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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

*trigger warning* question/ discussion about violent rape

32 replies

terfing · 16/02/2018 15:37

Trigger warnng

I have been reading up on violent men/ female victims recently and something which I just can't understand is why some men kill women after raping them. What is the reason behind this action? I can see that there are (horrible) reasons why men rape and are violent towards women, i.e. To control them. But why do some men kill after rape?

(I'm sorry if this is a grizzly discussion, but I am trying to learn more about male abuse. I am sorry if I offend anyone.)

OP posts:
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UpABitLate · 17/02/2018 12:16

They may also get angry if the woman / girl doesn't behave as he wants her to. He may well have a sort of "this is how it will go" thing in his mind and if she doesn't play his part then that makes him angry.

EG there was a girl raped in ?channel islands years ago, I remember as the ?boy told her she wasn't screaming, why wasn't she screaming. And that she had to scream or he would hurt her more until she screamed.

UpABitLate · 17/02/2018 12:11

The other point is that some of them may want to get rid of the "evidence", the reminder of what they have done.

Not remorse exactly, but understanding that it was not a good thing to do, and not wanting any kind of living reminder about it, so he can put it out of his mind more easily. Sort of like getting rid of evidence but not from a hiding from the police motivation, more hiding from themselves.

Agree that the CSI style description of "torture ritual" and sexually sadistic serial killers is unnecessary here becasue the sort of men who do this are often quite "normal" and not decanting goats blood and what have you. In fact the prevalence of these stories of ritualised murder from major psychopaths are unnecessarily prevalent in glossy US crime drama in my opinon.

The stat of 2 women a week murdered by their partners / someone close to them - how many of these have been subjected to rape in their relationships / before they are murdered? It's not sometihng that comes up much but I'm willing to bet it's a high proportion.

RebelRogue · 16/02/2018 21:01

Yes the Maddona/ whore complex.
Also the fact the feeling of ownership. MY mother,MY sister,MY daughter,MY wife...
"He can't do that to MY sister!!"
"Yeah but you did that and worse to x's sister,and y's sister,and z's cousin etc"
"No but this is different!"
"How?"
"She's MY sister!!"

IfyouseeRitaMoreno · 16/02/2018 20:52

Harvey is so right about the categorization of women by men who don't necessarily hate women but hate a certain type of woman and have this Madonna / whore mentality of what women are and how they should act.

If a woman fits into the very narrow definition (caring, virtuous, submissive etc) she will be idolized but if she steps out she'll be subject to intense vitriol. There is no in between and in each case the woman is not seen as a human being with thoughts, feelings and complexities but a caricature of the two types of womanhood.

That quote that "feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings" is really apt.

Anlaf · 16/02/2018 20:49

I read this piece recently - has some book references which might be interesting.

Makes an argument that people do violence because of the humanity of their victim.

www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/27/the-root-of-all-cruelty

HarveyKietelRabbit · 16/02/2018 20:07

Guilt, shame, panic, fear are likely the majority.

Lack of empathic reasoning so killing because it's easier than the alternative or genuinely not caring and not feeling much at all about the fact you've killed or is rare.

Sexual sadists who get sexual gratification from inflicting torture or death are very, very rare.

RebelRogue · 16/02/2018 20:02

@terfing again there can be several reasons. Cases i know of...
Gang rape where the assailants just left the victim bleed to death. Murder was not part of the plan.

Marital rape during which the man strangled the woman,rendering her unconscious. Then finished off and had a fag waiting for her to come to. She never did. He didn't set to murder her.

Acts that cause fatal injuries (by choking,internal damage etc) for example donkey punch.

terfing · 16/02/2018 19:50

From some of the cases I've been reading, it seems like murder is often an unplanned part of the rape. This is why I'm confused. It seems like it usually happens in "the heat of the moment". I was wondering if there was a specific reason for this. I think as someone said, it may be the guilt or shame of the act?

OP posts:
Xmaspost · 16/02/2018 19:47

There is an amount of research on rapists, motivations, etc. There is no single accepted analysis ... but the Groth one is widely used in literature. See here, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_rapist

As you see from that there is a classification for sadistic rapist ... "he victims of a sadistic rapist may not survive the attack. For some offenders, the ultimate satisfaction is gained from murdering the victim."

If you have access to a University library you'll find a lot of books/research in that area.

I became aware of that research many years ago working on a project in the medical area and prison services (I was on the science/analysis side, not the medical).

UpstartCrow · 16/02/2018 19:38

It can be that a rapist is transferring their feelings of self disgust on to their victim, and has to obliterate them. They can be disgusted with themselves for 'needing' them. Destroying the victim is proof they don't need or want them.

Sadists get a charge out of controlling people as well as hurting them. Deciding if someone lives or dies is the ultimate act of control.

This makes for disturbing reading;
www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wicked-deeds/201701/some-individuals-kill-their-own-sadistic-pleasure

HarveyKietelRabbit · 16/02/2018 19:33

Yes Rebel. And entitlement and not necessarily consciously seeing women as inferior - but the chosen victim type, and that doesn't extend in most cases to all women.

