ACT I
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I’m going to be talking about sexual assault in this episode again.
Our story of Being Human on Planet Earth has brought us up to talking about men’s and women’s reproductive instincts and how they can lead to good romantic relationships or to sexual assault.
That brings us to something that can seem like a gray area in between.
Date rape, and spousal rape, and things like that.
When women say No to sex they mean it 100%.
But some men feel like they’re supposed to be exempt from it.
Some rapists rape women because they want to inflict as much emotional suffering on them as they can.
But many others rape because they want to have sex so much that they don’t care, or don’t even believe, that their victims don’t want to have sex.
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This is where things get controversial.
This is where we have to remember that facts and morality are two different things.
Morals are what you want people to do, and facts are what actually happens.
We don’t want men to rape women, but if they do, by gathering information about why they do, we can figure out how to keep it from happening in the future.
Many outspoken leaders in the anti-sexual assault movement probably are sexual assault survivors. They talk about rape in terms of therapy for rape survivors, and talk about it from the point of view of the survivors.
So just remember, providing therapy for rape survivors is different from catching rapists. Outsmarting rapists depends on understanding how men’s feelings about sex lead some men to rape.
Understanding how men’s feelings about sex can lead men to rape also means making better decisions in your own relationships, whether you’re a man or woman, and being better at explaining those feelings to other people.
ACT II
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There are a lot of parts to people having sex with each other.
When in your life did you learn about each of them?
First you learned about boys and girls.
Then you learned about men and women.
Then you started wondering where babies come from.
Then you learned about sex.
Then you learned about rape.
At each step in that process, you had feelings about the new things you learned about. You tried to make sense of it all by fitting your new feelings in with the feelings you already had.
You probably started wondering where babies come from when you were three or four. You probably didn’t have your first sex ed classes until you were in sixth grade. You probably didn’t start to understand how bad rape could be until you were in high school.
The chronological order that you fit these ideas into your mind isn’t the way they fit together as a pattern of cause and effect. Rape isn’t just some bad thing that gets tacked onto the end of the story of where babies come from as an afterthought. When you were three and your mom got pregnant with your younger sister or brother, or your aunt got pregnant with your cousin, women got pregnant from being raped that year too. Even though there wasn’t any good way to explain it to you back then.
Just because you learned about rape 10 years after you learned about pregnancy, doesn’t mean that when you find out a woman is pregnant you should wait 10 years before you’re willing to believe she was raped.
As adults we have to take the responsibility for looking at the whole picture and thinking about what it means now.
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When people started the sexual revolution, what did they want people to learn from it?
It was a revolution against the idea that the only right ways forpeople to have sex were ones that religious leaders approved of, and for the idea that there are different ways and different reasons people can have sex, and many of them can be positive.
People like the feeling of having sex. We use our intelligence to think of different ways to have sex.
When married people who want to have a baby but aren’t trying to have one right now have sex they’re using the feeling of having sex to communicate to each other the feeling of wanting to have a baby.
When people who aren’t trying to have a baby together at all have sex, they’re using the feeling of having sex to communicate to each other that they want each other to feel that good anyway. People have found a lot of ways to make those feelings happen.
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Do you fight against conservative religious leaders trying to control how people feel about sex with a simple message that sex is good?
But rape isn’t good.
If sex is good but rape is bad, that must mean that rape isn’t sex.
Do you fight against conservative religious leaders trying to get people to believe in their creation myths and not believe in evolution with a simple message that evolution is good?
Evolution isn’t good or evil. Evolution is the culmination of the three step process of replication, variation, and selection.
But creation myths make a lot of people feel good. So the easiest way to get a lot of people to believe in evolution is to treat it like a new creation myth. Evolution created us, so to people who feel that being created is good, that makes evolution good.
But rape isn’t good.
If evolution is good but rape is bad, that must mean that rape isn’t part of evolution.
How do you try to protect the environment by changing people’s minds about it? We depend on nature to live. By a simplistic definition, that means nature is good.
Nature isn’t really good or evil. Nature is a very big and complicated pattern of cause and effect, of physical, chemical, and biological processes and cycles.
But if you believe that nature is good and rape is bad, again, that seems to prove that rape isn’t natural.
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This kind of reasoning fits very well with therapy for rape survivors.
If rape isn’t natural and isn’t a product of evolution, that must mean it was invented by someone.
So it must’ve been invented by men, as an instrument of violence.
Those are ideas about rape that we’ve all heard a lot. But that isn’t criminal psychology. Those are just some philosophical conclusions that people have reached by thinking about their ideas surrounding sex.
Forensic psychology is the study of criminals’ mental processes leading up to, during, and after committing a crime, which law enforcement can use to help them find clues and catch the perpetrator. The science of how criminals decide to commit crimes is all part of the story of people always making
the best decisions
they can think of
in the situations
they’re in
for themselves
and the people
and things
they care about.
