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Analysis / Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil

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The logic behind rape being qualitatively different from other crimes runs something like this.

We have created a hierarchy of evil based on what does greater or lesser damage to the social contract but mitigated by necessity. Killing another human is the most destructive and in pretty much every society therefore punished the most harshly. But it is possible that killing another human being can be forgiven from need; self-defence or the defence of others. Even the violent suppression of a rebellion or the killing of an insolent underling by a leader can be construed as attempts to preserve the existing social contract.

People may:

  • steal to feed themselves or their families.
  • torture others to obtain information that can save thousands (though many people do consider this to be a dubious justification for both practical and moral reasons.)
  • kill someone in self-defense to preserve their own life, or to stop a person from harming others.

These are all actions that are normally punished if performed for their own sake, but which may be treated less harshly if performed "for the right reasons"—personal survival, the survival of another, or the survival of the group. Constructing a situation in which rape becomes necessary for personal survival, the survival of another, or the survival of the group is extremely difficult, if not impossible.

It is in the top tier of the hierarchy of wrongs because of its ability to have permanent effects on the victim and those around the victim, along with torture and murder. That also means that any attempt to justify it instantly begs the question of why the use of the other two, particularly torture since both leave the victim alive, wasn't a relatively superior solution. Also, unlike torture or murder, it can actually create an additional victim(s) of the crime (a female victim being unwillingly impregnated, especially if getting an abortion isn't easy for her).

A compounding factor is the virtual impossibility of rape seeming in any way like a "fair fight". Comparing it again to other crimes, a killer who chooses victims that can't fight back is considered far more contemptible than one who kills somebody who poses an immediate threat, regardless of motive. Rape, meanwhile, requires that the victim be left incapable of mounting an effective defence for a substantial length of time, meaning that even someone who might be formidable under other circumstances is rendered completely helpless (and not just for a brief moment in which their attacker might gain the advantage in a fight).

Furthering the subject of equality and power dynamics is the fact that—when compared to rape—murder, mild torture, and theft all seem less unfairly victimizing because the consequences of each crime (death, pain, and loss, respectively) are all things which everyone can fear and relate to in some way. Death comes to everyone eventually, anyone can understand pain and suffering (though the extent may vary depending on individual life experiences), and the grief of losing that which one personally finds valuable is a feeling that anyone can understand, regardless of upbringing. Rape, on the other hand, is not a crime which everyone fears and relates to equally. Victims of rape and extreme torture are more isolated on account of them having been made to suffer in a more carnal way far beyond what most people can relate to. Thus, they are often regarded more sympathetically (and their attackers more contemptibly) than they would have been had the crime been something more universally relatable. Additionally, while men and women can both be raped, women are much more likely to fear being raped due to statistical differences and the often gendered nature of the crime.

Rape also requires prolonged malevolence in a way that most other crimes do not. Even if cold-blooded murder is a crime with a comparatively further-reaching impact, it is still possible for that to be perpetrated by someone who is either coldly dispassionate, or who may have admirable traits yet is still able to suppress their conscience for the few seconds it takes to aim and fire a gun. Rape, (barring rather improbable circumstances) however, is not a crime that can be committed in a few short moments of ruthlessness or madness but requires the sustained pleasure of the rapist, making it something that can only be done by an attacker who is either completely indifferent to the victim's suffering, or actively enjoys it. This can also be said of many sadistic torturers who enjoy killing their victims with as much pain as possible.

