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In reply to the discussion: Stop Telling Women How to Not Get Raped [View all]Tansy_Gold
(17,851 posts)You'd have a decent beginning.
I have not been inconsistent.
I have not said there are rapists and non-rapists and some third category that's neither, although how there can logically be something that is neither a rapist nor a non-rapist is beyond me. You have repeatedly stated that rapists are deviants. You have brooked no opposition to that statement. No matter what I write, you disagree with it.
I have given you a variety of references; if you like, I can insert the entire bibliography from my research papers on the subject, although that list is now slightly out of date because much more has been written since my last academic paper in about 2002.
So here is my "thesis".
1. Rape is "deviant" behavior, but all that means is that it deviates from a norm. Not "the" norm, but "a" norm, meaning that the norm changes, is mutable, is (gasp!) relative. As I have said before, marital rape used to be an oxymoron; legally, there was no such thing. Now there is. Until a couple of weeks ago, the FBI didn't recognize date rape as rape. Now they do. The norms change.
2. Some people who engage in "deviant" behavior are (pretty much) incapable of altering their behavior and/or/because they are (pretty much) incapable of understanding that what they're doing is wrong. These people's deviant actions are less informed by outside influences than by internal motivations. These are both the psycho/sociopaths like Ted Bundy and the brain-damaged like Richard Hurles. Their behavior does not conform to any socially acceptable norm. They often cannot be identified until after they have engaged in their "deviant" behavior.
3. Other people who engage in "deviant" behavior are much more strongly influenced by outside, cultural forces and less by internals. Their patterns of behavior are learned, either directly or indirectly, from the culture around them. These people are capable of altering their behavior (if they want to) and are capable of understanding (if they want to) that what they're doing or have done is wrong.
4. It is one thing to label rape as deviant behavior, but it is another thing entirely to label all persons who commit (or attempt to commit) rape as deviant persons. Even in the narrow terms of rape prevention, to label the rapist as deviant -- rather than just the act -- makes prevention impossible. It removes any responsibility from the society at large for change. It is, in effect, a very right wing authoritarian point of view. This is a viewpoint usually espoused by those who benefit the most from the status quo.
TG