My girlfriend who happens to be a playback singer for movies wanted to go for a recording in a recording studio. The recording was supposed to start in an hour and she was not able to go.
Reasons? The area is relatively unknown to her and is known to be 'shady'. The men in her home are busy. There is a strict guideline from her mom to wait until the men are available.
What does that mean? Someone has to accompany her to most things. She has to wait for everyone's schedule to clear up. The person who has to accompany has to keep all his other priorities aside and go for idle accompanying while she does the work.
Result? So much of dependency, frustration, wait-times and loss of freedom.
Why the restrictions? Because India is so unsafe that someone can rape a woman in broad daylight and still not be confronted or stopped (Google: Vizag rape)
Who is behind the bars? Is it the rapists or women? It is clear that it is the women who are living controlled lives behind the bars every single day of their life. Add to that, the uncomfortable stares while travelling outside and the irritating statements about 'provocative dressing'.
Psychology of a Rapist:
In the light of the above event, I wanted to dive into the psychology of a rapist to understand why they do what they do and what we can do as a society to avoid these crimes from happening.
One thing we must address at the forefront of this discussion is that it is not natural behavior when penile erection sustains in the face of forced or violent sex. No one is born with such inclination. What drives them to such situation could be a combination of surroundings and nurture. There are a range of reasons why someone would perpetrate a rape and there is a range of kinds of rapes to speak about. Here are a few of them:
a) Anger against women: Whether it is a particular woman or women in general, if there is intense anger against women, there is a potential possibility of non-consenting sex that could be forced up on. In such cases, the perpetrators could be feeling worthless, depressed or intensely angry for a long time and any event that triggers that anger could end up in a desire for power-trip, thus leading to rape.
b) Impulsive offenders: This type of offenders are often impulsive and opportunistic about their sex desire and there is often no anger or contempt to over-power the victim that is associated unless resisted.
c) Attitude towards sex, love and intimacy: Yet another category could be of the kind who believe that women like to be forced upon and would like them afterward. These are the ones who can't understand a "NO" for a NO.
d) Attitude towards women: These are the power-hungry type who believe in having adversarial relationships with women and like to be in control even in normal communication. When their power is threatened, they tend to act out to regain control.
e) Extremely violent: These are pure evil-type who will not just stop with the rape but also resort to other forms of brutal physical abuse. They are pure women haters and could also have a history of violence and sexual abuse and unhealthy sexual encounters early in their lives.
f) Attitude towards the world: Yet another category is where the perpetrator has troubles relating himself with the world at large. They commit crimes against both men and women in their anger. It is mostly physical assaults against men and rapes against women.
g) Sadists: This category of rapists derives sexual pleasure out of the victim's fear and pain.
The case of child sexual-abusers:
It could be a mixture of lust and hunger for power that sets off some people in this direction of sexually abusing children.
In terms of lust, these are the kind of people who are not deriving sexual gratification from elsewhere and hence find easy targets in children. Pornographically(or otherwise) induced fantasy of having sex with children is also a reason. The perpetrator's sexual stimuli are conditioned to the idea of having sex with children and they experience an arousal in such situations.
In terms of power, those who feel powerless in their lives due to their situations could find an easy psychological escape in terms of exercising power over kids and adolescents by resorting to such activities. Children don't have a voice of their own and hence can be easily victimized in such situations.
How to prevent?
While temporary measures like self-defense training are necessary and important for our girls, we mus stop for a second and realize that in an ideal society there must be no need to defend oneself from sexual assaults.
Education is the only long-term preventive measure that will yield sustainable results. We need education on the fronts of:
a) Sex education: This will offer a corrective experience in terms of attitudes and behaviors towards sex and pornography. Although it offers kids and adolescents certain knowledge on how to protect themselves and when to report, this sex education should not be limited to kids. Adults are in equal need of re-shaping their attitudes towards sex. So, sex education should become a community thing and not be just a part of school curriculum.
b) Life-skills: Offers skills in terms of handling impulses and emotions in a better way and leave the participants with better attitudes towards themselves and society at large. In short, this can transform each individual into a well functioning individual and social unit and protects them from becoming sociopaths or a social outcasts.
c) Gender-roles: So much of prejudice exists in terms of what is expected of both women and men. Individuals are often reduced to their nothing but their genders. Instead of identifying ourselves too much with the gender, we must transition into identifying ourselves as humans. For ex: "Real men don't cry!" " Women must be gentle/humble!" For once, let's just say no to these norms. Let's just say humans can cry and can be gentle/humble.