Is Rape Natural? Part 2, 2014 Edition

[Violet]

A human rapes as a psychological way to fill a gap in their own insecurities. Asserting dominance over others is an evolutionary way of creating social pecking orders and gaining resources. Rape is the dark side of that evolution.

It can also be

*a passionate sexual desire that overtakes the person. Usually this stops partway through enacting, but sometimes it puts the self-control in the backseat. Often, this type of rape happens during otherwise consensual sexual activity.

*a rage that overcomes the barriers of the person. Often, rage burns bright and quick, and it doesn't have the time to inflict more than a few blows of a beating... but sometimes (especially when attached to the following) it lasts long enough that anything can happen. Rape and murder are both very possible outlets for rage.

*a malice cold want to hurt another person. Usually this is contained by people until an opportunity arises to exact their revenge/bitter hatred upon the source (or sources) of their spite. When you see someone you hate in a defenseless way, it's not difficult to be all...



Continuing on malice... it really has two general ways it goes: rage + malice... or worse: a controlled bitter cruelty. This source, if one's empathy for their own kind does not awaken to stop them, can lead to horrors I feel uneasy writing about. This is amongst the most dangerous feelings for a rapist to be feeling as they hurt another (which could be targeted, or could be expanded to 'all ____' (say... black people, all women, etc)).

*something you do with your mates to prove that you're a man, or... whatever. I don't really understand all of the motivations for gang-rape, as I've never taken the time to understand why people feel the need to show off rape to their mates. I think it's pretty pathetic, I've gone laughing during it, but it doesn't really matter... you've got binds, you've got muscles over the victim, you might have blackmail over them, you know they can't see you because you've got them blindfolded... do you really need to subject them to double penetration, all those groping hands, and the beatings that a whole group of people tend to put on the victim of this. It's utterly senseless to me why this happens... and the punishments exacted by the law for it are utterly asinine.

*Opportunistic rape, because it might never happen again, and they'd like to have sex with this person. These include (often drugging) date-rape, coming across a hottie in a dark alley, finding yourself alone with the target of your affections for a good long while (say, camping with them far away from civilization), and blackmail. These types of rapes are usually once off, as the victim will rarely exhibit enough trust in you (or in the world) to let it happen again. The exception is... blackmail. Blackmail is covered by the following:

*a realization of one's control over another. This is the good old-fashioned 'slave rape'... someone who recognizes their totalitarian hold over another, and unloads all of the depravity they've been holding back (which, i will note: everyone thinks depraved things now and again). The victim of this kind of rape (in this case, there really is only one) is highly unlikely to tell anyone that they're being raped, and is unlikely to show rational behavior (distrust of the person raping them, say) when they finally recognize that "rape" isn't something they should be experiencing on a regular basis. 'It hurts me, but... the significant one is happy'.

This also features heavily in our next one, which is probably the sickest facet of rape and for which there is no excuse in the world good enough, and which is persecuted not nearly hard enough.

*an institutionalized system of rape/place where one goes to unload the worst of what they hold inside. Human trafficking. Unlike the last one, these people don't usually care whether the person they're fucking lives or dies. Rescuing people from these is risky... cults and other 'sanctuaries' are usually very well defended... and there's enormous hostage-killing potential which they can use as leverage against large forces.

... Me? I'd kill them all. All of them. But that should be expected of a bitter old god of death and suicide, so it really doesn't matter. There are more varieties of rape, I'm sure... but these cover a lot of them, and show the multifacetedness of the human condition.

---

It has nothing to do with religious motivation. A lot of non-religious people would agree with the pure evil assessment. Purely evil people are those who refuse to excercise any self control over their urges and rather act out their violent fantasies on hapless victims.

Many don't 'refuse' to exercise control: they LOSE control. They had it, they tried to hold back... and something tipped them over the edge and it was gone.

Not unlike struggling to not fall off of a cliff, and they finally lose their hold.

Humans have the capacity to exercise restraint, to choose to do evil, choose to excerise self-control, and choose to do good.

Sure, we do have the capacity to do so. We also have the capacity to fall short of ideal... and that's most rapists for you right there.

Sociopaths, as was Ted Bundy, totally sell themselves over to their own evil devises, devoid of any sympathy, sorrow, or regret. No boogie man involved, except for themselves....

Most rapists are not sociopaths.

"Ted" Bundy (born Theodore Robert Cowell; November 24, 1946 – January 24, 1989) was an American serial killer, rapist, kidnapper, and necrophile who assaulted and murdered numerous young women and girls during the 1970s and possibly earlier. After more than a decade of denials, he confessed shortly before his execution to 30 homicides committed in seven states between 1974 and 1978; the true total remains unknown, and could be much higher.