ACT III
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The FBI has identified four basic categories of serial rapists. They each follow a different pattern of behavior.
Since human intelligence lets us think and feel a lot of different things at once, it’s no surprise that many rapists fit more than one of these patterns of behavior. Because they feel more than one motivation.
The FBI assists local law enforcement in catching rare types of criminals. Serial murders, serial rapists, terrorists, and some others are so uncommon most law enforcement personnel never encounter them even once in their careers. That gives those criminals an advantage in getting away with their crimes, if no one in a local law enforcement agency has any experience in trying to catch this type of criminal. So when the FBI talks about catching rapists they talk about catching serial rapists.
But really, the main difference between a man who rapes one woman and a man who rapes three women is that the second one puts more thought into how to act upon the same basic feelings and keep getting away with it.
If you read books about forensic psychology you have to translate to evolutionary psychology. The people who pioneered those fields had different reasons for pioneering them. The goal of evolutionary psychology is to identify the origins of our thoughts, feelings, and decisions. The goal of forensic psychology is to discover the patterns of behavior of criminals in order to catch them.
So descriptions in forensic psych are written in terms of the feelings and motivations of criminals, not in terms of universal instincts.
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Reassurance-seeking rapists use rape as a substitute for a good relationship. This kind of serial rapist goes out to rape when something in their lives turns out badly for them and they want to have sex to make themselves feel better.
They might be single or they might be in a relationship that doesn’t give them the kind of sex they want.
They can sincerely believe that they’re having a good relationship with their victims. They can be genuinely concerned about their victims and fantasize that they’re having consensual sex. They can even be affectionate to their victims while they’re raping them.
Sometimes they get so carried away with their fantasies that they tell their victims their names and phone numbers and tell them to call them the next time they want to have sex. Obviously, the ones who get that carried away with their fantasies are easy to catch.
This is the most common type of rapist by far. But they’re the most underrepresented in the media because the others are so much more sensational.
Power-seeking rapists rape to prove they can extract sex from women. They’re proving to themselves, the victim, and whoever else knows about it, that they can get what they want.
Erotic-aggression rapists are sadists. They rape because they like to feel their victims suffer. These are the ones who see rape as a weapon for doing the maximum possible damage to a woman.
Retaliatory rapists rape as a way to feel like they’re getting revenge for something.
A retaliatory rapist might rape women who did something to him he didn’t like. Or he might rape someone and fantasize that she’s the person he wants to get even with.
This is another way of using rape as a weapon.
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If we run through the motivations level of the Web of Human Behavior, we can see that each of these has a different motivation.
Reassurance seeking rapists want sex.
Power seeking rapists have a social motivation, because they mainly want to create a certain type of relationship with someone.
Erotic-aggression rapists can be motivated by self gratification, if they rape for pleasure with no goal beyond feeling the woman suffer.
Or they could think of it as self actualization, self fulfillment, or fulfillment of self fulfillment, if they think of making women suffer as a step along the path to living their best life.
Retaliatory rapists are motivated by social and self actualization. They’re doing something to another person because they feel that by getting even with someone they’re overcoming an obstacle to their goals in life.
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At the moment we’re talking about sex, so we’re talking about the reassurance seeking category.
Since the FBI focuses on catching serial rapists, they describe this category in terms of serial rapists. But if we broaden that to men who only commit one or two rapes (since three is the threshold for being categorized as a serial rapist) we can see how the description could apply to them too. He isn’t having the kind of sex he wants, andhe sees what he thinks is an opportunity to have the kind of sex he wants, so the takes the opportunity, regardless of the fact that the woman didn’t consent to it.
This is where we really see the conflicting points of view between men and women. Since men reproduce by shooting sperm cells at egg cells, sexual availability is attractive to us.
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Imagine you were a single man and you went to a party.
You didn’t see any women there who were attractive to you, so you’re not trying to talk to any of them. You’re just hanging out with your friends.
But then a woman comes up to you and starts flirting with you. You’re not really attracted to her.
But then she makes it clear that she just wants to have sex with you once.
Suddenly she’s attractive enough for you to go along with that. Because for most of the 7,000,000 years of our evolution since we split off from the chimpanzees, the opportunity to have sex with a woman was an opportunity to get her pregnant and pass on your genes.
Even though you wouldn’t be getting her pregnant, you get to feel like you could be getting her pregnant, and that’s why having sex makes you feel like your life is going in the right direction.
ACT IV
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Now imagine something else.
You’ve been dating a woman for a few weeks. You think you’re probably going to start having sex soon.
She comes over to your house, and the two of you are hanging out in your bedroom. You’re sitting on the edge of your bed, and you start making out. You’re ready to have sex with her and you’re sure she’s ready to have sex with you.
But then something happens.
She pushes you away, gets up, and says, “No, sorry, I don’t want to do this.”
