Why Men Rape – Part I

In healing from being drugged and raped by a stranger in February 2007, one of the questions at the fore has been “why do men rape?” I needed to put myself in the perpetrator’s shoes in order to understand why such a horrible thing could happen to me. In fear, I had to do my due diligence in understanding simply to protect myself from ever facing the same fate again. I couldn’t live in a world where these things happen at random. It’s rather hard on the adrenals.

I have learned that I was a target for a reason. I was well trained by the incest of my youth to ignore red flags that my safety was in danger. I was trained to trust those I should not trust. I was trained to think that my feelings and intuition should be ignored. I was a perfect target, and my childhood experiences groomed me to be a victim. That is the part I can take responsibility for, if I choose to. I can address the warped beliefs from my childhood that attracted such an experience to me. It is true after all, that when a woman is raped in adulthood, it is usually not the first time, a viewpoint supported by Marlise Witschi, a BC Registered Clinical Counsellor I met at my last German New Medicine seminar. I can rest assured that life brought me such an experience to show me what lay hidden in my unconscious mind, expressed as the beliefs mentioned above. This rape would ultimately be the instigator of my first steps on the path to healing the childhood traumas, a hidden gift. So that is my part of the equation, but what about the rapist? Here’s my opinion.

I’ll start with rapists who use drugs as a weapon, since that was my experience. I can not help but see a parallel with necrophilia, an attraction to dead corpses. Roofies and GHB turn a person into nothing more than a rag doll, after all, which is about as close as you can get to a corpse while still having a heartbeat. Why would someone want to have sex with a corpse anyway? A corpse or a drugged up rag doll can’t say “no.” Psychologically-speaking, both the necrophiliac and roofie rapist desire to gain control of another. But why?

According to Joseph Maldonaldo M.A., co-founder of IAM Center (where I took part in a very interesting Sex Seminar a year ago), necrophiliacs suffer from painfully low self-esteem and are so afraid of rejection, that a corpse is favourable to a live person. The corpse can only accept them, and allows the necrophiliac bypass the negative belief that they will be rejected and therefore reach a point of psychological safety, which as I discussed in my previous post, is essential for sexual expression. Necrophiliacs may also be attempting to overcome a fear of death, so is it possible that a roofie rapist is also trying to overcome a fear of women? I would bet on it.

The fact that drug-assisted rape is now so common really speaks volumes to the dire state of hetero-male sexuality and self-esteem these days (necrophiliacs are almost exclusively hetero-male, and yes, I’m making a giant leap assumption that roofie rapists most likely belong to the same group). These guys need some serious help and compassion to face their negative beliefs and self-image, otherwise they’ll continue to hurt others in the name of self-satisfaction. The ease with which rape drugs can be obtained make the risk of rejection from propositioning a woman for sex unnecessary if the person is willing to rape instead, not as difficult a choice as we might think given the rape culture we’re marinating in at this very moment.

I’ll continue exploration of this topic of why men rape in Part II, where I focus on why men sexually abuse children.

~ “The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.” – Mark Twain

~ “Most men fear getting laughed at or humiliated by a romantic prospect while most women fear rape and death.” – Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us From Violence

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