Deluding yourself into rape

I’ve met a few rapists in my time. We all have.

It’s estimated that about one in four Australian women will suffer a serious sexual assault at some time in her life. That figure comes from victim surveys and may be wrong, but we can be certain that police statistics massively underestimate the incidence of rape.

The overwhelming majority of rapes are not reported to authorities. Of those that are, less than a quarter result in an arrest and barely six percent in a conviction. When you consider the extra trauma a rape victim goes through if she reports and the unlikelihood that anyone will be imprisoned as a result it is pretty obvious why so few call the cops.

Statistics on rapists are harder to come by, but of those who are caught the majority look to be very infrequent offenders. Most rapists in Australian prisons have only ever been arrested for one incident of rape (though it will likely have resulted in multiple charges) and once released few convicted rapists are ever arrested for rape again – whether or not they undergo sex offender rehabilitation courses.

Though there are serial rapists, the popular view of rapists as intractable recidivists is largely a myth.

The other big myth about rapists is that they are malicious strangers lurking in alleys or sneaking in through bedroom windows at night.

The overwhelming number of rapes are committed by someone known to the victim. A ‘friend’, family member, partner or former partner, work colleague, etc.

It is almost certain that the vast majority of rapists are walking free, undetected and unsuspected by all except their victim. But that’s not as scary as it sounds because most will probably never do it again.

So if you have an average number of male friends, family members, acquaintances and colleagues then you know some rapists whether you realise it or not.

But that’s not what I meant when I said I’ve known a few rapists.

I mean that I know people I know are rapists, because they have been convicted in courts or called out by their victim and don’t deny it.

I used to do voluntary work with sex offenders and victims. It was a stupid thing to do because I didn’t really know what I was doing. I doubt I did anyone much good but I messed up my own head pretty badly.

Because I learned two really disturbing things.

The first thing I learned was how seriously rapists can damage their victims, even in the majority of cases where no extra violence or overt threats are involved. Not all the time, but a heck of a lot of the time. Probably more often than not. I’m not talking about their ‘feminine virtue’ here, but of their self-image and their ability to interact with other people – sexually or otherwise.

The second thing I learned was far worse and I learned it not from victims, but from offenders.

It’s the fact that rapists aren’t all that different from me.

I’ve written a few things about my sex offender work on this blog before.

One autobiographical piece refers to an incident between myself and a very close female friend who used to do the same sort of work as I.

Another details why I can’t look at myself in a mirror and say for certain I am not a sex offender.

The third is a fictionalised, compressed, composite of the stories several sex offenders told me. That’s the topic I’m returning to in this post.

As I mentioned above, most rapes are not violent – beyond the act of the rape itself. The offender does not beat the victim or threaten her with a weapon. The victim does not scream or fight back – beyond repeating “Please stop”, “No, don’t”, “I don’t want this” or just sobbing.

Often she is too shocked and frightened to fight back, too confused and ashamed to call for help. Sometimes she won’t even initially think of it as ‘rape’, blaming herself or finding other excuses for her rapist until the first wave of trauma has passed and realisation begins to sink in.

The rapist himself rarely sees it as rape – even if he is told in no uncertain terms it was. The first step in dealing with rape and rehabilitating victim and offender is usually to get the rapist to understand he is one – and that can be a very big step indeed.

Contrary to an oft repeated claim, reputable research¹ does not indicate most rapists plan to commit rape, though they often do intend to have sex. When they do commit it they will find all sorts of rationalisations as to why it wasn’t really rape. The obvious one is usually along the lines of ‘she was asking for it’ – but that phrase can hide a wide range of self-justifications.

Sometimes it’s used to mean ‘she was giving me the come on’ but all too often it reflects a profoundly misogynist mindset and actually means ‘she was getting out of line and needed to be put in her place’.

More than a dysfunctional expression of lust, rape is an oppressive expression of power.

The rapist may start out imagining that his advances are welcome – or would be if the victim would just relax and loosen up a bit – but the signs of rejection enrage him. It may be his sexual ego has been affronted but more likely it is that he thinks he has some kind of right to have his unwelcome advances tolerated. Maybe he thinks paying for dinner or buying a gift was part of an implicit transaction that should be repaid with sex, or maybe he just thinks he somehow ‘owns’ his victim.

But the rapists who really frightened me were the ones who seemed to honestly misread signs at the early stages then continued in a state of denial because to stop would have been tantamount to admitting they were committing a sexual assault.

It can be distressingly easy to misinterpret the passivity of shock for the passivity of acceptance and despite the anti-rape slogan ‘no means no’, the fact is some people do like to put up a token resistance to consensual sex.

Women in particular are often socially conditioned into the notion they cannot request sex and must instead be ‘dominated’ by the powerful sexual urges of men before they can ‘surrender’ to it. To do otherwise is to be ‘easy’ or a ‘slut’ and will cause their partner to lose respect for them. Fortunately this attitude is much less common in the West than it once was but it still exists and is still being reinforced by stereotypes in the media.

Having had experience with sexual partners like that and seen the trope so often in the media some men will assume all or most women expect to be ‘aggressively persuaded’ into having sex.

When the victim makes it clear the rapist’s behaviour is inappropriate and unwanted that can be when outraged denial kicks in. “I am not a rapist and I will prove it by continuing until she starts enjoying it”. In one conference I attended a rapist told a room full of shocked people “If she’s going to go around telling people I raped her anyway then I’d better give her something to complain about”.

It was the rapists who committed rape to prove they weren’t rapists who did my head in more than anyone else.

The thought that I am or could be a rapist was a horrifying one I had never confronted before and some of these men had been in exactly the same position as I. Some considered themselves gentlemen or even ‘feminists’ and the thought of being every woman’s worst nightmare was simply too much for them to bear. They would go to extreme lengths to deny it or to punish the person they felt was unjustly accusing them.

Under the wrong circumstances, could I have done the same?

So I started to deliberately confront the possibility I could become a rapist. Pretty soon I was wondering if I already was one.

I became afraid for my female friends. Afraid of my own sexuality and what I might do to protect my self image.

I became afraid of myself.

There are no excuses for rape.

Whether or not miscommunication was an important factor, I am pretty certain misogyny or the wish to control or dominate the victim is at the heart of most, if not all, rapes.

But how many of us can look deeply into ourselves and honestly say there is no misogyny or desire for power there?

How many of us are either rapists or rapists-in-waiting?

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(¹ Surveys of prisoners undergoing sex offender programs are generally not good sources of data about the attitudes and histories of sex offenders. Prisoners quickly learn they must agree with everything forensic psychologists suggest if they want a chance of eventual parole.)