regardless of
how one looks at it, these are truly impressive success rates and do
indeed offer illuminating clarity.
A fair amount of research has also analyzed the effects of chemical
castration on rapists and other sexual offenders. Chemical castration
works similarly to surgical castration through its impact on male sexual
hormone levels. Professor Lee Ellis wrote that "Various [chemical
castration agents] have been shown to reduce testosterone and thereby
diminish self-reported libido in men
including men involved in
various sex offenses." Thornhill and Palmer described results of
other long-term chemical castration studies specifically done with
rapists and wrote there is "considerable evidence to suggest that
[chemical castration agents] reduce sexual crimes." John Bradford
summarized the whole of chemical castration research by writing
"Long-term outcome studies have shown that [chemical castration]
reduces sexual offender recidivism and compares favorably with the
surgical castration studies."
Results of both the surgical and chemical castration research
demonstrate that when the sexual drive of rapists is dramatically
reduced, the likelihood that they will rape again is dramatically
reduced. Sexual drive must therefore be considered the motivating force
underlying the behavior of those rapists.
Ashamedly, most feminists do not support the use of any type of
castration for rapists. This isn't surprising because to support
castration would necessitate admitting that rape is sexually driven.
This incredible fact once again points out that radical feminists allow
their ideological agenda to trump scientific evidenceeven if the
application of that science would help protect other women from rape.
But what of the "evidence" gathered by feminists and other
so-called social scientists in support of their
rape-isn'tabout-sex hypothesis? Two psychology professors at
the University of Texas in Austin, Del Thiessen and Robert Young,
decided to take a look. Professors Thiessen and Young analyzed the bulk
of this literature and reported their findings in a 1994 issue of the
journal, Society. Their analysis of 1,610 abstracts of sexual coercion
studies (with sexual coercion defined as rape, date rape, acquaintance
rape, sexual harassment, sexual abuse, and incest) published between
1982 and 1992, revealed unscientific and politically biased studies. For
instance, Thiessen and Young reported that only 10 percent of the
studies they analyzed had sought to uncover the causes or motivations of
sexual coercion, often because the "cause" (i.e., male
oppression) had been assumed, though not proven. They also found that
only 1.5 percent of the studies examined had even applied a statistical
test to a research question. And, significant due to their near complete
absence (.002 percent), were studies that addressed biological issues
because, as the authors noted, biological theories are considered taboo
in the feminist world because they call into question foundational,
ideological tenets of feminism. Perhaps most tragic was Thiessen and
Young's observation that little or no progress had been made in
understanding sexual coercion because of the unscientific nature of the
overwhelming majority of studies in this area.
In a scathing summary of their analysis, Theissen and Young wrote
"The possibility exists that feminist interests enforce the
orientation of published studies
and reflects the political
perspectives of its advocates.
There is a near-total disregard for
rigorous testing of hypotheses, quantification of data and possible
biological mechanisms. Many studies appear anti-scientific in
conception, execution, and interpretation.
But in the politicized
arena of `women's issues,' social expressions are valued
beyond scientific progress."
Theissen and Young's comprehensive analysis revealed the fact that
the vast majority of sexual coercion studies are more ideological
proselytizing than they are scientific analysis of research hypotheses.
Charles Leslie of the University of Delaware made similar observations
when he wrote of the social sciences in general, "Non social
scientists generally recognize the fact that the social sciences are
mostly ideological, and that they have produced in this century a very
small amount of scientific knowledge.
Our claim to being
scientific is one of the main intellectual scandals of the academic
world." So not only have feminists and their social science
compatriots blurred the line between the personal and the political,
they've also blurred the line between ideology and science. This
blurring may be good for promoting the feminist agenda but it's
anathema to scientific discovery and truth finding.
When the commonsense and empirical evidence concerning rape motivation
are examined in their entirety, without the distorting lens of a
political agenda, it's quite difficult to conclude that rape is
anything but an act principally motivated by sex. This conclusion is not
good or badit's just inescapably true!
It's obvious, then, that radical feminists aren't believers in
truth; they're "true believers." Even though routinely
confronted with contradictory logic and objective data concerning the
motivation of rapists, the feminists' fanatic faith never seems to
falter. That's because their faith, like that of all "true
believers," emanates emotionally and psychologically rather than
intellectually. Moreover, as radicals, these feminists believe that
their end justifies their means. Hence, if erroneous myths must be
promulgated in order to bring an end to the traditional patriarchal
culture they despise, then so be it.
The goal of a moral society, as opposed to that of radical feminists,
must be the search for truth. This is why our society can't allow
the feminist sociopolitical agenda to blind us to the fundamental truth
of the causes and motivation underlying rape. Rape is not a political
act of male domination and patriarchal control, as feminists
conspiratorially allege. It's a heinous act rooted in sexual desire
that's perpetrated by an immoral, criminally-inclined individual.
Radical feminists, and misguided others, obviously have the right to
despise traditional culture and to wish to vanquish it. But, like the
rest of us, they must make their case in an up-front manner, employing
intellectual and moral persuasion and not, as they've been doing for
nearly three decades, through the backdoor with fear-mongering,
gender-baiting, and pseudo-scientific mythmaking. It's long past
time to debunk once and for all the destructive rape-isn't-about-sex
myth propagated by radical feminists and shed much needed light on what
appears to be their real agendathe toppling of traditional culture.
REFERENCES
Bradford, J. (1997). In Laws, D.R., & O'Donohue, W. (Eds.), Sexual
Deviance: Theory, Assessment, and Treatment. (pp.449-464).
Brownmiller, S. (1975). Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape.
Ellis, L. (1991). A synthesized (biosocial) theory of rape. Journal of
Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 59(5), 631-642.
Leslie, C. (1990). Scientific racism: Reflections on peer review,
science and ideology. Social Science and Medicine, 31(8), 891-912.
Theissen, D., & Young, R.K. (1994). Investigating sexual coercion.
Society, 60(March/April), 60-63.
Thornhill, R. & Palmer, C.T. (2000). A Natural History of Rape:
Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion. Massachusetts: Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.
http://www.drtraycehansen.com/Pages/writings_politics.html
<http://www.drtraycehansen.com/Pages/writings_politics.html>
###
--- In [email protected], Edgar Owen <edgarowen@...> wrote:
>
Rape is primarily about satisfying sexual desire when it can't be
achieved otherwise. Complete power over a woman can be a very strong
aphrodisiac. Especially where violence or injury is involved it can also
be combined with the man's desire for revenge against women for
perceived psychological injury previously suffered at the hands of a
woman or women in general by the rapist.
Edgar
Hi Audrey -
Yours is an assertion that conforms to the usual feminist position. It
may be true or it may not. Has the truth of the assertion been confirmed
by say neurophysiologists and neuropsychologists?
Thanks, ED
--- In [email protected]
</group/Zen_Forum/post?postID=n1B_xW4QPj6GhI8I9qFROnJ44a0x_KpCGNrVhsDsQq\
y-hUwTjyDXAiTrZwjo653dcyaiFCiNKNV6jklP-vmXoIr-> , "audreydc1983"
<audreydc1983@...> wrote:
>
> I will beg to differ on one point: Rape has little to do with sexual
desire. It is about power, control, and victimization.
> Those of us who believe sex is a natural product of lust, sexual
desire, and love often will assume that rape, since it is a sexual act,
is associated in some way with these feelings.
> This assumption couldn't be further from the truth. If there is any
desire in rape, it is the desire to control/victimize.
>
> ~Audrey
