Explain The Psychology Behind Rape

Cognitive functions behind rape There are many reasons that rapists are who they are. Psychologists have come up with many theories for the reasoning in a rapists mind. The theories range from, little boys being abused by their mothers to unsuccessful marriages influencing a hate toward women. Psychology Today reports that Gordon Nagayama Hall Ph.D. conducted a national forum on the question, why do men rape? In his findings he has identified four main types of rapist. Type 1 is the kind of man that gets sexually aroused by thought of violence against women. This type is extremely impulsive and one of the most dangerous types. Type 2 is influenced by ‘cognitive distortions’ which means they interpret things differently than other people.
The writer reports that many men get to become rapists because they watch violent sexual pornography from a young age which contributes to the ideology that rapists do not view women as people, but as objects to use for their own sexual needs when they want, how they want. Some rapists do not even ejaculate during rape, which shows that for some rapists, it is not the desire for sex that makes them rape; it is the need to be violent towards, and dominate women. The writer says that in some cases of rapists it can be that a man had a poor upbringing with abuse as a child, which does not excuse the dreadful crime which is rape, but does explain it. However, the writer makes the point that before Ted Bundy was executed in 1989 he said, ‘I grew up in a wonderful home with two dedicated and loving parents, and one of five brothers and sisters. A home where we, as children, were the focus of my parents’ lives, where we regularly attended church; two Christian parents who did not drink, they did not smoke, there was no gambling, there was no physical abuse, or fighting in the home’ This shows that a bad upbringing is not necessary to generate a rapist. This insight into a highly dangerous serial rapist and murderer proves that there are many different explanations that depict why men rape, and although many families that have a rapist in them often blame the way
The defense attorneys in this case the defense are accusing the 11 year old girl of, ‘being a seductress who lures men to their doom’ and that she is the type of women who, ‘who has sex and "cries rape," presumably because destroying men for no reason is fun.’ The defence are playing on one of the excuses that rapists commonly use, which is that she was ‘asking for it.’ The 11 year old girl may have been wearing a dress or a short skirt which the group of men mistakenly took to mean that she was sexually active and wanted to have sex with them, however this was not the case. Relating back to the article in Psychology Today, looking at the type 2 rapist as categorised by Dr Hall, it is likely that these men have cognitive distortions, which made them think that the young girl wanted to be raped and that she enjoyed it.