A little secret friend... these people are uncommon. That's why the news just eats them up.

Here's a far more interesting rapist.

Earl Brian Bradley (born May 10, 1953)[1] is a former pediatrician from Lewes, Delaware and convicted serial child molester. He was indicted in 2010 on 471 charges of molesting, raping and exploiting 103 child patients (102 girls and 1 boy).[2] Some of the victims were as young as three months old.[3][4][5] He was charged in April 2010 with an additional 58 offenses in relation to the abuse of 24 additional victims.[6] He has been described by a number of reputable news outlets and commentators as "the worst pedophile in American history." [7][8][9][10][11][12][13] Dr. Eli Newberger, a professor at Harvard Medical School and a pediatrician who has studied child abuse cases for almost 40 years said Bradley's was "the worst pediatrician abuse case I've ever heard of."[14] He was ultimately found guilty on all charges and was sentenced to 14 consecutive terms of life plus 165 years in prison without parole on June 26, 2011. His conviction was affirmed by the Delaware Supreme Court on September 6, 2012.[15]

[A Theist]

No. Rapists aren't average people.

Methinks you should take up people watching. It's fascinating.

They're cunning psychopaths who pretend to act normal so they can keep up a ruse of functioning in society.

I don't see what's so 'cunning' about the majority of rapists. Most of them are probably quite the opposite of phenomenally clever. The few who I'd call "cunning" go to extremes that are quite beyond the scope of most rapists.

They have no feelings of sympathy or conscience for their victims other than to act out their violent sexual urges. There's no shades of gray here. They're pure evil.

Rape is a regrettable thing to have done to another. Rapists can be afraid of themselves, terrified of this frenzy they could not control... and many feel empathy for the pain of the other victim. They can reject this portion of themselves, and work to fight it.

The real shame of rape... is that nobody wins. They're no more evil than those who drive drunk. This is not a world of black and of white.

Really... most are average people who messed up badly.

You're spending way too much time in Alice's fantasy Wonderland where everything is foggy and distorted. In the real world there's no gray area as you suppose. There's a clear distintion between black and white and good and evil. Rapists are evil people who have abandoned self control over their urges to commit sexual violence on hapless and unsuspecting victims. This is more of the same idiotic bullshit where there's empathy for the rapist and the victims are ignored.

[Nine]

You're spending way too much time in Alice's fantasy Wonderland where everything is foggy and distorted. In the real world there's no gray area as you suppose. There's a clear distintion between black and white and good and evil.

I see the opposite, there is no black or white just an infinite clusterfuck of grey's.

[Violet]

You're spending way too much time in Alice's fantasy Wonderland where everything is foggy and distorted.

I really really wish everything was foggy. I really do.

In the real world there's no gray area as you suppose. There's a clear distintion between black and white and good and evil.

In the real world... there are only shades of gray. The whitest white are the stars, and they're nothing on an antimatter annihilation. THe blackest black is beyond the edge of the universe, where there is nothing, and which the universe expanding at the speed of light is invisible to.

Our world, the real world, lies between those two points... therefore there is no utter black, and there is no utter white.

Good and evil vary from person to person, and different societies judge them differently. Morals are the illusion that keeps society sleeping peacefully at night.

Rapists are evil people who have abandoned self control over their urges to commit sexual violence on hapless and unsuspecting victims. This is more of the same idiotic bullshit where there's empathy for the rapist and the victims are ignored.

Rapists are usually normal people reacting in a normal way as life reacts. Falling off the wagon isn't 'abandoning' self control... it is as simple as leaning backwards, and then it's gone.

I usually feel sorry for both rapist and victim... I would say that it is the cold and bitter parts of humanity that refuse to recognize the pity or the pain of either on of these parties.

It is not I who ignores the pain of others... but you, my friend

[The Grand Nudger]

You know, A theist...you could always empathize for both parties involved. I understand that in doing so you might wind up short on your righteous indignation quota.....but it's an option.

Even self control is an "urge" - I suspect that neither you or I have to employ that "urge" to contain the rapist within. We would both contend that there is no "rapist within" as-such..we don't need to control anything to avoid raping some hapless someone, eh? Apparently some folks don't have it quite as easy as we have it. Putting yourself in that persons shoes does not denigrate their victims, and doing so may actually help you to prevent further victimization. Or we could just go with the "black is black, white is white" thing that's worked sooooo well stopping all of that rape all of these years.

