Psychological Profile Of The Rapist: 12 Common Traits
In February 2015, a young university student was murdered in Turkey after resisting a sexual assault. Her body was found burned. Not long ago there was a wave of rapes of minors in India, many of whom later turned up dead. In different African countries, numerous women are raped with the intention of transmitting fear to the local population
These and numerous other cases are examples of situations in which sexual relations have been forced, that is, cases in which rape has been committed. And you don’t have to go that far to find cases: A known case within our borders occurred last year when a young woman was raped by several individuals during the San Fermín festivities.
This is not an uncommon phenomenon: in our country alone, it is estimated that a woman is raped every eight hours. That is why psychology and other sciences have attempted to develop a psychological profile of the rapist, finding common traits that allow us to work on the elements that can lead to sexual assault. In this article we are going to try to find a series of twelve traits in common between rapists and We will see the psychological patterns that constitute the profile of the rapist
While we all know roughly what we are talking about when we hear the word rape, understanding something is a necessary step in finding ways to prevent it from happening again, so conceptualizing the term rape is a useful step in understanding what a rapist does and be able to identify your psychological profile.
It is understood as violation of that assault of a sexual nature through which an individual has non-consensual sexual relations with another. These relationships are carried out in direct opposition to the victim of aggression, using coercion, force or elements that cloud the victim’s judgment, such as drugs. While rape is generally thought to include penetration, this is not necessarily the case.
In addition, a carnal act with subjects who do not have sufficient understanding or judgment to assess the situation is considered rape (such as people with deficiencies or psychological problems that cloud their judgment, minors or even beings of other animal species. ) or who are not in a position to make their position clear on the matter (people who are asleep, in a coma or on drugs).
Most rapes are carried out by men, although there are also cases in which the aggressors are women. Although there are cases in which the victim is an adult male (whether the aggressor is a man or a woman), in general the victims are usually women, people with physical or mental difficulties, or minors. It is also common for the rapist to know the victim beforehand it is not strange that it belongs to the family or close circle.
If the rape is experienced with violence, it is common for the victim to avoid situations and places that remind her of the event, in addition to flashbacks, depressive and dissociative symptoms and other symptoms, being one of the most frequent and studied reasons for stress disorder. post-traumatic.
In many cases this causes the attacked person to be afraid to report the abuse, either because they resist accepting what they have experienced, or because they believe that they will not be understood or even that they will be blamed for the situation.
This is why social awareness and psychological work is necessary in relation to preventing, detecting and treating cases of rape or other attacks (fortunately more and more cases report their aggressors).
Types of sexual offender
Once we understand the concept of rape, we can move on to try define a psychological profile common to all rapists
However, the different studies and experts who have dealt with the topic have encountered a problem: there is a very wide diversity of reasons and ways why one subject decides to force another to maintain relationships. Some types of sexual offenders are the following.
1. Circumstantial, occasional or opportunistic rapist
These are subjects who use a situation or event in order to carry out the violation This is the case of violations during parties and events. These are not usually pre-planned attacks.
It is possible that they act under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or that they take advantage of the fact that the victim has consumed them to act and force the consummation of the sexual act.
2. Explosive rapist
This type of rapist seeks to subdue his victim as a result of a violent impulse for domination The goal is to carry out a sexual assault, regardless of who the victim is. For him, rape is clearly an act of power and violence, and not so much a sexual one (although this also occurs in other types of rapists, although not in such an obvious way).
3. Furious rapist
This guy uses rape as an act of punishment against someone he considers to be a representative of the gender , social group or collective that has caused some type of harm (real or imaginary). That is, they experience rape through a clear bias based on stereotypes and sometimes political content.
4. Rapist seeking trust or compensation
This is a type of rapist who has a distorted perception of the relationship between the aggressor and the victim The aggressor considers that his actions will make the victim enjoy and bring the person who is the object of her desire closer, potentially establishing a romantic relationship.
4. Sadistic rapist
In this type of individuals, a link is observed between sexual arousal and aggressiveness The beginning of an interaction that the subject considers exciting can cause the subject’s aggressiveness to increase and he or she experiences aggressive impulses toward his victim, forcing him. It is not uncommon for them to present antisocial disorder and the paraphilia known as sexual sadism, and in the case of rape it is expressed directly, without filters.
Some rapes are carried out for a purpose independent of the sexual satisfaction and power of the aggressor. This is the case of some systematic violations carried out during wars, in which sexual assault is used as a method of humiliation and control of the population and to decrease the morale of the enemy country. This is a strategic use of this type of violence, in order to achieve objectives beyond this action itself.
