What makes some people want to have sex with unwilling 'partners'?

[dann]

I don't either. But that doesn't stop me from using my imagination and a bit of logical reasoning to imagine why/how someone else would be attracted to that. In fact, you don't even have to go that far to see examples in consensual scenarios. Lots of people in consensual relationships do get turned on by different variations of "forced sex". Some couples have "rape role playing" and maybe they may tie each other up, where one of the partners can't "fight back". So it's not that hard to imagine how some people would be turned on by actual forced sex.

I don't find it difficult to imagine. But in spite of the superficial similarity between the two things, SM and actual sexual coercion, it only presents you with yet another thing that needs to be explained. The obvious difference is that SM is based on consensuality (consensualness?): they live out the contradiction in therms that the masochist agrees to be 'forced' (to whatever turns the person on) whereas the whole point of (at least some of the many cases of sexual coercion seems to be to subjugate an actually unwilling victim.

I think it's basically the "high" they get from the adrenaline rush. No different than kleptomaniacs, who steal things, not because they need the objects they steal, but because of the adrenaline rush of not getting caught. Of course, there may be much more variables to this, and it's different with each individual. But even though I'm not a kleptomaniac nor a rapist, it's not that hard for me to imagine why someone would be addicted to the adrenaline rush of those actions. In short: You don't have to like the thing someone else likes, to understand why they would like it. It's perhaps the most basic form of empathy.

Unfortunately the "high" explains nothing at all. Kleptomaniacs may get high on stealing, but it doesn't explain how or why they get high on that, why and how that specific behavior turns them on.
Again we are back to, in principle, 'people get high on all sorts of stuff, so why not …'

I think that most of us get 'high' during the flirt when we realize that, yes, my attraction to her (him) seems to be reciprocated! She (he) feels the same way, finds me attractive too, so let's get a room!
In the case of the guys we're discussing here, the rush seems to be: yes, she (he) doesn't reciprocate, doesn't find me desirable, but I'll go ahead anyway because her (his) consent doesn't count, I don't have to care about that.

 

[xjx388]

If what you're saying is that sociopaths also, for instance, use language to communicate, then, yes, that's a kind of behavior that ordinary people use for the same purpose.

How can you get that from what I said? I said that all humans behave badly and then rationalize such behavior.

If you are saying that ordinary people, i.e. people who aren't sociopaths, rape, then, no, you are wrong.

So you believe that all rapists suffer from anti-social personality disorder? Interesting. Wrong, but it does reveal a very naive and unrealistic worldview. I understand that it's easier to believe that only someone who pathologically lacks empathy or is otherwise mentally ill would ever rape someone, but this is just not the case.

Both sociopaths and ordinary people go to the bathroom, too. If you're saying that ordinary people rationalize what you describe as "bad behavior", then you are also right.
And that is what you're saying:

I am saying that all humans rationalize bad behavior, mentally ill or not.

Not all sociopaths are rapists, but most rapists are probably sociopaths, in particular the repeat offenders. I can't rule out the guy in Delvo's example who is clueless and receiving bad advice from friends about the 'nature of women' (whatever), but he would still have to be rather unempathic if he insists on having sex with a woman who exhibits all of the obvious (to most people) signs of not consenting.

One can lack empathy without being mentally ill. This is normal human behavior; we lack empathy for those we see as not deserving of our empathy. I can tell you right now, I would have absolutely no empathy for someone who raped or murdered one of my loved ones. Or better put, I might have some basic human empathy for them, but if I were alone in a room with them it would not stop me from attempting to tear them apart limb by limb. I would probably feel remorse after but the deed would be done. I would then justify and rationalize it: he deserved it. This is no different from an otherwise normal person who, like Weinstein let's say, came of age in a culture and industry where sexual harassment was just the way things were done. He may very well have some empathy for his victims but rationalizes his behavior as "the way our industry works."

That is what you were doing, and you're still doing it: You go from sociopathic behavior and find something that is analogous to this behavior in people with empathy, and then you generalize: Everybody comes up with bad excuses for bad behavior, so sociopaths are just like everybody else. Except that you choose to abstract from the kind of so-called bad behavior: The diabetics only hurt themselves when they eat too much sugar. They don't hurt anybody else.

They hurt their families and society by being sick and dying young. You can argue my father was only hurting himself by being a smoker despite having heart disease but I can assure you, he hurt us too and he cost the veteran's health system a lot of money. His behavior hurt other people and yet he persisted? Why? Was he a sociopath in your view? I don't think so; he was just a normal guy who justified/rationalized his behavior.

In any case, you are going to have to accept the fact that sociopaths are indeed just like everyone else albeit with a few deficits that cause them problems. Again, you don't have to be a sociopath to behave badly. Were all those kids, the perps and the ones who tweeted horrible things about the victim, in the Steubenville HS rape case sociopaths? I don't think so; maybe, but certainly not all of them.

No, he couldn't. He's not a normal dude, and a normal dude doesn't get "too carried away with his power."

The evidence is mounting that you are just plain wrong.

