The Roots Of Sexual Violence

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

The topic of sexual violence is very difficult, and if a lot is said about the victims, about their psychology, about what to do, how to act when faced with violence, then about who are these men who commit such acts and what are the reasons leading there is little information about such antisocial behavior. What factors contribute to the fact that a person commits such a crime? After all, understanding these factors is very important for society, for parents raising sons, because it is the family and society that to a greater extent form in a person certain inclinations and preferences.

Domestic and foreign scientists have established that the bulk of rapes are committed by men who had a constant opportunity to satisfy their sexual need. Moreover, many of them were married at the time of the crime and their family relations were even outwardly prosperous. Therefore, when determining the psychological causes of rape, one should immediately reject the unfounded claim that regular sex life of married men significantly prevents crime. So why do some men take the path of sexual violence, criminally neglecting a woman's sexual freedom? Let's try to figure it out.

There are several models for the scientific explanation of sexual abuse: psychiatric, feminist, evolutionary, and social learning.

The psychiatric model interprets sexual violence as an act of aggression, through which a man expresses his hatred of a woman. He takes revenge on her for the trauma she experienced (most often in childhood) associated with his humiliation or suppression by a particular woman, for example, his mother. The motivation for violence in this regard extends to women in general, but the trigger can be someone or something that has caused similar experiences.

The feminist model explains sexual violence as the act of a man demonstrating the superiority and power of the male class over the female class, especially in a situation where a woman somehow refutes this theory. (domineering, overwhelming, higher in status)

The evolutionary model is based on the Darwinian concept of the development of the animal world and the improvement of adaptation mechanisms (including reproduction). According to this model, sexual violence is a reproductive strategy for the behavior of males, it seeks to fertilize as many women as possible, since, perhaps, some of the offspring will not survive. According to this model, modern men who commit sexual violence are motivated by some atavistic instinct that has not faded away from them, genetically inherited from ancient ancestors.

The social learning model, on the other hand, asserts that the desire for aggression and violence against women is not inherent in the human psyche from birth. It is the result of assimilating various behavioral models demonstrated in life, in films, and on television. In an act of sexual violence, the abuser and his victim behave in accordance with the learned stereotype of sexual relations.

Obviously, each of the models carries a grain of truth, but none of them has yet been able to fully explain the psychological roots of rape. What patterns of sexual abuse are best supported by experimental material? To answer this question, let us turn to the analysis of some empiricism.

Yu. M. Antonyan, V. P. Golubev and Yu. N. Kudryakov conducted a psychological study of 158 convicted of rape with the help of SMIL. As control groups, we used the results of studies of law-abiding citizens (350 people) and those convicted of other crimes (344 people), performed using the same method.

What conclusions did Yu. M. Antonyan and his colleagues?

one. Rape, like many other types of violent crimes, is predetermined by the presence of the following personal qualities in a person: impulsivity, affective rigidity, social alienation, high levels of anxiety, adaptation disorders, defects in legal awareness and regulation of their behavior.

2. The psychological content of rape is the desire of a man to establish himself in relation to a woman. Very often, this crime is generated to a lesser extent by sexual motives, and more by motives of self-affirmation. This tendency should be considered as a consequence of a disturbed identification with a traditionally understood male role, male qualities.

3. It is important to emphasize that rape, in the light of the available data obtained from SMIL, is clearly compensatory. There may be a subjectively unsolved problem behind the crime of striving for overt dominance in relation to a woman. It consists in the fact that a man unconsciously feels a tendency towards an opposite in content, essentially female behavior (subordinate, passive, etc.), which he seeks to overcome in himself, most often unconsciously, in order to correspond to subjective ideas about male roles and qualities … Such representations and the behavior generated by them are formed in the process of socialization of the individual.

4. Interpretation of the results of the use of SMIL in relation to the perpetrators of rape suggests that the rapists have a reduced potential for sympathy, empathy, compassion and the desire to understand another person. Only physical actions and deeds are personally significant for them. They cannot be aware of the motives for their actions. They are not given the right to assess the actions of others.

Examination of rapists by the method of K. Makhover "Drawing of a Man", conducted by Yu. M. Antonyan and his colleagues made it possible to establish the presence of the following psychological qualities and reactions in this category of criminals.

1. In the drawings of the rapists, the woman looks older than the man. The female figure is depicted as more massive and more active than the male. The drawings reflect the subordinate, dependent position of the rapist in relation to the woman, his self-doubt in the aspect of the relationship with her.

Describing the plots of their drawings, the rapists give them the following interpretation: “The son begs his mother for money, but she does not give him; a teenager tries to get to know a woman, but is afraid to do so; the wife scolds her husband, and he promises to correct her; a wife who keeps her husband in a fist, and he is trying to establish relations with her in a peaceful way."

