Why Is Rape So Common: The Psychology of a Rapist

The prevalent culture of rape has its origins at home and school, says a woman psychotherapist, as she suggests effective interventions for change

Man walking in dark light \ Concept for rape crisis in india

Editor’s note

This article was written in 2013, in the context of the dastardly gang rape and murder that came to be known as the Nirbhaya case. But nothing seems to have changed in over a decade as is evident from the recent rape and murder that took place at a hospital in Kolkatta. We, both individually, and as a society, need to introspect urgently, to create a safer environment for everyone.

A country where Knowledge [Sarasvati], Power [Durga], and Wealth [Laxmi] are seen and worshiped as female energy, a country where the wife is known as the Ardhangini (better half), is the same country where wife-beating and sexual crimes against women are rampant. The brutal gang rape in Delhi is just one case in point, but it seems to have been the tipping point for tolerating sexual crimes in this country.

Every news channel is having panel discussions, and citizens across the board are coming up with solutions or measures that need to be taken by the government, the judiciary, and the police. We’re demanding more policing on the roads, CCTV and GPS systems and no tinted glasses in public transport, stringent laws and life/death sentencing for the perpetrators, chemical castration, fast-track courts and more. While all of that is needed, I’d like to bring our attention to the origins of such sexual crimes and what deeper-acting interventions do we, as a society, need to make to prevent the same.

Such sexual crimes do not only take place on urban roads. They could also happen in one’s own home, in police stations, in politician’s bungalows, in private farmhouses, in hotel rooms, on campuses, in remote rural areas, in sex-trafficking dens, and many such places where no policing can ever take place. Moreover, most of such crimes go unreported.

Rape Isn’t Just Physical Violence

Unfortunately, rape is still largely viewed as a physical act of violence, when it is actually much more traumatic. It is psychological violence that originates from a perpetrator with a warped mindset—the impact on the victim is too deep. Even if the obvious physical scars are healed, the psychological scars remain for a lifetime and the victim’s life changes forever.

All discussions in civil society are moving towards imposing an external discipline by instilling fear of the law, but we also need to engineer the society towards an inner discipline where people behave right naturally and not out of fear. By talking about external discipline enforced by law, civil society is shirking its own responsibility to correct all that is wrong and all that begins at home and at school.

Why Do Rapes Happen

Heinous sexual crimes like rape take place because of the cumulative effect of:

1. Excessive arousal

Woman in a shadowA sex-saturated environment with too much high-stimulus sexual material all around, leads to an artificially raised level of sexual arousal.

Free on-line pornography, available 24 hours even on the multimedia phones, explicit sexual chatting on-line with strangers, open forums for swinging couples, closed social networking groups of boys exchanging nude pictures of girls as a bonding activity, boys getting together in public places for eve-teasing as a sport, stag parties with men exchanging their sexual exploits with each other, open references to girls as maal [goods] or ‘item’, sexually explicit lyrics and song sequences in films called item numbers with a high percentage of girls enjoying doing such item numbers and even proudly and indignantly saying, “why should I not flaunt it if I have it?”

All this and more has contributed to an artificially raised high level of sexual arousal in our society. Sex is therefore, unfortunately, not viewed as sharing of intimacy as a result of emotional bonding with your significant other, but instead as hardcore personal, physical gratification, creating a self-centered auto-sexuality mindset instead of a mutually respectful heterosexuality.

2. Low frustration tolerance

An instant gratification culture leads to the inability to say no to oneself. This is because we are constantly exposed to signs that imply that delaying self-gratification is not necessary. E.g. the credit card culture, enjoy-today-pay-tomorrow schemes, fast food/ready-to-eat microwave foods, instant messaging and quick access to all information at any time you choose on the internet.

Instant phone sex and virtual sex on demand are all designed to weaken the muscle of acceptance i.e. that we may not always get what we want but we have to accept and live with it. Even urban working parents reinforce this NOW! mentality by providing their children what they desire and when they desire it in order to get rid of their own guilt for not being able to spend quality time with them; wealthy parents lavish their children with the latest gizmos on-demand with no questions asked.

Is it any wonder then that people are unwilling to delay or deny themselves anything? Or that they have a very low threshold for tolerating frustrations that arise from denying themselves anything? Isn’t it much like an alcoholic’s frustration when being denied a drink?

3. Low impulse control

The free availability of mood altering drugs and psychotropic substances in urban and rural areas, in pubs, rave parties and social meet-ups are responsible for lowering inhibitions. Indeed, many cases of rape, especially date rape, have taken place under the influence of such substances. Moreover, sexual crimes are also committed as a dare to impress peers when they are all doped or drunk.

Lowered inhibitions and lack of consequential thinking under the influence of substances / spirits therefore leads to poor impulse control and this often results in sexual crimes.

4. Poor consequential thinking

With more and more time spent in the virtual world on social media such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, the cause–and-effect understanding of human relationships seems to be reducing.

While such interfaces no doubt create connections between people over long distances, there is a lessening of humanness and empathy as experienced in face-to-face interactions. This is because the electronic interface does not allow for the non-verbal human connect that is key in human relationships. This lack of kinship is causing relationships to become more utilitarian, transactional and short-lived, much like relationship flings. The whole structure of our lives is moving online through avatars and marketable personas.

Our social efforts are thus being channeled through bite-sized, on-demand, virtual interactions and virtual meet-ups. All this results in the inability to assess the impact of our interactions on the other, thus reducing consequential thinking.