Yes, you weren't making an analogy, you were making an analogy. Why? Again in order to illustrate your favorite idea: rape is bad behavior, people who behave badly rationalize, so rationalizing isn't sociopathic since everybody does it, thus Weinstein is not (or at least not necessarily) a sociopath.

My "favorite idea" is simply the truth. If you want to understand why "people want to have sex with unwilling 'partners'" then you all you have to understand is that people behave badly and then rationalize/justify.

Your "favorite idea" seems to be that only a mentally ill person could possibly rape someone else. If that's the case, then you already understand why people want to have sex with unwilling victims; they are just mentally ill. I think that's an extremely naive view but if it makes you feel better then have at it. I prefer to see things a little more realistically: humans act badly towards each other for a wide variety of reasons inclusive and exclusive of mental illness.

However, the problem with this line of thought is that nobody has claimed that Weinstein's crime is that he rationalizes. You're the only one who's obsessed with this idea. His apparent crime is that he sexually abuses women, which, by the way he seems to confess in the rationalizations that you provided us with.

You are right, nobody has claimed that his crime was rationalization, including me! His crime was obviously sexual abuse. You started this thread because you claimed to want to know why people like him engage in sexual abuse. But you seem to have already made up your mind: they are just mentally ill. You seem unable to accept that people who aren't mentally ill can sexually abuse people and then rationalize/justify to assuage their feelings of guilt and remorse.

The really weird thing about your diabetic is that he doesn't even behave badly! He doesn't hurt anybody but himself so he can't be accused of not being empathic!

You'll have to tell my mom, then, that she shouldn't feel hurt by the fact that she lost her husband and best friend at such a young age because he was only hurting himself.

 

[xjx388]

I don't find it difficult to imagine. But in spite of the superficial similarity between the two things, SM and actual sexual coercion, it only presents you with yet another thing that needs to be explained. The obvious difference is that SM is based on consensuality (consensualness?): they live out the contradiction in therms that the masochist agrees to be 'forced' (to whatever turns the person on) whereas the whole point of (at least some) of the many cases of sexual coercion seems to be to subjugate an actually unwilling victim.

"At least some," what about the others?

Unfortunately the "high" explains nothing at all. Kleptomaniacs may get high on stealing, but it doesn't explain how or why they get high on that, why and how that specific behavior turns them on.
Again we are back to, in principle, 'people get high on all sorts of stuff, so why not …'

And what's wrong with that principle? People do indeed enjoy feeling good whether it be from a substance, from getting away with theft or from having someone under their thumb. This is also a decent, if simple, explanation of human behavior.

I think that most of us get 'high' during the flirt when we realize that, yes, my attraction to her (him) seems to be reciprocated! She (he) feels the same way, finds me attractive too, so let's get a room!
In the case of the guys we're discussing here, the rush seems to be: yes, she (he) doesn't reciprocate, doesn't find me desirable, but I'll go ahead anyway because her (his) consent doesn't count, I don't have to care about that.

I think it's more like: She says no, but she means yes. She wants me because I am a powerful figure but she has to put up a front. So I will ignore her denials and give her what we both really want . . . and in return I will help her with her career. If she still refuses, then she's a tease and I can crush her career. The rush is the power they have over women and they express that power sexually because the sexuality is an even bigger rush.

And in this he was also enabled. His company gave him a contract that agreed to pay hush money to his victims! Hollywood knew about him and his behavior and turned a blind eye! All because of one thing: the money this dude generated for the industry.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

Unfortunately the "high" explains nothing at all. Kleptomaniacs may get high on stealing, but it doesn't explain how or why they get high on that, why and how that specific behavior turns them on.

It seems to me, the "how" is a question that pertains more to neuroscience. Like: What are the parts of the brain that activate in the subject when they are exposed to a certain stimuli? How does the process occur inside the subject's brain, when exposed to the stimuli?

The "why" is such a problematic and general question that I think it's almost useless of a question, as each individual has his/her own individual reasons to why they like something. Their upbringing, their individual mental wiring, etc. In other words, you will not find a single universal answer for "why" every single individual likes to have sex with unwilling partners, no more that you will find a universal answer for any other personal inclination/desire.

In the case of the guys we're discussing here, the rush seems to be: yes, she (he) doesn't reciprocate, doesn't find me desirable, but I'll go ahead anyway because her (his) consent doesn't count, I don't have to care about that.

Exactly. That's what I was saying. That's the "rush" for them.

 

[dann]

How can you get that from what I said? I said that all humans behave badly and then rationalize such behavior. So you believe that all rapists suffer from anti-social personality disorder? Interesting. Wrong, but it does reveal a very naive and unrealistic worldview. I understand that it's easier to believe that only someone who pathologically lacks empathy or is otherwise mentally ill would ever rape someone, but this is just not the case.

I am saying that all humans rationalize bad behavior, mentally ill or not.

Maybe you don't remember what this thread is about, but the point was a discussion of what goes on in the head of somebody who abuses women (or men) sexually. For some reason you seem to be interested in a very different theme: rationalizations and justifications.
I've already pointed out the absurdity of this discussion in the Men-behaving-badly post above, so please start another thread where you can discuss rationalizations and justifications because they are completely irrelevant here.

