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From: rohn@randvax.UUCP (Laurinda Rohn)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Rape and Violence
Message-ID: <2077@randvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 29-Oct-84 12:02:53 EST
Article-I.D.: randvax.2077
Posted: Mon Oct 29 12:02:53 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 1-Nov-84 02:20:56 EST
References: <2070@stolaf.UUCP>
Organization: Rand Corp., Santa Monica
Lines: 44

>>From: densinge@stolaf.UUCP (Charles W. Densinger)

>>     I do not believe, and I will be nearly impossible to convince,
>>that a person with enough close, intimate, loving non-sexual relation-
>>ships in which his/her needs are expressed and met, will resort
>>to violence to get sex.

I think you are basically right here.  But most rapists are *not after
sex*.

>>                                                       ...  Also,
>>I will not easily be convinced that anyone ever engages in violence
>>merely for the sake of violence.

I don't agree with this at all.  Violence for the sake of violence
happens all the time.  Why do people drive down the street and shoot
others at random?  It seems they just get a thrill out of it.  People
are shot and stabbed for no reason with alarming frequency.

>>                                  One violates another person out
>>of some sort of distress or need, in an attempt to relieve that
>>distress.  It doesn't work, but that is the motivation.
>>     Rape is a violent act.  It involves a violation of another
>>person's bodily sovereignty.  But violence is only the mode, not
>>the motivator.

I take this to mean that you think sex is the motivator.  **Wrong!!**
It is a very well documented fact that many rapists are having their
sexual "needs" met.  But they rape anyway!  Why?  They are not after
sex.  *They are after control.*  They don't feel in control of their
own lives, and many of them feel that women are the "cause" of their
lack of control.  So they decide to subjugate a woman, to show her
(and thereby, all women) that he has power over her.  Forcing her to
have sex with him against her will is one of the "best" ways to show
power.  The fact that the mode that the rapist chooses is sex is not
that important.  Sex is chosen as the mode mainly because it is so
humiliating for the woman.  If shining shoes were more humiliating,
the rapist would choose that instead.  *Control* is the motivation,
not sex.


				Lauri
				rohn@rand-unix.ARPA
				decvax!randvax!rohn