The profile of the rapist and his characteristics
Although it is true that due to the high diversity of variables that influence the perpetration of an act of this type, it is not possible to speak of a single rapist profile, it is possible to locate a series of variables that, although not applied in all cases are very common among different types of sexual offenders.
It is important to highlight: There is no single prototype of a rapist and the following characteristics, although they may be common, do not identify all rapists.
1. They don’t have to have a strange personality
Most people do not commit rape. This may lead one to think that a typical profile of a rapist must be someone with enormous particularities, characteristics that most people do not have and that make them solitary people in their daily lives without normal contact with society. Although in some specific cases this may be true, in general this is not true.
A large majority of rapes are carried out by subjects with a personality within the “normal” range and that they have friends, family and work. In fact, many of them are people with a partner, with whom they generally maintain relationships in a conventional way.
2. Power, not sex
One of the most common characteristics of most rapists is that the real objective of their action is not to obtain sexual gratification.
Mostly, people who commit rape knowing what they are doing seek and are attracted to the idea of exercising domination , to make other people do something against their will and obeying the interest of the aggressor. In other words, in a rape what is sought is not only sex, but also and especially what is sought is the exercise of power.
3. They tend to look for victims they consider weaker
Although there have been cases in which the victim is someone physically stronger than the aggressor, As a general rule, individuals who commit sexual assaults seek victims who they consider to be physically weaker that they or those who know weak points to take advantage of.
In either case, the choice of victim is linked to the possibility of exercising power either over someone whom they believe they can subdue or over someone they consider above and whom they want to see humiliated and below themselves..
4. Feelings of inferiority and vital frustration
Another element that most rapists share is the presence of a high feeling of frustration and inferiority that can be expressed through explosions of violence.
Although they do not have to show it in most facets of their daily lives and may even act arrogantly, these feelings of inferiority can provoke a reaction in the form of a desire to dominate the other, a desire that in some people can lead to sexual assault
Whether sexual assault occurs for whatever reason, rapists generally have a very limited or non-existent capacity for empathy. So, the sexual offender cannot, does not care or chooses not to think about what the rape means for the victim , or that he comes to consider that the satisfaction of his desire for power and sex deserves the suffering of the victim. This is visible in many of the cases that indicate that the victim actually wanted to maintain relationships or that he actually enjoyed the situation.
6. No anticipation of consequences
It has been observed that many rapists never thought about what could happen after committing the act , whether the case would be investigated or if they would be found and detained. This reflects a certain deficit when it comes to anticipating the consequences of their own actions, whether for themselves or for others. This factor would not be decisive for people who are really looking for the consequence of the act itself rather than the act itself per se.
7. Possible history of abuse or learning coercive sexuality
As with gender violence, many people who currently commit sexual crimes have themselves been abused or mistreated in childhood, or have witnessed abuse of other significant family members.
This means that in the long run they may come to identify coercion as a normal way of proceeding and even if they know that it is socially frowned upon, they may feel the impulse to undertake the act.
8. They consider that they have the right to commit aggression
In a large number of cases, individuals who commit rape consider that they had the right to force themselves on the victim , sometimes for cultural reasons. Thus, sexual assaults are more frequent in people and regions in which a certain consideration of the superiority of men over women still persists, or they consider that his needs are above others.
9. It is not about mentally ill
While the typical image of a rapist is that of a psychopath or someone who suffers from a mental disorder, considering sexual offenders to be people with a mental disorder would be false and reductionist.
It is possible to find that some personality disorders such as antisocial can facilitate an action of this type And it is true that cases of rape can be found during psychotic, manic states or carried out by people with intellectual disabilities, but as a general rule sexual offenders are capable of correctly judging the situation and know what they are doing.
10. Most of them are fully imputable
A consequence of the previous point. Given that the majority of subjects who commit this type of act are fully aware that their actions are harmful and punishable by society, rapists are generally judicially accountable
11. They avoid responsibility
A common characteristic in many of the cases in which psychopathy or psychopathology is not present is the attempt to evade responsibility in the act It is common to justify the behavior by using substances or pretending to suffer from psychopathology to evade punishment. At the reported level, beyond judicial processes, it is common for the victim to be blamed.
12. They blame the victim
Some of the subjects who commit rape usually indicate that the victim is to blame for the situation Phrases such as “I was provoking”, “deep down I wanted to” and variants of them are common in sexual offenders who have been arrested, avoiding taking charge of the situation and making excuses.