One can lack empathy without being mentally ill. This is normal human behavior; we lack empathy for those we see as not deserving of our empathy. I can tell you right now, I would have absolutely no empathy for someone who raped or murdered one of my loved ones. Or better put, I might have some basic human empathy for them, but if I were alone in a room with them it would not stop me from attempting to tear them apart limb by limb. I would probably feel remorse after but the deed would be done. I would then justify and rationalize it: he deserved it. This is no different from an otherwise normal person who, like Weinstein let's say, came of age in a culture and industry where sexual harassment was just the way things were done. He may very well have some empathy for his victims but rationalizes his behavior as "the way our industry works."

No, one can't "lack empathy without being mentally ill" (depending on your definition of mental illness) and it is also not "normal human behavior." It's sociopathic behavior. You are talking about not empathizing with a particular human being in a particular situation. Not the same thing.
You have already proven that you empathize with Weinstein. What I'd like to hear is the relevance of the imaginary rape of your loved ones to this discussion. Unless, of course, you mean to say that Weinstein abused his victims because they had raped members of his family. It would surprise me very much if that turned out to be the case, but please present us with the evidence.
You seem to be so compassionate about Weinstein that you even want to completely reverse the order of things in his case: "He may very well have some empathy for his victims but rationalizes his behavior as "the way our industry works.""
If he felt empathy for his victims, he wouldn't coerce them into having sex with him, and then he wouldn't need to rationalize his behavior. As it is, he appears to have sexually abused a number of women, and now he rationalizes his behavior as a very bad excuse:
"This is the way our business has always worked. They want me because I'm powerful and even though they say "no" I know they really want to because women are attracted to power. They give me what I want and I give them what they want; win-win. Now the rules are different but how can I be expected to change at my age?"
No sign of empathy whatsoever. Instead he portrays himself as a victim of his environment.

They hurt their families and society by being sick and dying young. You can argue my father was only hurting himself by being a smoker despite having heart disease but I can assure you, he hurt us too and he cost the veteran's health system a lot of money. His behavior hurt other people and yet he persisted? Why? Was he a sociopath in your view? I don't think so; he was just a normal guy who justified/rationalized his behavior.

Based on your description, he appears to have been a normal smoker. If he exposed you to the risks of passive smoking and wasn't well-aware of the fact, there's no reason to assume that he was a sociopath. However, he may have been ill-informed by sociopaths in the tobacco industry, who harmed him as well as you.

In any case, you are going to have to accept the fact that sociopaths are indeed just like everyone else albeit with a few deficits that cause them problems. Again, you don't have to be a sociopath to behave badly. Were all those kids, the perps and the ones who tweeted horrible things about the victim, in the Steubenville HS rape case sociopaths? I don't think so; maybe, but certainly not all of them.

Sociopaths are not "just like everyone else" (that's why they've been identified as a particular segment of the population different from the rest of us) and their "deficits", as you call them, sometimes don't "cause them problems" at all - unlike most other mental disorders. Instead they cause their victims a lot of problems.
The rape case in Steubenville appears to have been committed by boys who were utterly devoid of empathy and compassion with their victim. I don't really see why you would want to include "the ones who tweeted horrible things about the victims," but it's not unlikely that some of them were too. Others may have been mislead by the lies being told about the victim. They weren't there, they didn't witness the crime.

The evidence is mounting that you are just plain wrong.

My "favorite idea" is simply the truth. If you want to understand why "people want to have sex with unwilling 'partners'" then you all you have to understand is that people behave badly and then rationalize/justify.

You appear to be so fond of your delusion that it is impossible for you to give it up! You don't seem to be able to understand that sociopathy can always be described as bad behavior, but bad behavior very rarely as sociopathy. In your father's case it wasn't even what people usually associate with the term bad behavior, but rather a bad habit, but please don't use it in your crusade to make each and every sociopath appear to be just one of us regular guys.

Your "favorite idea" seems to be that only a mentally ill person could possibly rape someone else. If that's the case, then you already understand why people want to have sex with unwilling victims; they are just mentally ill. I think that's an extremely naive view but if it makes you feel better then have at it. I prefer to see things a little more realistically: humans act badly towards each other for a wide variety of reasons inclusive and exclusive of mental illness.

I think that you are trying to slip in another one of your misleading generalizations, so just for the record: You're the one who prefers to call them "mentally ill." I preferred it when you called them sociopaths. And there's also no such thing as "just mentally ill."
(And yet again your 'human beings and their bad behavior.' Well, at least the candy-eating diabetic doesn't expose his children to passive mellitus …)

You are right, nobody has claimed that his crime was rationalization, including me! His crime was obviously sexual abuse. You started this thread because you claimed to want to know why people like him engage in sexual abuse. But you seem to have already made up your mind: they are just mentally ill. You seem unable to accept that people who aren't mentally ill can sexually abuse people and then rationalize/justify to assuage their feelings of guilt and remorse.

