Psychological profile of rapists: 12 common traits

What is the personality of rapists like and how can we detect them?

In February 2015, a young university student was murdered in Turkey after resisting a sexual assault. Her body was found burned. Not long ago there was a wave of rapes of minors in India, many of whom were later found dead. In various African countries, numerous women are raped with the intention of instilling fear in the local population..

These and numerous other cases are examples of situations where sexual intercourse has been forced, i.e. where rape has been committed. And you don't have to go that far to find cases: A well-known case within our borders occurred during the past year when a young woman was raped by several individuals during the San Fermin festivities.

This is not an uncommon phenomenon: in our country alone, it is estimated that a woman is raped every eight hours. That is why psychology and other sciences have tried to elaborate a psychological profile of the rapist, finding common traits that allow us to work on the elements that can lead to sexual aggression. In this article we will try to find a series of twelve traits in common among rapists and we will look at the psychological patterns that make up the rapist. we will see the psychological patterns that constitute the profile of the rapist..

What do we call rape?

While we all know roughly what we are talking about when we hear the word rape, understanding something is a necessary step in finding ways to make it not happen again, so conceptualizing the term rape is a useful step in understanding what a rapist does and being able to identify his psychological profile.

Rape is defined as sexual aggression through which an individual engages in non-consensual sexual relations with another individual. with another. These relations are carried out in direct opposition to the victim, using coercion, force or elements that cloud the victim's judgment, such as drugs. Although rape is generally thought to include penetration, this is not necessarily the case.

In addition to this, rape is considered to be the carnal act with subjects who do not have sufficient understanding or capacity of judgment to assess the situation (such as persons with psychic deficiencies or problems that cloud their capacity of judgment, minors or even beings of other animal species) or who are not in a position to make their position on the matter clear (persons asleep, in a coma or drugged).

Most rapes are carried out by men, although there are also cases in which the aggressors are women. Although there are cases in which the victim is an adult male (whether the aggressor is male or female), in general the victims are usually women, people with physical or psychological difficulties or minors. It is also frequent that the rapist knows the victim beforehand.It is not uncommon for them to belong to the victim's family or close circle.

The main after-effects of sexual aggression

If the rape is lived with violence, it is frequent that the victim presents avoidance of situations and places that remind him/her of the event, in addition to flashbacks, depressive and dissociative symptoms and other symptoms, being one of the most frequent and studied reasons for post-traumatic stress disorder.

In many cases this causes the victim to be afraid to report the abuse, either because she is reluctant to accept what she has experienced, or because she believes that she will not be understood or even blamed for the situation.

This is why it is necessary to raise awareness at a social level and psychological work in relation to prevent, detect and treat cases of rape or other assaults (fortunately more and more cases denounce their aggressors).

Types of sexual aggressor

Once we have understood the concept of rape, we can move on to try to to define a psychological profile common to all rapists..

However, the different studies and experts who have dealt with the subject have encountered a problem: there is a very wide diversity of motives and ways in which a subject decides to force another to have sex. Some types of sexual aggressors are the following.

1. Circumstantial, occasional or opportunistic rapist

These are individuals who take advantage of a situation or event in order to commit rape.. This is the case of rapes during parties and events. These are not usually pre-planned assaults.

It is possible that they act under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or that they take advantage of the fact that the victim has consumed them to act and force the consummation of the sexual act.

2. Explosive rapist

This type of rapist seeks to subdue his victim as a result of a violent impulse to dominate.. His objective is to carry out a sexual aggression, regardless of who the victim is. For him, rape is clearly an act of power and violence, and not so much a sexual one (although this also occurs in the other types of rapists, although not in such an evident way).

3. Angry rapist

This subject uses rape as an act of punishment against someone he considers to be a representative of the gender, social group or collective that has caused him some kind of harm (real or imagined).social group or collective that has caused him some kind of harm (real or imaginary). In other words, they experience rape through a clear bias based on stereotypes and sometimes political content.

4. Rapist in search of trust or compensation

This is a type of rapist who has a distorted perception of the relationship between the aggressor and the victim.. The aggressor considers that his actions will make the victim enjoy himself and will bring the person closer to the object of his desire, and may even establish a romantic relationship.

4. Sadistic rapist

In this type of individual there is a link between sexual arousal and aggressiveness.. The initiation of an interaction that the subject considers exciting may cause the subject's aggressiveness to increase and experience aggressive impulses towards the victim, forcing him or her. It is not uncommon for them to present antisocial disorder and the paraphilia known as sexual sadism, which in the case of rape is expressed directly, without filters.

6. Rape as a control mechanism

Some rapes are carried out with a purpose independent of the sexual satisfaction and power of the aggressor. This is the case of some systematic rapes carried out during wars, in which sexual aggression is used as a control mechanism. sexual aggression is used as a method of humiliation and control of the population and to diminish the morale of the enemy country. and to diminish the morale of the enemy country. This is a strategic use of this type of violence to achieve objectives beyond the action itself.

The profile of the rapist and his characteristics

Although it is true that due to the great diversity of variables that influence the perpetration of an act of this type, it is not possible to speak of a single rapist profile, it is possible to identify a series of variables that, although they do not apply in all cases, are very common among the different types of sexual offenders.

