Why do (some) men sexually abuse/rape?

[tryingtomakesenseoflife]

Can you help me understand why men sexually abuse. I've experienced a range from a pretty awful rape by a friend - to, in longterm marriage, a low level level of coercion and ignoring consent over certain small acts - and in years past experiences that fall in between like unwanted drunken sex.

This is just background to my post. I'm less concerned about addressing my individual circumstances, more in hearing thoughts about why men do this.

It seems to me like a lot of men to different degrees ignore or push the boundaries re consent. (Not all of course)

Are there explanations or understandings of this, including in a wider context, I don't know exactly what I'm asking. I just want to understand a bit more, like has this always been an issue throughout history? Was it understood differently? What is the link to gender roles? To biology? Are the different ends of the spectrum about the same thing?

I couldn't see another thread addressing this but happy to be directed.

It's not so very few. At least not few enough to call them few, imo.

I'm sorry your ex was like that. I'm glad your husband isn't. I think your husband is wrong but I understand the need to find an explanation.

BR, Buffy, Ophelia - yes, I know that F4J have done some questionable things. Name one protest movement (including feminism) that hasn't!

"Once aroused it can't be controlled and they need to be satisfied often."

I simply don't believe the once aroused, it can't be controlled point. If they were at home about to have sex with their wife and their mum popped by unexpectedly, could they stop? If they were snogging a girlfriend in a park and someone lifted their wallet, could they stop? Yep. So they could equally stop if faced with a lack of consent. They just choose not to.

Buffy - everyone one of us sees the world through the lens of our own experience and the experiences of others we identify with. And, of course, we believe we see things more clearly than those who don't agree with us. The idea of rational and dispassionate analysis is a myth. All politics is driven by emotional factors, and people identify targets accordingly.

It doesn't feel like men have the power if you're a man denied access to your kids. Or if you're a poor black youth who sees Theresa May and Angela Merkel discussing the UK's future.

If you're in grinding poverty you see the economic oligarchies - or the benefit cheats or the immigrants. If you're black you'll see the whiteocracies. If you're female you'll see the patriarchy. And so on and so on. Most people have an axe to grind - and that's fuelled by a sense of personal injustice rather than by noble altruism. And a good proportion of that axe-grinding takes the form of demonising the perceived oppressor.

No activist movement has a monopoly on truth.

It doesn't feel like men have the power if you're a man denied access to your kids. Or if you're a poor black youth who sees Theresa May and Angela Merkel discussing the UK's future

What relevance does this have to the question in the title of this thread?

In regard to the question 'Why do men rape?'
this is some sort of blog by a man educating other men about how to know the difference between real consent and non-consent so as to avoid being a date rapist. The language is very creepy, especially in the first scenario where he describes a drunk girl he has picked up wanting sex/being all over him (?? how often does that really happen, I just don't know). But I thought that in describing the various scenarios and what not to do, his blog seems to portray something about what Brock Turner type men want to do.

www.doctornerdlove.com/2012/01/coerced-consent-yes-means-no/all/1/

It seems when something makes men think it is fair game, and when they are under the stress of war, many are going to be rapists. What happened in Germany after the war shows this. It was not just the Russians who were raping but American, British and French soldiers - something we just don't think possible when we watch the gents in war films.
Warning, these articles about what happened to German women after the war are horrifying and very upsetting:

www.revisionist.net/human-loot.html

library.flawlesslogic.com/massrape.htm

In this article, following, it says the first wave of rapes in Berlin were for revenge, then the following waves were for lust.

incredibleimages4u.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/german-women-raped-at-end-of-ww2.html

I would like to know if the British Army teaches the soldiers how not to be overcome by an urge to rape. Imagine going to war as a relatively innocent young man, then committing that crime. How could you ever be all right again?

Senac - I think your husband talks shit because he has been unknowingly taught these lessons from birth. We all have.

I think people can be educated in a way that would prevent most unwanted sex. But not adults who are already entrenched in the sexist bullshit culture that we currently have. Children can be educated about consent, respect, speaking out etc. It would require a complete transformation of the education system, current family life and many many other things. This could happen in just a couple of generations but everyone, or at least the vast majority, would have to get behind it.
Although we may always have sociopaths/psychopaths/whatever the right word is who will abuse and assault.

I would like to know if the British Army teaches the soldiers how not to be overcome by an urge to rape. Imagine going to war as a relatively innocent young man, then committing that crime. How could you ever be all right again?

My pity for those men is limited. I don't think any truly innocent man would ever feel an urge to rape. Torture, perhaps. Rape, no. I also believe that the British Army should shoot rapists among their ranks, instead of teaching them how to resist the urge to rape.

As for men teaching each other to rape, there's this interesting study:

jezebel.com/5866602/can-you-tell-the-difference-between-a-mens-magazine-and-a-rapist

Men's magazines are essentially rape propaganda. I couldn't tell the difference with the examples given.

That is disturbing. What a terrible culture.

KindDogsTail interesting. I wonder what impact the stress/trauma etc of war has in terms of creating rapists. I would hope these are the potential rapists in normal times but i wonder though if circumstances can move men from the 'would never" normally rape category. Worrying. I think regardless i have an empathy failure with the innocent young men going on to rape.