No, you're the one who has come up with the "just mentally ill" diagnosis. And the problem with the guys that we're talking about isn't how they manage their "feelings of guilt and remorse." In their case feelings of guilt and remorse would be an improvement! Much too late to really benefit their victims, but still an improvement.
(A hint: Somebody who blames society, the industry and age for his predatory tendencies probably doesn't feel any guilt or remorse at all! He's just annoyed at being busted!)

You'll have to tell my mom, then, that she shouldn't feel hurt by the fact that she lost her husband and best friend at such a young age because he was only hurting himself.

Why the hell would I tell your mother a stupid thing like that?! Unlike you, I'm able to tell the difference between a rapist and your dad! You're the one who has been mislead by your own abstractions to the point where they seem to be one and the same thing to you!
Bad behavior, indeed!

 

[dann]

It seems to me, the "how" is a question that pertains more to neuroscience. Like: What are the parts of the brain that activate in the subject when they are exposed to a certain stimuli? How does the process occur inside the subject's brain, when exposed to the stimuli?

How do these guys manage to get turned on by being with somebody who doesn't want to be with them? I even have a problem with understanding men who are able to have sex with prostitutes. It would be a complete turn off for me to know that I was having sex with a woman who wasn't (really!) into having sex with me. (But so far Delphic Oracle has been the only one to express similar sentiments.) Weinstein's own excuse is very similar to what happens between a prostitute and a john - if that was an actual quotation: "They give me what I want and I give them what they want; win-win."

The "why" is such a problematic and general question that I think it's almost useless of a question, as each individual has his/her own individual reasons to why they like something. Their upbringing, their individual mental wiring, etc. In other words, you will not find a single universal answer for "why" every single individual likes to have sex with unwilling partners, no more that you will find a universal answer for any other personal inclination/desire.

When we're talking about human behavior, there's bound to be individual differences in everything, but still you are usually able to make people fit into pretty neat categories, which also seems to be the case when we are talking about subgroups of sexual predators.

Exactly. That's what I was saying. That's the "rush" for them.

I know that's what you were saying, but it doesn't explain anything. (Or rather: it 'explains' everything and thus nothing.)
Why does he go mountain climbing? It gives him a rush! Why does she steal? It gives her a rush! Why does he abuse children? … You can go on, ad nauseam, but that people get a "rush" out of doing the things they like to do doesn't explain why they like to do them. If they didn't like to do them, these activities wouldn't give them a rush.
A mountain climber is usually able to explain what he finds fascinating about his favorite leisure activity, and so are some kleptomaniacs and some child abusers, I guess, but they'll probably find it harder to be honest to themselves as well as to others.

 

[dann]

"At least some," what about the others?

What others?! I thought everybody was the same, and that's "just the way people are."

And what's wrong with that principle? People do indeed enjoy feeling good whether it be from a substance, from getting away with theft or from having someone under their thumb. This is also a decent, if simple, explanation of human behavior.

It's definitely simple, but it's not decent.

I think it's more like: She says no, but she means yes. She wants me because I am a powerful figure but she has to put up a front. So I will ignore her denials and give her what we both really want . . . and in return I will help her with her career. If she still refuses, then she's a tease and I can crush her career. The rush is the power they have over women and they express that power sexually because the sexuality is an even bigger rush.

Not at all unlikely, but I think that you don't notice when you go from conceited/delusional: "She wants me because …" to quid pro quo: "and in return" to downright sociopathic: "I can crush her career". It's important that at one point even these guys are disillusioned and realize that, no, she actually doesn't want me and never did! The next step would be: 'I'll **** her anyway, and if she threatens to tell …' which would then be followed by the: "I can crush her career."

And in this he was also enabled. His company gave him a contract that agreed to pay hush money to his victims! Hollywood knew about him and his behavior and turned a blind eye! All because of one thing: the money this dude generated for the industry.

I didn't hear about that before, but enabling seems to fit the description.

 

[xjx388]

Maybe you don't remember what this thread is about, but the point was a discussion of what goes on in the head of somebody who abuses women (or men) sexually. For some reason you seem to be interested in a very different theme: rationalizations and justifications.
I've already pointed out the absurdity of this discussion in the Men-behaving-badly post above, so please start another thread where you can discuss rationalizations and justifications because they are completely irrelevant here.

OK, now I'm really confused . . . You started this thread to get some insight on why people want to rape other people. Aside from the fact that it's kind of a stupid question, I gave you about the only real answer there is to give. Justification/rationalization is the explanation for all bad human behavior, mental illness or not. You may not understand WHY people do it (and nobody really understands WHY people do horrible things) but the entirety of human experience has proven the concept adequately.

Take Nazi Germany as an extreme example. Is it your position that everybody who participated in the slaughter of the Jews was a sociopath? That almost the entire population of Germany, who stood by and did very little to help the Jews, were sociopaths? I don't think so. I think there were various justifications and rationalizations that people used to get through those atrocities. They were afraid of the consequences of not participating, for one big one.

No, one can't "lack empathy without being mentally ill" (depending on your definition of mental illness) and it is also not "normal human behavior." It's sociopathic behavior. You are talking about not empathizing with a particular human being in a particular situation. Not the same thing.

