NCJ Number
97318
Date Published
1985
Length
19 pages
Annotation
The psychopathological model of rapists' motives and behavior may not be as appropriate as an alternative model which views rape as an extension of normal male sexual aggression based in hostility toward women and male sex role expectations.
Abstract
Psychiatry has dominated the literature on rape and rapists for the past 50 years. The literature influenced by this approach attributes four types of motives to rapists: irresistible impulse, mental illness or disease, momentary loss of control precipitated by unusual circumstances such as the use of alcohol, and victim precipitation. These approaches rest on the assumption that rapists have radically deviated from the norms and behavioral conditioning received by most men. An alternative model views rapists as representatives of one end of a quasi-socially sanctioned continuum of male sexual aggression. In this view, rapists may be conforming to their perception of normal male sex role expectations, which are learned. The feminist perspective combined with elements of cultural transmission produces a framework which contrasts sharply with the psychopathological model. It expands the concept of rape to include factors ignored when rape is attributed to an individual disorder. Notes and a list of 78 references are supplied.