We can say that the generalized image of a woman is perceived by the perpetrators of rape as hostile, aggressive, and dominant. On this basis, they develop an inferiority complex. The psychological impairment of the offender is compensated for by violent sexual intercourse.

2. Perpetrators of rape usually lack a clear understanding of traditional male and female stereotypes of behavior. In their understanding, the relationship between a man and a woman is mainly limited only to sexual functions. That is why their desire to dominate a woman is limited to the violent implementation of sexual intercourse.

3. The figures show the strong fixation of their authors on the sexual sphere, the affectively negative coloring of sexual representations, their perverted sexual dreams and fantasies.

The drawings of rapists, obtained as a result of the application of the associative drawing test technique, indicate the tension in the sexual sphere of criminals, their desire to emphasize the presence of male sexual functions, the power and strength of which is clearly exaggerated. There are a lot of details in the analyzed drawings, conventionally symbolizing female and male primary sexual characteristics. In other categories of criminals, this fixation is usually not found in such an amount. All this testifies to the fact that for those who have committed rape, the area of sexual relations is conflictual, affectively colored, and the perception of the relationship between a man and a woman is limited to sexual functions.

The results of a survey of persons who have committed rape using the method of unfinished sentences can be summarized as follows. The rapists have extremely negative in content, affectively tense attitudes towards women. Those appear in their view as depraved and dirty. Almost all criminals believe that there are no ideal women and there cannot be, they are all equally bad.

Observation of specific criminals convicted of rape shows that for most of them there is no problem of a woman's personalized choice as a sexual partner, let alone her as a carrier of other social roles. Often, even such signs as age, appearance are not essential for the rapist. This largely explains the cases of attacks in the dark on women, the external data of which the criminal could not even consider.

There are cases when a gentle, benevolent, executive man committed rape of a woman he did not know, brutally beating and humiliating her. For such persons, it is characteristic that they speak positively about their wife, or, at least, neutrally, and about women in general - extremely negatively. Such a man chooses his wife as a prototype of his mother. He obeyed her, depends on her, is afraid. His wife acts as a mother for him, so violence and cruelty towards her are impossible. At the same time, this man implements a protest against his subordinate role in the implementation of the rape of a woman unknown to him. In this case, it is not the satisfaction of the sexual need that comes to the fore, but the acquisition of undivided power over the woman in order to establish oneself in the male role. This motivation is found in about half of those repeatedly convicted of sex crimes.

Those convicted of rape are characterized by the following stories about their relationship with their mothers: “My mother never caressed me, I felt that my grandmother loved me much more than she did”; “I was obedient, but my mother often undeservedly punished me, beat me, did not buy gifts. Gifts were given to my brother”; “I didn't have a trusting relationship with my mother, they loved my sister more”; “Mother watched me very strictly, did not forgive anything,” and so on.

As you can see, conversations with those convicted of rape show that most of them did not have proper psychological contact with their mothers during childhood. The latter were rude, unkind, cruel, and emotionally rejected them. This is precisely the root cause of the abuser's negative attitude towards women in general.

Due to defects in personal development and the psyche as a whole, the sexual sphere becomes for a certain category of men the most significant and especially experienced. This determines their fixation on sexual relations and an increased susceptibility to everything that is associated with these relationships. Committing rape, they unconsciously strive to become what they would like to see themselves in terms of the realization of the male sexual role, but what they, in accordance with their subjective ideas about themselves, are not. In another case, when the crime is of a compensatory nature, the subject protects in such an extreme way the existing ideas about himself.

The above-mentioned features of the moral and psychological characteristics of the rapist's personality do not appear immediately. They are formed, developed and fixed in the personality from the first years of the individual's life. Therefore, rape, like all other intentional crimes, cannot be accidental. Violent sexual behavior is internally natural, prepared by the entire course of life and is its outcome

External circumstances, in particular the provoking behavior of the victim, the intoxication of the offender, play only the role of conditions. The same applies to cases of gang rape, when the abuser acts under the influence of accomplices.

At the same time, it should be noted that the emergence of violent sexual behavior is often promoted by the cynical views of men (father or other significant figures) and their contempt for the personal freedom, dignity and sexual integrity of women

To summarize, we see that the roots of the formation of a criminal lie in childhood, and to a greater extent are associated with a lack of emotional closeness with the mother. I think that the absence of a positive example of a father, a harmonious relationship between a man and a woman also has its own contribution to the formation of pathological inclinations. Awareness of this connection gives us the opportunity to raise children with this knowledge in mind, because it depends on each of us what kind of world our children will live in.