No, I'm talking about having empathy in general but allowing a justification or rationalization to override that empathy in a particular case. You agree that this is possible in the scenario I described but you don't seem to agree that someone like Weinstein could force women to have sex with him while at the same time having some empathy for them. I mean, maybe he is a sociopath -I'm not ruling that out but at the same time it's possible to understand his behavior without involving mental illness.

You have already proven that you empathize with Weinstein.

How have I done that exactly? Because that's a pretty weird interpretation of what I'm saying.

What I'd like to hear is the relevance of the imaginary rape of your loved ones to this discussion. Unless, of course, you mean to say that Weinstein abused his victims because they had raped members of his family. It would surprise me very much if that turned out to be the case, but please present us with the evidence.

You really do come up with some weird stuff . . . You are totally misinterpreting why I gave that scenario. The "imaginary rape" of my loved ones was presented to demonstrate a scenario in which a person who is not mentally ill can do something horrible to another human being. Mental illness is not a prerequisite to bad behavior -and make no mistake, dismembering someone who raped my loved one would be bad behavior.

You seem to be so compassionate about Weinstein that you even want to completely reverse the order of things in his case: "He may very well have some empathy for his victims but rationalizes his behavior as "the way our industry works.""
If he felt empathy for his victims, he wouldn't coerce them into having sex with him, and then he wouldn't need to rationalize his behavior. As it is, he appears to have sexually abused a number of women, and now he rationalizes his behavior as a very bad excuse:
"This is the way our business has always worked. They want me because I'm powerful and even though they say "no" I know they really want to because women are attracted to power. They give me what I want and I give them what they want; win-win. Now the rules are different but how can I be expected to change at my age?"
No sign of empathy whatsoever. Instead he portrays himself as a victim of his environment.

#1, that wasn't a direct quote of Weinstein (although it was based off of his public statement), it was an example of how he might rationalize what he did. Do you know whether or not he feels any guilt or remorse? You can't possibly know that because you can't read his mind and you aren't his therapist.

Based on your description, he appears to have been a normal smoker. If he exposed you to the risks of passive smoking and wasn't well-aware of the fact, there's no reason to assume that he was a sociopath. However, he may have been ill-informed by sociopaths in the tobacco industry, who harmed him as well as you.

So, by your logic there, if I commit suicide, I'm only hurting myself and not my wife and kids?

Sociopaths are not "just like everyone else" (that's why they've been identified as a particular segment of the population different from the rest of us) and their "deficits", as you call them, sometimes don't "cause them problems" at all - unlike most other mental disorders. Instead they cause their victims a lot of problems.

Sociopaths are not a different species of human, you know. They are just like me and you, albeit with certain defects in their thinking processes. And the way they treat people does indeed cause them problems -that's the very definition of mental illness!

The rape case in Steubenville appears to have been committed by boys who were utterly devoid of empathy and compassion with their victim.

But "utterly devoid of empathy and compassion," in general? There's no evidence of that. That's what a sociopath is, someone who doesn't feel empathy for anyone but themselves.

I don't really see why you would want to include "the ones who tweeted horrible things about the victims," but it's not unlikely that some of them were too. Others may have been mislead by the lies being told about the victim. They weren't there, they didn't witness the crime.

From your link:

In a photograph posted on Instagram by Steubenville High football player Cody Saltsman, the victim was shown looking unresponsive, being carried by two teenage boys by her wrists and ankles. Former Steubenville baseball player Michael Nodianos, responding to hearsay of the event, tweeted "Some people deserve to be peed on," which was retweeted later by several people, including Mays. In a 12-minute video later posted to YouTube, Nodianos and others talk about the rapes, with Nodianos joking that "they raped her quicker than Mike Tyson raped that one girl" and "They peed on her. That's how you know she's dead, because someone pissed on her."

Pretty goddamn callous and evidence that these other kids had no empathy for the victim either, no? Anyone who shared pictures, video, texts, tweets, etc about what this poor girl went through displayed an extreme lack of empathy for the victim. Are they all sociopaths? I don't think so.

You appear to be so fond of your delusion that it is impossible for you to give it up! You don't seem to be able to understand that sociopathy can always be described as bad behavior, but bad behavior very rarely as sociopathy.

No. Not all sociopaths engage in bad behaviors. But you got one part right, bad behavior is not always sociopathic in nature. If you understand that, then I'm not sure why you think rape must always be sociopathic in nature.

In your father's case it wasn't even what people usually associate with the term bad behavior, but rather a bad habit, but please don't use it in your crusade to make each and every sociopath appear to be just one of us regular guys.

OK, so you DO understand that behaviors that hurt other people are not necessarily rooted in sociopathy or lack of empathy. If that's the case, then why do you think that rape is necessarily always due sociopathy?

I think that you are trying to slip in another one of your misleading generalizations, so just for the record: You're the one who prefers to call them "mentally ill." I preferred it when you called them sociopaths.

AHA! Now we get to the root of your confusion here. Sociopathy IS mental illness. If one is a sociopath, then that means one is, by definition, mentally ill.