What should you do?
This has a lot in common with sexual availability. We could call this sexual opportunity.
Why is consent so hard for men to understand sometimes?
When it comes to sex, the word No is only supposed to have one meaning. A woman who isn’t capable of saying No isn’t capable of saying Yes either.
Is the word No really supposed to apply to you?
Or does she mean that she doesn’t want what she thinks is happening, but really what you want to do is going to be a lot better for her than that? She doesn’t realize it now, but she will if you show her.
Women have higher standards on sexual partners than men do, so it’s easier for women to think of No as meaning 100% No.
Men think about cost to benefit ratios differently.
You’ve been working up to this moment for weeks, and now you’re minutes away from feeling like you’re getting her pregnant.
Three seconds ago everything felt like it was going perfectly. Now something changed. But how long is it going to take for it to sink in?
Now she’s walking away from you, and she’s talking as if she isn’t coming back.
Now your perfect plan, not counting that one thing that happened 3 seconds ago that you don’t have time to figure out, has a deadline on it.
If you don’t start having sex with her in the next 10 seconds, she’s going to walk out the door and this opportunity is going to be gone.
If the one thing you care about most is feeling like you’re getting her pregnant, what choice do you have?
So you grab her by the arm and pull her back to the bed. At this point her No hasn’t sunk in for you.
You want to have sex with her so much that you feel she must want to have sex with you.
She says No again and tries to pull away from you.
Does it sink in this time?
Or are you convinced that she doesn’t really understand what she’s talking about, because if the two of you have sex it will be so good that she’ll understand why you want to have sex with her so badly?
Does her saying No ever sink in with you?
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One of the main goals of aviation psychology is to teach pilots how to focus their attention on what they need to focus their attention on, and how to interpret information in ways that lead to an accurate understanding of the situation and success at their goals. And how to recognize when they’ve started thinking the wrong way. Meaning the way they’re thinking now is putting them on a path to missing or misinterpreting information that’s coming up and that they’re going to need. So they can change their mind and start focusing their attention the way they need to focus it.
How many things could make you feel that a woman saying she doesn’t want to have sex with you is less important than you wanting to have sex with her?
Have you invested so much time and money and energy into getting this close to having sex with her that you can’t let the opportunity get away from you?
Do you just not know what you’re supposed to do now if you don’t have sex with her?
Have your friends been encouraging you so much that she wants to have sex with you that you think they must be right and she doesn’t really mean No?
Would your friends be disappointed in you if you don’t have sex with her?
Will they look down on you?
Are you worried that if you don’t have sex with her now she’ll go have sex with someone else?
Are you too drunk for it to sink in?
Is she too drunk to argue very coherently?
Do you believe in a religion, or in some adaptation of a religious story, that says that men and women having sex is one of the most important things in life? The ancient stories in The Bible are about the virtues of marriage, but this is the 21st century, where having sex could be seen as the biggest landmark on the path from dating someone to marrying them.
Or do you feel that having sex with them is all you need now, and you don’t have to marry them?
Having sex gives you the best feeling you’ve ever had, so does thatmake you feel the most connected to your interpretation of your god?
Would you feel like you were failing your god if you don’t have sex with her?
If you don’t have sex with her are you going to feel like you’ve failed at one of your biggest goals?
Are you unwilling to accept failure at something so important?
Or does her No finally sink in?
How do you feel then?
Are you mad at her for turning you down?
Do you feel insulted?
Are you resentful?
Do you want to teach her a lesson?
Do you feel like what you want is still more important than what she wants even if she doesn’t like what you want?
Do you feel like you having sex with her right now is the way the world is supposed to work?
Do you feel like you still must be on the right path, and if she can’t see that you’re just going to have to show her?
Now you’re a power rapist, even though you’re still doing it because you want to have sex too.
But remember, the two of you aren’t just having an argument. You’re not just going to hurt her feelings because she hurt yours.
She hurt your feelings, so now you want to turn this into the worst day of her entire life.
ACT V
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John Douglas was an FBI agent, and he helped to pioneer the science of forensic psychology. He’s written at least a dozen books about it.
Some, like The Anatomy of Motive, are about his discoveries.
Others, like Mindhunter, are about how he made them.
Others, like Law & Disorder, are about how he’s used forensic psychology to help catch criminals.
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If we really want to understand each other’s basic instincts, just imagine that every woman always has an icepick within reach.
When she says she doesn’t want to have sex, if you don’t stop doing what you’re doing right away and agree with her that you shouldn’t have sex, she’s going to stab you right through your skull.
There’s a 96% chance that you’ll survive, but you’ll suffer some serious brain damage. You’re going to spend months, or maybe years, or maybe the rest of your life, feeling like there were important things you wanted to do in life, but you just can’t focus your attention on doing them anymore.
That’s what saying No means to her.
