Last month Jezebel ran a piece titled ‘Rapists Explain Themselves on Reddit, and We Should Listen’ by Katie J.M. Baker. It looked at the attitudes of rapists and would-be rapists as expressed on a long Reddit thread about why they did what they did – or wanted to.
I wanted to know what someone actually working in the field of sexual assault counselling through of the piece so I asked, Alison Grundy, a counsellor with 20 years experience, to comment.
Alison Grundy
There is nothing new in these stories from perpetrators of sexual violence. Nothing that hasn’t been openly related, reported, commented upon and pondered over for the last 30 years – certainly in the last 25 that I have been working in the field, I have read and been exposed to this type of material literally thousands of times .
It’s nothing that the workers, researchers, therapists, educators and those who run treatment programs haven’t heard over and over and over again.
It’s a mistake to think we’re justifying rapists’ actions by listening to their stories.
True – but it is a very big mistake to print rapist’s stories as if they are the truth or to print them without any analysis about what the attitudes they express mean to their victims, their families and the wider community.
Read any book on treating sexual abusers and rapists – the fundamental notion is that these people do not tell the truth. Or their truth is critically and extremely biased by justifying their actions.
Those working with offenders report “cognitive distortions” that they routinely express to excuse, deny and minimise their actions. The most common of these is blaming the victim. We, as a community, also routinely join them in this most insidious of cognitive distortions.
In my view, not all sexual abusers have” cognitive distortions.” Some – perhaps most- know what they are doing is wrong and also know that nothing will happen to them – that mostly they can get away with it. I think you can hear this in their stories if you listen with a critical ear. As well, they live in a culture which enables rape permission giving beliefs.
Some of them are tough to read, but their brutal honesty illustrates how a lack of communication and education perpetuates rape culture. Ignoring or dismissing these men (and women) out of hand may be an effective coping strategy for a given individual, but not for society. It gets us nowhere.
The accounts are not “brutally honest” – they are self-serving and excusing. They do not point to education and better communication – they point to a complete shift in the way sexual violence is perceived and perpetuated in our society.
Of the guys who express regret, I can’t remember any of them saying what they did to right the wrong, seek out the consequences, own up to the victim, their family or the community for doing this. The central step in many offender programmes is going to the police and owning up to the crime or at least “facing up” and taking responsibility to significant people. I didn’t hear anything like this.
It’s not enough to feel regret- that doesn’t help the victim. This is not stealing something from a shop – this crime changes its victim’s lives, it wreaks havoc in their bodies and destroys their faith in the central notions of safety, community and in some cases love. Regret just doesn’t cut it.
It would have been more useful, in the battle against violence against women, to have someone trained in working with offenders to comment on each of the stories from a critical perspective so we could all understand the inherent distortions and self- serving nuances that help confuse the central issues of violence and responsibility.
5 Responses
So true, regret does nothing to repair the damage or change behavior & perception.
I truly wish the perpetrators could understand what they have done…
& be part of the prevention of rape & sexual assault.
NO, I WILL NOT LISTEN! I can’t even bring myself to go and read ANY of the LIES that these SOCIOPATHS, NARCISSISST RAPISTS SPEW. GASLIGHTING. DARVO. NO NO NO NO! I want them ALL to DROP OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH FOREVER.
Alison Grundy is absolutely correct and I too happen to know the innumerable males who commit rape and other forms of male sexual violence against women rarely if ever, take full responsibility for their crimes against women. I know this because of my work with female survivors of male violence.
Instead all these men maintain the same excuses/justifications/denials that they did commit rape/rapes against women and girls. Males who rape women and girls know exactly what they are doing and know their likelihood of being charged let alone convicted are almost zero and this applies globally. The issue of how male sexuality continues to be socially constructed and accepted as ‘innately sexually aggressive and male must never be held accountable for his sexual behaviour’ continues to be invisibilised because focus is always on women’s behaviour. This belief enables men to not be held accountable or responsible for their crimes against women and girls.
Allowing these male perpetrators space to utter their specious denials/lies serves one purpose only and that is to reinforce our male Supremacist society’s belief that ‘rape’ is always just an isolated incident and the female victim(s) are always either partially or wholly to blame for ‘causing male(s) to rape her/them.’
Jezebel should have commissioned a female expert to dissect each and every claim these male sexual predators made and thereby prove these men are manipulative cunning liars who believe it is their innate right to have sexual access to any female of any age.
Instead Jezebel provided men with yet more evidence that males who rape women and girls are so rare they are like the unicorn – extinct.
These male sexual predators have something in common with all males who commit violence against women in any shape or form and that is male denial/male justification/male minimalisation. Because men are never responsible for their actions/behaviour towards women are they? Males who commit violence against their female/ex female partners enact the same lies/excuses/denials and rarely if ever accept they are accountable. Apologies are worthless because the harm men inflict on women is not something which can be dismissed as ‘well he did apologise so let’s move on.’ No the harm men inflict on women is devastating and all too commonly it is the female victims who suffer years and years of trauma and a restricted life.
All because men believe they have the right to dominate and control women. Until such time as men and the male controlled legal institutions; medical professions; educational system; welfare services etc. accept the fact male violence in all its forms is used to maintain male power over women and that radical changes need to be done to curb men’s power – nothing will change.
Women demand liberation from male control not more articles whereby focus is on men excusing/denying and/or playing the ‘poor me I did nothing wrong card.’
Jennifer Drew,
thank you for your comment. I am in utter agreeance with you. Changes must be seen.
I actually spent a lot of time reading through these various admissions, perhaps unwisely, trying to make sense of my own experience.
A common theme I noticed was that most of the men didn’t believe they were or identify as rapists. Yet there they were, voluntarily sharing their sob stories of how they raped a woman. Must be nice for them to clear their consciences, you know, anonymously, online, without have to take any real responsibility for their actions.