It is important to point this out: there is no single prototype of rapistThe following characteristics, although they may be common, do not identify all rapists.

1. They do not necessarily have to have a bizarre personality.

Most people do not commit rape. This may lead one to think that a typical rapist profile must be that of someone with enormous peculiarities, characteristics that most people do not have and that make them solitary in their daily lives and without normal contact with society. While in some specific cases this may be true, in general this is not true.

A large majority of rapes are carried out by people with a "normal" personality and who have friends, family and jobs. and who have friends, family and jobs. In fact, many of them are people with a partner, with whom they generally maintain a conventional relationship.

2. Power, not sex

One of the most common characteristics of most rapists is that the real objective of their action is not to obtain sexual gratification.

For the most part, people who commit rape knowing what they are doing seek and are attracted to the idea of exercising dominance, of making other people do something for them.of making other people do something against their will and in obedience to the interest of the aggressor. In other words, in a rape what is sought is not only sex, but also and especially what is sought is the exercise of power.

3. They tend to look for victims they consider weaker.

While there have been cases where the victim is someone physically stronger than the offender, as a general rule, individuals who commit sexual assaults seek out victims they consider physically weaker than the offender, individuals who commit sexual assaults generally seek out victims they consider physically weaker than themselves or who they know of weaknesses to exploit. or who they have known weaknesses to exploit.

In either case, the choice of victim is linked to the possibility of exercising power either over someone they believe they can subdue or over someone they consider above them and whom they want to see humiliated and below themselves.

4. Feelings of inferiority and frustration in life

Another element shared by most rapists is the presence of a strong feeling of frustration and inferiority that can be expressed through violent outbursts.

While they do not have to show it in most facets of their daily lives and may even act in an overbearing manner, these feelings of inferiority can provoke a reaction in the form of a desire to dominate the other, a desire that in some people can lead to sexual aggression..

5. Poor capacity for empathy

Whatever the reason for the sexual assault, rapists generally have a very limited or non-existent capacity for empathy. Thus, the sexual aggressor cannot, does not care or chooses not to think about what the rape means for the victim, or he/she comes to consider that the rape is a crime.or else he comes to consider that the satisfaction of his desire for power and sex is worth the victim's suffering. This is visible in many of the cases that indicate that the victim actually wanted to have sex or actually enjoyed the situation.

6. Failure to anticipate consequences

It has been observed that many rapists never thought about what might happen after committing the act, whether the case would be investigated or whether they would be found and arrested.whether the case would be investigated or whether they would be found and arrested. This reflects a certain deficit in anticipating the consequences of their own actions, whether for themselves or for others. This factor would not be a determining factor for people who are actually looking for the consequences of the act itself rather than the act per se.

7. Possible history of abuse or learning coercive sexuality

As with gender violence, many people who currently commit sexual offenses have themselves been abused or mistreated in childhood, or have witnessed abuse towards other significant family members.

This means that in the long run they may come to identify coercion as a normal way of proceeding.Even if they know that it is socially frowned upon, they may feel the impulse to engage in the act.

8. They believe they have the right to commit the aggression.

In a large number of cases the individuals who commit rape consider that they have the right to force themselves on the victim, sometimes for cultural reasons.Sometimes for cultural reasons. Thus, sexual aggressions are more frequent in people and regions where a certain consideration of men's superiority over women still persists, or where they consider that their needs are above those of others.

9. They are not mentally ill

Although the typical image of a rapist is that of a psychopath or someone suffering from a mental disorder, it would be false and reductionist to consider sex offenders as people with a mental disorder.

It is possible to find that some personality disorders such as antisocial disorder may facilitate such an act. and it is true that cases of rape can be found during psychotic or manic states or by people with intellectual disabilities, but as a general rule, sex offenders are able to judge the situation correctly and know what they are doing.

10. The majority of them are fully responsible for the crime

A consequence of the previous point. Since most of the people who commit this type of act are fully aware that their actions are harmful and punishable by society, rapists are generally judicially imputable..

11. They avoid responsibility

A common characteristic in many of the cases in which psychopathy or psychopathology is not present is the attempt to avoid responsibility for the crime. the attempt to evade responsibility for the act.. It is common to justify the behavior by substance use or to pretend to suffer from psychopathology in order to avoid punishment. At the information level, beyond legal proceedings, it is common for the victim to be blamed.

12. They blame the victim

Part of the subjects who commit rape usually indicate that the victim is to blame for the situation.. Phrases such as "I was provoking", "deep down I wanted to" and variants of these are frequent in sexual aggressors who have been arrested, avoiding taking responsibility for the situation and excusing themselves.

Bibliographical references:

• Burguess, A. G.; Burguess, A.W.; Douglas, J. & Ressler, R. (1992). Crime Classification Manual. Lexington Books.

• Cáceres, J. (2001). Parafilias y violación. Madrid: Editorial Síntesis.

• González, E.; Martínez, V.; Leyton, C. & Bardi, A. (2004). Characteristics of sexual abusers. Rev. Sogia; 1(1): 6-14.

• Marshall, W. (2001). Sexual offenders. Studies on violence. Ed. Ariel. p. 107.