5. Grandiose ideas

Due of the lack of stringent laws, men believe that laws can be circumvented through various means and there isn’t enough that prevents them from committing sexual crimes in our country.

Also the onus being put on the woman to prove that the sexual act was a crime committed against her will and not consensual, makes it even more difficult to pin down the sexual act as a crime. This has created grandiose ideas in men who believe that this is an act they can easily get away with, without any adverse repercussions for them.

6. No discernment in women’s liberation

There is a difference between being comfortable with your sexuality and flaunting it. While it is imperative that both men and women be equally comfortable with their own sexuality and sensuality, and aren’t conflicted or inhibited in its natural expression, it is neither necessary nor healthy for women to expose their bodies with a bold vengeance under the garb of liberation. Flaunting your body while flouting common sense cannot be defined as liberation, and nor does it authentically empower you.

Related article by Minnu Bhonsle » Why Do Women Expose — a Psychotherapist Explains

Also, moving from one extreme attitude to another, i.e. from subservience to superiority is neither healthy for the self-actualization of women, nor beneficial for man-woman relationships, and nor does it endear women to men. Neither men nor women are, or ever can be, superior to the other, and therefore it is essential that both genders liberate themselves to be who they are without the need to prove superiority over the other.

Authentic empowerment is giving yourself the permission to be who you are with confidence and humility, and without the need to prove something to yourself or others around you.

7. No value-based education at home or in school

Remember: Man and woman are not opposites but complementaryEducation begins with observational learning at home and value-based education in schools.

The ‘F’ word and other sexually explicit words being a part of the normal lingo at home, reduces the act of sharing intimacy to something crass and crude and this subliminally affects one’s attitude towards sex. Therefore, if the adults in the child’s environment use crass sexual language, are disrespectful towards the spouse, drink uninhibitedly, watch pornography and have sexual flings outside marriage, the child is going to view such conduct as acceptable at some level.

If at school and college, education is only focused towards earning money and having a “good life” materially, with no regard towards imparting human values, society would gradually become cold and insensitive, merely superfluously discussing social issues in debates without really caring enough about the inner most feelings of fellow humans.

Related » What Is Meant By True Success

Unfortunately there is inadequate value-based sex education in schools or even in homes. Whether it is eve-teasing in public places including school and college campuses, or sexual crimes on roads, or sexual harassment at the workplace, or sexual abuse/molestation in your own home, there is only one way out—Educate to Eradicate.

This education should begin in homes and in schools and continue through college and at community forums in rural and urban areas. This education needs to comprise of changing the concept from opposite sexes to complementary sexes. It must strive to remove all stereotypes and rise above gender to view all individuals as human beings i.e. gender neutral, with gender being only one aspect of a person. Gender sensitization, through empathy-building exercises to understand the struggles of both genders is a must.

Let’s Be the Change We Seek

We, the people, ought to own up to our own contribution in creating a society where rapes are so common. We must be the change we seek, or else nothing will ever change, and after this media-supported tsunami recedes, there will only be another rape and then another, scarring so many lives. So wake up and take charge of your own life and of those in your family, your school and your community, so that responsible and mature citizens create a responsible and mature nation to be proud of.


A version of this article originally appeared in the February 2013 issue of Complete Wellbeing magazine (Print Edition).

Magnifying lens over an exclamation markSpot an error in this article? A typo maybe? Or an incorrect source? Let us know!

Minnu Bhonsle
Dr Minnu R Bhonsle, PhD, is a Mumbai-based consulting psychotherapist and counsellor. She conducts training programmes in Personal Counselling [Client-centred Therapy] and Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy, and also workshops in Stress Management, Art of Listening, Couple Therapy, and Communication Skills. Minnu has co-authored the book, The Ultimate Sex Education Guide along with Dr Rajan Bhonsle.

8 COMMENTS

  1. A very thought-provoking and insightful observation! You’re absolutely right; education should go beyond mere material success and foster empathy, compassion, and human values. Well said Mam.

  2. Brilliant and incisive analysis of an illness that afflicts our society and culture. Let us begin , in a small way , to bring change in ourselves first. Thankyou Dr Bhonsle . We have a lot of work ahead , as a society, and there are some key issues you have touched upon that need serious attention.

  3. Yes it’s correct. Hope it can be put up in different languages so that more people read and might show a great impact on thinking after reading it. It’s really helpful to analyse what is going wrong and where to actually work on to stop from happening such a cruel act.

  4. Nice article Dr. Minnu. Reasons for rape will always remain ‘Secret’ like the secret of success but therapist like you lead the way in understanding. Short term solutions are external like punishment which will deter sensible rapists but they fail for people who go beyond their self-control. Rape has been defined as ‘physical’ abuse rather than sexual abuse. Anyways long term solutions lie in education as you correctly said it.
    Another thing is the personality aspect of human beings. You may agree with me that we Indians lack the quality of ‘Masculinity’ in our males as well as in our society. By ‘Masculinity’ I mean the quality of productivity, protection, procreation, penetration etc: all attributes of ‘Penis’ activity. The ‘Femininity’ of females is always a challange to the masculinity of men whether they interact on personal level of no. If I can’t have it, I destroy it’ seems to be the action of rape. It is not the fault of men but orientation of society. Indian society have always considered “Sex” as a forbidden word and anything connected with sex is considered bad or to be shunned. We behave as if sex does not exist in our lives. This kind of repression along with low level of masculinity of the whole society leads to attacks of frustration which is ‘Rape’.

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