Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site mnetor.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcs!mnetor!sophie From: sophie@mnetor.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) Newsgroups: net.women Subject: Re: Re: Re RAPE, etc.../ "understanding" horrible behavior and people Message-ID: <1698@mnetor.UUCP> Date: Fri, 2-Aug-85 13:02:44 EDT Article-I.D.: mnetor.1698 Posted: Fri Aug 2 13:02:44 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 2-Aug-85 14:23:27 EDT References: <739@udenva.UUCP> <540@hou2g.UUCP> <3014@hplabsb.UUCP> <6443@ucla-cs.ARPA> Organization: Computer X (CANADA) Ltd., Toronto, Ontario, Canada Lines: 71 > Previous posters, including myself, have offered suggestions on the > motivations and politics of rape, among other things. Among these suggestions > have been statements about the likely behavior of rapists, sometimes > expressed in the point of view of the rapist, for greater clarity. > These comments are meant to show likely behavior, and the reasoning that > leads to this behavior, and does not pass judgement on the behavior itself. The problem is that on the net, only outrageous and stupid things are discussed. Therefore, all the good constructive suggestions are ignored and the idiotic ones are blown up out of proportion. That is why the issue of "provocative clothing" has been discussed to death on the net for so long even most "serious" psychologists who actually study rapists and criminals have discounted that argument a long time ago. I personally don't think there is anything wrong with trying to understand what goes on through a rapist's mind. I think it is an obsolutely necessary pursuit in order to stop rape. The netters who have stuck to the "provocative clothing" argument so tenaciously keep on telling those of us who tried to point out the stupidity of that argument that rapists are humans not animals, and we should therefore be interested in what they think. This is an extremely good point. I think that the proponents of the "provocative clothing" explanation should apply it to themselves. Rapists are not like bulls who run because they see a red flag waved in front of them, yet some people on the net who try to have us believe that rape can be explaned in such simplistic animalistic terms. Who is calling who an animal here? (besides, even bull's motives might be more complicated than that). If rape was as simplistic an issue as that, we'd see more occurence of it among the so-called "lower" animals, whose actions are supposedly dictated even more by their hormones and the visual cues they receive from the females of their species. Yet non-human animals do not rape (which might suggest that it might be insulting to animals to call rapists animals <-:). > To coin a word: "rapism", the disorder that both allows and compels certain > men to rape. Very little is known about it. It is possible the rapist has > a view of the world that is very different from that of others. Understanding > this world view could provide the basis for eliminating rape, at last and > forever. > > Eric McColm Actually, quite a lot is known about rapism. Rape has been studied extensively by psychologists and feminists and lay persons. I do not know offhand of any actual psychology studies on rape but I have seen enough references to such studies around to believe that they have been made. The best work on rape that I have seen so far has been Susan Brownmiller's book, which she wrote already 10 years ago, I believe. The title is something like "men, women, and rape". Another good, old book on rape was written by a policeman whose name escapes me right now. It is called "how to say no to a rapist and survive". It is written as a self-defense guide for women, but it dwells mainly on trying to understand the psychology of rapists and playing on that. I have only tried one of his techniques once, and it actually worked. It is a very good book, which was described at the time as anti-feminist because it assumed that rapists had some humanity left in them. It is a very no-nonsense book, completely non-jargonny, and quite sensitive as well as sensible. By the way, my opinion (and that of quite a few feminists) is that rape is not a personal problem of a few individuals with a distorted world view, but a deep societal problem of the inequality between the sexes. Society will have to be cured if we want the individuals cured. Again, I do recommend Brownmiller's book very strongly. But I guess she's a feminist (YICCKEE POO!!!!) so I suppose that many netter will probably believe her opinion is probably not worth listening to. Much more fun to talk about probvocative clothing and that bitch Madonna. -- Sophie Quigley {allegra|decvax|ihnp4|linus|watmath}!utzoo!mnetor!sophie