It's why we have so many Mothers, sisters and wives/partners who are so, so sure that their son/brother/partner couldn't possibly have done what they were accused of. People couldn't understand why Ched Evans partner for example stood by him and went on to have a baby with him.

Sometimes it is that the supportive partner has been abused, ground down or manipulated. That's rare. More usually they support their son/brother/partner because they've had loving relationships with them that they trust and they just can't possibly imagine that their loved one would do that. Because they respect, support, love and protect the women in their lives that they care about and see as important.

They divide women into categories.

Peter Sutcliffe isn't necessarily a good example here as he never raped his victims but the OP was questioning extreme and rare situations which rape murders or serial murders are. He adored his Mother, was devoted to his wife and dominated by her with no suggestion of any abusive or disrespectful behaviour from him at all.
His Dad, brothers and friends took the piss out of him not having affairs, taking his shoes of in the house because his wife demanded it and doing housework (not usually done by men in 1970s Northern households with expected gender roles).

His wife Sonia couldn't believe what he was accused of and as she still visits him, maybe never will. His sisters loved him and appreciated the fact that he would insist on walking them home to offer protection as the 'Ripper was about'. He knew he was the Ripper but made his sisters feel loved and protected.

He didn't hate women. He hated a 'type' of woman which he categorised himself.

'Dirty' prostitutes that had previously humiliated him and later on, any woman that was walking about late at night that he could think was probably also 'dirty' in some way.

IfyouseeRitaMoreno · 16/02/2018 19:22

Yeah I think there's a difference between hatred and indifference. But killers who target women definitely don't have a healthy attitude towards them and either see them as beneath them or actively hate them as some part of Eve temptress.

Xenophile · 16/02/2018 19:03

Yes Harvey, I'm aware of that. Thanks.

RebelRogue · 16/02/2018 18:55

@HarveyKietelRabbit yes some of them only feel contempt,ownership and see women as (sexual) objects, beneath them.
Indeed that's not hate. It's closer to indifference because they don't give a shit if the woman lives or dies,is in pain,hurting etc. The woman has no feelings or autonomy , so no need to bother.

HarveyKietelRabbit · 16/02/2018 18:48

And no, a man who rapes does not necessarily hate women. Some do but not anyway near even a majority. It is far too simplistic to suggest that is the case and in no way does that explain the huge rates of rape or help us understand and reduce it.

HarveyKietelRabbit · 16/02/2018 18:43

Xenophile - serial killers and sexual sadist murderers are an extremely small very specific number of offenders. More rape murders are a result of a 'perfect storm' of factors.

Nuffaluff · 16/02/2018 18:19

I just heard about the case when that 17 year old boy went out to find a woman to rape and murder to celebrate his 17th birthday.
He hit her over the head with some concrete, raped her and left her for dead.

Nuffaluff · 16/02/2018 18:16

A man who rapes is someone who hates women. This is especially clear when it’s a violent rape. Why not go on to murder her? It’s a more extreme expression of that hatred.

RebelRogue · 16/02/2018 18:11

Like PP said there are different situations.
The ones that go too far,mostly out of not giving a fuck.
The ones that have murder as a goal but that would be too fast and easy. They have to defile and abuse the woman first.
The fetishists that actually get turned on by taking a life. If rape is about power,what bigger testament of that power than killing her?

Don't know how much silencing is a factor,at least in the UK. Because it's fucking way too easy to get away with rape,whereas murder not as much.

Fishfingersandwichnocheese · 16/02/2018 18:11

Likely different reasons for different men.

Some in rage. Some to cover it up/silence the victim and others probably because as a PP said the killing was the intention all along.

Xenophile · 16/02/2018 18:10

The rape would have been part of a torture ritual for the murderer. Sexual sadists are a specific type of serial killer and they tend to have a mappable trajectory for their first kill.

The other type are the ones who kill the woman by accident, often by smothering her to stop her screaming.

Men don't need to kill the women they rape, there's almost zero chance of hem ever being caught, let alone charged. Even less of them being convicted.

DenPerry · 16/02/2018 17:48

I think the point was to always murder them in the end and rape is just part of the whole power/control thing. For some it will be to stop identification. I feel so sad for all the women who have died terrified Sad

bebanjo · 16/02/2018 17:04

No evidence at all, but, I've always kind of thought it was about the taking of somthing.
So the rape is taking one thing and the murder is taking another.
The ultimate control really.

HarveyKietelRabbit · 16/02/2018 16:12

Silencing doesn't have to be about suppressing evidence. It can be about the literal silencing.

It may not matter if they would be likely to get away with it or not, they don't want anyone to hear of it. It could affect their already fragile sense of self or be in complete contradiction to their already strong (but incorrect) sense of self and their public image.

A sense of shame (yes that can occur) can result in an externalisation of that shame so rather than seeing themselves as the producer of shame, they project it into the victim and the way to remove that feeling is to remove what they erroneously think is the source of it.

TheButterflyOfTheStorms · 16/02/2018 15:58

It's possible the point was always murder for them and the rape was another violent, humiliating thing to do.

I'm not sure it's about evidence is they seem to get away with it 99 times out of 100. Angry

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