Compounding the issue is the much higher likelihood of rape survivors being subject to victim-blaming; often due to a misconception surrounding the attacker's motives. According to most psychiatric diagnoses, the overwhelming majority of rapes are mainly driven by megalomania on the part of the perpetrator—their motive is not merely unfulfilled sexual "needs" but fragile egotism which results in them longing to assert their will onto somebody else. In other words: sexual desire does seem to influence who they target for assault and how they do it, but it is not why they commit such assaults to begin with (this is partially why young women are statistically the most likely to be raped, while convicted rapists who have undergone chemical castration are still prone to assaulting women non-sexually). Unfortunately, due to this complicated overlap in motivations and the inherent fact that rape combines sex and violence into one event, there is a far greater probability that casual observers will misinterpret the crime as being solely driven by pent-up sexual desire and thus blame the victim for "leading on" the perpetrator (e.g., no one ever blames a murder victim for having "too much life," but there are many who would blame a rape victim for having "too much sex"). All this does is further isolate victims and fail to address the underlying egotism that resulted in the perpetrator harming another person to begin with.

On the topic of social and cultural attitudes, another reason why rape is so uniquely bad is that it's a particularly extreme deviation from what most would regard as 'dignified' sexual behavior. According to Terror Management Theory, a major reason why humans build elaborate social norms around sex and the human body, more generally, is to protect our species's sense of purpose in life—that humans are more valuable and dignified than other living organisms. This, however, presents an issue when it comes to sex and other bodily functions like eating, expelling wastes, death, and menstruation—because these are all biological realities that we share with other animals, a society that wants to draw a line between "human" and "animal" must create elaborate norms/regulations in order to "sanctify" such behaviors and give them uniquely human moral qualities (e.g., only permitting sex in private so as to keep it a special and exclusive act between lovers; customs requiring that certain foods only be prepared in specific ways, laws against desecrating the dead and/or requiring burial within a few hours of death, etc.). Furthermore, according to many social psychologists and even feminist authors (like Jonathan Haidt and Louise Perry), such norms are reinforced by what's called the "behavioral immune system"—the psychological mechanisms by which we perceive certain behaviors as 'morally aberrant' are also the same mechanisms by which we react to carriers of potentially dangerous pathogens. Because of these evolved psychological mechanisms, humans tend to regard deviant sexual behaviors as not just abnormal or disgusting, but dehumanizing, even if the behaviour is consensual and/or if no one is (strictly speaking) hurt by said behaviors (e.g., consensual cannibalism, necrophilia, sexual relationships between parent and child, etc.). This has obvious implications for rape: a major reason why e.g., raping an unconscious person is seen as far worse than e.g., stabbing and mugging someone, etc. is because the former—even though both acts violate the victims' bodily autonomy—presents a more heinous attack on their dignity and sense of value in life—the reduction of another human being to a mere object (i.e., a "slab of meat") to satisfy the perpetrator's basest, most animalistic desires. Additionally, research has shown that women—on average—tend to have a stronger sense of disgust than most men (as it historically evolved to protect women against STIs and to avoid dangerous men who would leave them raising a child without a father for support), which likely explains the double-standard wherein rape of a man doesn't tend to garner as much scorn as rape of a woman.

This then leads to the final reason why rape is a special kind of evil: unlike other major crimes, there is nothing interesting about a rapist. Even the most sadistic Serial Killer may be darkly fascinating due to the sheer alien incomprehensibility of their motives to the average person. The rapist, meanwhile, has primal, more animalistic motives which are still comprehensible to most people. Egotism, pent-up sexual desire, the longing to feel powerful and assert one's will, and the impulse to "go after" somebody who meets one's preferences are all feelings that most people do—to some extent—share but generally don't act on due to their ethics, conscience, and general ability to empathise with others. The reason why there is so much focus on serial killers in fiction (and many works which paint them in a more sympathetic light) may simply be the fact that these depraved, murdering monsters are interesting in a way that depraved, raping monsters are not.

All that being said, rape of an adult (woman or man) still leaves its seat to rape of a child—the younger the child, the viler the act, even if it's perpetrated by a woman. Adult-on-child violence (especially murder, prostitution, exploitation for labor or torture) also trumps rape for the very simple reason that a child is completely defenceless; even more than a disempowered adult, not to mention it grossly deprives them of their innocence which is what people value from a child. The same goes for rape of a physically or mentally challenged person.


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