And there's also no such thing as "just mentally ill."

If one's behavior is the result of mental illness, then that in itself explains the behavior. No need to cognitively empathize with something that makes no rational sense.

No, you're the one who has come up with the "just mentally ill" diagnosis. And the problem with the guys that we're talking about isn't how they manage their "feelings of guilt and remorse." In their case feelings of guilt and remorse would be an improvement! Much too late to really benefit their victims, but still an improvement.
(A hint: Somebody who blames society, the industry and age for his predatory tendencies probably doesn't feel any guilt or remorse at all! He's just annoyed at being busted!)

Evidently, you make a distinction between a sociopath and a mentally ill person. There is no distinction and hence, your conclusions are all wrong.

 

[xjx388]

How do these guys manage to get turned on by being with somebody who doesn't want to be with them? I even have a problem with understanding men who are able to have sex with prostitutes. It would be a complete turn off for me to know that I was having sex with a woman who wasn't (really!) into having sex with me. (But so far Delphic Oracle has been the only one to express similar sentiments.)

And yet a not-insignificant number of men engage in this behavior that you don't understand every single day. What does that tell you? Maybe that the spectrum of normal human behavior encompasses some things that you don't personally understand. This is, basically, an argument from incredulity.

I know that's what you were saying, but it doesn't explain anything. (Or rather: it 'explains' everything and thus nothing.)
Why does he go mountain climbing? It gives him a rush! Why does she steal? It gives her a rush! Why does he abuse children? … You can go on, ad nauseam, but that people get a "rush" out of doing the things they like to do doesn't explain why they like to do them. If they didn't like to do them, these activities wouldn't give them a rush.
A mountain climber is usually able to explain what he finds fascinating about his favorite leisure activity, and so are some kleptomaniacs and some child abusers, I guess, but they'll probably find it harder to be honest to themselves as well as to others.

The 'rush' explains a great deal of human behavior. It really is as simple as that. As to the highlighted: People get a rush out of (non-substance-related) things, basically, because they stimulate the release of endorphins and they have been conditioned out of their fear of doing those things. Doing something that is considered taboo, if you can overcome the fear, is pretty exciting. Generally speaking, one should NEVER jump out of a plane, but man, it sure is fun when you skydive!

What others?! I thought everybody was the same, and that's "just the way people are."

The "others" that are not explained by mental illness/sociopathy.

It's definitely simple, but it's not decent.

Perhaps English isn't your primary language* but when I used "decent" there, I didn't mean "acceptable by moral standards," I meant, "explains things adequately."

I didn't hear about that before, but enabling seems to fit the description.

Therefore, if the industry and culture he exists in enables his behavior, he can easily come to see it as an acceptable behavior. It isn't a wrong behavior, IOW, because everyone helps him do it. He isn't hurting these women, in fact, he's helping them! That's the way the industry works.



*And I don't mean this as a veiled insult so please don't take it that way. This is an international forum, after all and linguistic confusion is not uncommon.

 

[dann]

Bad chemicals

And yet a not-insignificant number of men engage in this behavior that you don't understand every single day. What does that tell you? Maybe that the spectrum of normal human behavior encompasses some things that you don't personally understand. This is, basically, an argument from incredulity.

You've now managed to return to the lack of explanation of a particular kind of behavior that several posters have tried before: telling me that people obviously do many weird things, one of which I have a hard time understanding. But apparently, in spite of telling the posters again and again that I am fully aware that people do many weird things and think many weird thoughts, you (again!) invent the strawman that I'm denying the fact that they do so. I'm not! It was actually the starting point of this thread. I never said: "I can't believe that they actually do this!"
You appear to present your argument from deliberate ignorance.

The 'rush' explains a great deal of human behavior. It really is as simple as that. As to the highlighted: People get a rush out of (non-substance-related) things, basically, because they stimulate the release of endorphins and they have been conditioned out of their fear of doing those things. Doing something that is considered taboo, if you can overcome the fear, is pretty exciting. Generally speaking, one should NEVER jump out of a plane, but man, it sure is fun when you skydive!

You seem to be extremely happy with your two substitutes for real explanations: adrenaline rush + rationalization. And you don't even think your explanations through, for instance: "Doing something (!) that is considered taboo, if you can overcome the fear, is pretty exciting."
I'm sorry, but taking a dump on the dining-room table, in spite of being taboo, isn't exciting at all for 99,9 % of the population in spite of the fear of what your in-laws will think. So even this is something that you would need to explain. (And skydivers don't usually find it difficult to explain their fascination with this activity, or why one activity appeals to them and another one doesn't.) Your variation of Kurt Vonnegut's (parody) bad chemicals explains exactly nothing because it can be (and is being) used to explain anything and everything.
Nowadays, by the way, this inane bio-chemical pseudo-explanation has moved on from adrenaline to dopamine and seratonin, but it still explains nothing at all.

The "others" that are not explained by mental illness/sociopathy.

Let me guess: They also get a rush and rationalize?! Am I right?!

Perhaps English isn't your primary language*...

It isn't.