[Jenny A]

You're spending way too much time in Alice's fantasy Wonderland where everything is foggy and distorted. In the real world there's no gray area as you suppose. There's a clear distintion between black and white and good and evil. Rapists are evil people who have abandoned self control over their urges to commit sexual violence on hapless and unsuspecting victims. This is more of the same idiotic bullshit where there's empathy for the rapist and the victims are ignored.

I agree with you that rape is always evil. But people who are not wholly evil do evil things sometimes, not often. I'm not excusing the evil deed. I'm not suggesting it shouldn't be punished. Accountability is a good thing. But people often do both good and evil and both ought to be recognized.

I've never told my kids they are bad. I do tell them they've done bad things and there are consequences some dished out by parents and teachers and some just by the nature of the world.. I don't think that's an equation that should change as they grow up.

[BlackMason]

Animals aren't people but people are only animals.

Very broad definition. The fact that it is so makes it useless. For example a bag is not a person. Is it then an animal? By your definition it is or at least could be.

---

I'm only through the first page and I've noticed that people are using "natural" in different ways. For the purposes of this thread what does natural mean? Could it be that which one is predisposed to? If so then I disagree that murder is natural. Why are people predisposed to killing each other? How has our species survived this long? Our species has values of social co-operation engraved by evolution. I dare say that those who were predisposed to killing died off.

Does natural mean an action that is possible? If so then anything goes and I say that is a useless definition of natural. It is too wide.

---

Technically it depends on the purpose. If a cannibal kills in the service of procuring dinner I wouldn't call it murder.

Perhaps you are not aware of how murder is defined in society. Generally murder is an act which abets the death of another human. So your cannibal will be led off to his prison cell.

---

Actually developing medicine seems to be something humans do "naturally" along with developing all the tech it takes to live the way we do. As a species we are addicted to and dependent on tools. It's natural. We've been doing it over 200,000 years.

I think much as the desire to rape (and occasionally actually doing it) is natural, so are the cultural prohibitions against it. We are the animals who create culture, morals, religions, tech and and other constructs beyond our biology. So while rape may be natural, so is punishing it.

Jenny, this is a fantastic post excluding your discussion on rape. The problem I find is that you used a bit of equivocation. The meaning of natural takes a slight change in your rape point from it's meaning in the medicine point.

[bennyboy]

Up to that point I agree with you, but aren't you really saying that the victim is way over reacting? Because if you are, then you are saying more than that it is natural. You're saying that makes it -if not okay- then at least not so bad. It seems you want to raise empathy for the rapist and diminish it for the victim. Here I disagree.

No, because our response to sexual loose cannons is also instinctual, and perhaps equally strong, and includes empathy. Just because a behavior is natural doesn't mean we shouldn't mightily punish someone who engages in it.

My point about the women's response is that the trauma is learned-- it's an infliction as much of society's views on womanhood (must not be "corrupted" or made "impure"). The physical pain and suffering, and the risk of pregnancy and disease, make the crime horrible enough. But the absolute psyche-shattering finality, that "can never go back to the way it was before" that can lead to humiliation, loss of enjoyment of life, and maybe suicide, is a product of the cultural values imposed on her.

[Dystopia]

Up to that point I agree with you, but aren't you really saying that the victim is way over reacting? Because if you are, then you are saying more than that it is natural. You're saying that makes it -if not okay- then at least not so bad. It seems you want to raise empathy for the rapist and diminish it for the victim. Here I disagree.

No, because our response to sexual loose cannons is also instinctual, and perhaps equally strong, and includes empathy. Just because a behavior is natural doesn't mean we shouldn't mightily punish someone who engages in it.

My point about the women's response is that the trauma is learned-- it's an infliction as much of society's views on womanhood (must not be "corrupted" or made "impure"). The physical pain and suffering, and the risk of pregnancy and disease, make the crime horrible enough. But the absolute psyche-shattering finality, that "can never go back to the way it was before" that can lead to humiliation, loss of enjoyment of life, and maybe suicide, is a product of the cultural values imposed on her.

And don't forget men feel like losing their manhood if another man rapes them...

[Diablo]

I've only just joined, and I don't want to disrail this discussion, but there is the issue of prison rape (apologies if discussed before). In this case one party wants to get his jollies, while also doing the power/violence bit, at the expense of the other, by using threats or actual violence. Neither would identify as gay, btw, and would be straight outside. This could be seen as natural given the circumstances since abstinence is unusual normally.

I read somewhere that if you include the estimated number of such situations in the statistics, then more men than women are raped everyday in the US, on account of its large prison population. I don't know if that's true. I can't imagine the effect on the victim.