VestalVirgin I had a look at that link.
Interestingly on a person level of the 4 i got wrong were all 3 of the statements related to dress - which I incorrectly thought were lads mags rather than rapists.

That first link (human loot) is horrendous. I even clicked onto the next page (about the children).

Maybe I'm so overwhelmed by the hugeness if it, but I can't get past the [absurdity*] of the Stars & Stripes article title: why TF would a German speaking woman be reading an English-language article in a publication available mainly/only to US armed forces?

*except, chillingly, it's not absurd. It's nastily calculating, innit...

Should say, I didn't look at the links so my comments are in response only to the thoughts posted.

@tryingtomakesense: Yeah, me too - I thought the statements related to dress were by the lad mags, while the ones that were more like "I did this" were by rapists, but you really can't see any difference.

Maybe I'm so overwhelmed by the hugeness if it, but I can't get past the [absurdity] of the Stars & Stripes article title: why TF would a German speaking woman be reading an English-language article in a publication available mainly/only to US armed forces?*

I am a German speaking woman who reads almost only English-language articles on the internet. Not sure how one would find a publication that'sonly available to US armed forces, but in Germany, almost everyone speaks English, so this is not as implausible as you might think it is.

There is a problem with sexual assault within the forces, as well as that perpetrated by them on non-combatants. I was reading an academic paper a couple of days ago, which was about trauma among female services personnel. There were a few things listed as causes that you would expect, such as combat stress. But prominent on the list was sexual trauma. I found it quite disturbing that sexual assault from one's own (supposed) comrades was being talked about in the same terms as the danger that all services personnel face when they go into conflict

And this is one of the reasons why abolishing the obligatory military service in Germany was the only way to go if you wanted to treat women and men the same - imagine women being forced into an environment where the men rape that much!
(I actually think that military units should be sex segregated until the rape epidemic is under control, or if men continue to rape, forever. It is just inacceptable that being raped by "comrades" is considered a risk attached to the job.)

Trying, yes, I would think so. If you have detached from the enemy's humanity enough to kill them, which is built up by culture and training , why not to rape them?

Apart from a state of stress, rage, being wired up with amphetamines for combat readiness, this below is also the sort of thing I was wondering about - in regard to what I had described as relatively innocent young men, who I thought might not have been rapists in ordinary life, becoming rapists in war.

I am quoting below from this article
www.womenundersiegeproject.org/blog/entry/why-soldiers-rapeand-when-they-dontin-diagrams

One of the more hopeless reasons soldiers have committed rape in DRC may be that they wanted to avoid violence from superiors. Rape also creates what researchers call “unit cohesion”—a kind of nasty socialization in which soldiers find something terrible they have now in common.

It leaves a bad taste—if peer pressure and a beating is enough to cause men to commit such horrible acts, what hope is there for a rape-free world ?

There are also those child soldiers who are made to kill their parents and rape to de-sensitise them and make them into violence machines.

I see what you are both saying, and I (obviously) know little about this.

I suppose I didn't think all soldiers detached from the humanity of their enemy. I thought many of them were tormented by what they have to do. It's different fighting an enemy "army" than raping a village of innocent civilians afterwards. I thought thst required something different.

But I know nothing g of the training.
Under threat from seniors is a different factor I wasn't thinking about.

Yes I can see it probably does happen like you say Jacquetta. Does this fit with where I was starting from that many men can abuse in the "right" circumstances. Eg, Particularly unpleasant privileged rugger bugger culture at my school for example caused a terrible environment.

I don't mean to minimise war and it's impact. But maybe I just did. Maybe other circumstances are simply never comparable.

I can see that I have a very vague notion of what war and it's issues, training are like. Haven't thought through.

Skewed perspective. Those who I know who joined the army are a certain type. Including the violent rapist - now senior respected position.

I wasn't thinking about situations like DRC. Feels like quite different issues. Maybe not.

As I understand it army training is designed to put recruits under short periods of high stress. Under high stress the brain becomes more plastic and so new neural connections are made and new behaviours learnt. The army aims to rewire soldiers to follow orders without question. (I've had a quick Google for a link but not found anything very accessible so I hope I'm not recalling this wrong!)

This is obviously risky if the orders themselves are unethical but may explain why the Nazis could gas the Jews and why the Red Army could rape and murder on order.

Actually should have out some thought in rather than rambling thoughts! Not much worth answering in that.

In this article
inthesetimes.com/article/3848/
it does seem there is also evidence for rapist types joining the army in the first place, previous civilian crimes of violence being waived so they will be accepted into the army, huge mysogyny in the training, female army personnel getting raped and being treated as though the men are entitled to them.

Felas you're quite right. Anecdotal evidence, but back home everyone knows "you do not question orders,you obey orders". And that was mostly made by breaking the new recruits spirits. Humiliation,battery, not allowing them to read /open letters/packages from home(the only true connection with the outside world), cleaning toilets with toothbrushes etc add to that the fact that there was no escape for two years,that it was mandatory and you had no escape unless disabled or rich and you ended up killing yourself,a robot or a bit/a lot fucked up for life even if you didn't end up joining in The end. There have been cases where recruits have been "punished" by the "higher ups" by sending a team to rape their girlfriends. Some men don't just see women as disposable,they see everyone under them disposable. And it's a horrifying thing to live through...hence the suicide rates when army service was mandatory.