[/QUOTE]… but when I used "decent" there, I didn't mean "acceptable by moral standards," I meant, "explains things adequately." [/QUOTE]


Yes, I know, and so did I. And I still do.

Therefore, if the industry and culture he exists in enables his behavior, he can easily come to see it as an acceptable behavior. It isn't a wrong behavior, IOW, because everyone helps him do it. He isn't hurting these women, in fact, he's helping them! That's the way the industry works.

The industry apparently does enable his behavior, which doesn't make it any less wrong even though you seem to think so. Enabling a sociopath doesn't make him any less sociopathic, and his own bad excuses don't make him any more empathic. He doesn't care about the women he abuses. That the sociopath is able to come up with bad excuses for his crimes seems to confuse you to the point where you actually believe his lies.
But Weinstein & Co. don't abuse women because they think it's a way of helping them. They actually seem to enjoy hurting them - and getting away with it.
Suddenly you seem to have forgotten all about your adrenaline rush due to taboo and fear, but you didn't notice that, did you?!

You probably also conveniently forget that they never wanted this out in the open. If they'd actually held the beliefs that you claim that they do, they would have been much more open about it: 'Look at me! I deserve a medal. I help women in the movie industry by ******* them.' Or 'I helped this woman by slipping her a Mickey because she was obviously tired and needed to be unconscious while having sex with me.'

*And I don't mean this as a veiled insult so please don't take it that way. This is an international forum, after all and linguistic confusion is not uncommon.

Yes, that may be so, but I'm afraid that your confusion has nothing to do with linguistics.

 

[xjx388]

You've now managed to return to the lack of explanation of a particular kind of behavior that several posters have tried before: telling me that people obviously do many weird things, one of which I have a hard time understanding. But apparently, in spite of telling the posters again and again that I am fully aware that people do many weird things and think many weird thoughts, you (again!) invent the strawman that I'm denying the fact that they do so. I'm not! It was actually the starting point of this thread. I never said: "I can't believe that they actually do this!"
You appear to present your argument from deliberate ignorance.

I know you are aware they do weird things and nobody here thinks that you "can't believe this!" You started this thread because you want to know WHY they do weird things. What I and many others are actually trying to tell you is that there really is no explanation that will help you Understand. You struggle to understand exactly why people want to have sex with unwilling partners . . . as if you want an insight into their thought processes that you can grok and give you an AHA! moment of deeper understanding of your fellow man. Well, you just aren't going to get that.

This very recent from the NYT attempts to shed some light on the subject and I think you will find that it largely agrees with what I and others have been trying to say.

You seem to be extremely happy with your two substitutes for real explanations: adrenaline rush + rationalization. And you don't even think your explanations through, for instance: "Doing something (!) that is considered taboo, if you can overcome the fear, is pretty exciting."

Do I really have to think that through? It seems obvious on it's face. That's why people skydive, have sex in public, enjoy golden showers, voyeurism, etc.

I'm sorry, but taking a dump on the dining-room table, in spite of being taboo, isn't exciting at all for 99,9 % of the population in spite of the fear of what your in-laws will think. So even this is something that you would need to explain.

Well, now that you've brought it up . . . have you ever heard of corpophilia? These are people who get sexual pleasure from defecating on others or watching others defecate. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't understand one thing about this particular sexual fetish. I don't understand the thought processes behind it or why anyone would ever want this. Yet some people do indeed enjoy this! I chalk it up to humans being creatures whose behavior is driven by only few primitive drives which are in turn mediated by brain function as well as social and cultural conditioning. As long as they aren't hurting anyone, I really don't care what they do nor do I care to cognitively empathize with them.

(And skydivers don't usually find it difficult to explain their fascination with this activity, or why one activity appeals to them and another one doesn't.) Your variation of Kurt Vonnegut's (parody) bad chemicals explains exactly nothing because it can be (and is being) used to explain anything and everything.
Nowadays, by the way, this inane bio-chemical pseudo-explanation has moved on from adrenaline to dopamine and seratonin, but it still explains nothing at all.

You don't seem to have the answer yourself. Neither do experts in the field. I think I've laid out the only explanation we have at the moment.

Let me guess: They also get a rush and rationalize?! Am I right?!

Now you get it!

The industry apparently does enable his behavior, which doesn't make it any less wrong even though you seem to think so.

I don't think it makes it less wrong. I think it makes it less wrong from his point of view. If one 'comes of age' in an environment where a certain behavior is tolerated and even expected, should we be surprised when that person engages in such behavior themselves?

Enabling a sociopath doesn't make him any less sociopathic, and his own bad excuses don't make him any more empathic. He doesn't care about the women he abuses.

That's your view. He may very well care to some extent but comes up with reasons why he can disregard that care.

That the sociopath is able to come up with bad excuses for his crimes seems to confuse you to the point where you actually believe his lies.
But Weinstein & Co. don't abuse women because they think it's a way of helping them. They actually seem to enjoy hurting them - and getting away with it.

Maybe they do. But then again, maybe they don't. Again, you aren't a mind reader. Have you NEVER engaged in a behavior that you knew was going to hurt someone but you did it anyway? In my misspent youth, I often went against what my parents taught me. I sometimes blew off a girlfriend to have a guy's night out. One of my deepest shames is that I took a girl out who liked me only to get to her friend; I took advantage of her and I felt horrible about it afterwards . . . but I still did it! If you say you have never done such a thing, I'll believe you, but then you are an angel amongst us mortals.

Suddenly you seem to have forgotten all about your adrenaline rush due to taboo and fear, but you didn't notice that, did you?!

LOL, no, I didn't forget about it. Overcoming the objections of the victim is the rush and taboo. Rationalizing about it afterwards is the way to assuage the guilt and remorse.

You probably also conveniently forget that they never wanted this out in the open. If they'd actually held the beliefs that you claim that they do, they would have been much more open about it: 'Look at me! I deserve a medal. I help women in the movie industry by ******* them.' Or 'I helped this woman by slipping her a Mickey because she was obviously tired and needed to be unconscious while having sex with me.'

Please don't saddle me with your own inventions.

They know their behavior is wrong. The cliché is that show business is a dirty business. Stuff goes on that outsiders would never understand. So yes, they don't talk about it. They have contracts that insulate them from the consequences. The threat of a ruined career is enough to keep people quiet. People who enter the business know the score. And thus, the dirty business continues.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

I even have a problem with understanding men who are able to have sex with prostitutes. It would be a complete turn off for me to know that I was having sex with a woman who wasn't (really!) into having sex with me.

And that alone pretty much sums up the whole thread. The bolded part is the key, chiefly because it's irrelevant. If you seriously, honestly want an objective answer, then your own individual preferences are completely irrelevant, since the question is not "What does Dann like?". So to you it's a complete turn off to hire a woman who only has sex for you in exchange for money, therefore you can't understand how others would be turned on by that. That's what I'm referring to when I said it's an issue of having imagination and empathy to try to "put yourself in someone else's shoes" or "play devil's advocate". Again, you don't need to like the person, nor like what they do, to use a bit of mental exercise to extrapolate why, in their view, they would like to do such an act that to you, is not a turn on at all.

And again, there is no such thing as a single Universal answer to why someone would like to do something that you don't. Whether it's have sex with prostitutes, defecate on someone, eat a certain type of food you don't like, go on a really high roller coaster, etc. There's an infinite number of reasons, since each individual is different. Your whole thread reads less like an attempt to figure out an empiric answer to a scientific question, and more like someone saying "I can't possibly imagine how someone would like the taste of Mayo. To me it just tastes icky! Who in their right mind would want to eat that?? Someone please explain it to me cuz I just can't see it!". Which in my opinion, is nothing but a form of judgment, disguised as a curiosity. There's a difference between someone who honestly wants to understand why a person likes something, and someone who judges the person by making statements like "I can't understand how someone could be attracted to something like that!"

I'm gonna make a very easy prediction, and feel free to mock it (because I know you will): You will never obtain a satisfactory answer to your question.

 

[dann]

OK, now I'm really confused . . . You started this thread to get some insight on why people want to rape other people. Aside from the fact that it's kind of a stupid question, I gave you about the only real answer there is to give. Justification/rationalization is the explanation for all bad human behavior, mental illness or not. You may not understand WHY people do it (and nobody really understands WHY people do horrible things) but the entirety of human experience has proven the concept adequately.

That you don't understand the question doesn't make it meaningless, and you gave me no "real answer" at all, but you may be right about one thing: Maybe "linguistic confusion" does explain why you can't grasp the concept of rationalization. If you look it up, you'll notice that it isn't the explanation for any human behavior:

verb (used with object), rationalized, rationalizing.
1.
to ascribe (one's acts, opinions, etc.) to causes that superficially seem reasonable and valid but that actually are unrelated to the true, possibly unconscious and often less creditable or agreeable causes.
(…)
verb (used without object), rationalized, rationalizing.
7.
to invent plausible explanations for acts, opinions, etc., that are actually based on other causes:
He tried to prove that he was not at fault, but he was obviously rationalizing.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/rationalization

It's the bad excuse for your behavior and not what causes it!
That is what you can learn, not from "the entirety of human experience," (sometimes people are honest and to the point and don't need to rationalize), but from a good part of it.

Take Nazi Germany as an extreme example. Is it your position that everybody who participated in the slaughter of the Jews was a sociopath? That almost the entire population of Germany, who stood by and did very little to help the Jews, were sociopaths? I don't think so. I think there were various justifications and rationalizations that people used to get through those atrocities. They were afraid of the consequences of not participating, for one big one.

Yes, one of the rationalizations used by Nazis was that "they were afraid of the consequences of not participating," but even in this case you seem to believe them because you don't know what rationalizations are.

 

[dann]

This very recent from the NYT attempts to shed some light on the subject and I think you will find that it largely agrees with what I and others have been trying to say.

Thank you for the link! Excellent article that I can recommend to everybody who's interested in this theme. It describes the progress that's been made in the studies of rapists, and somehow it manages to do so without the use of "rush" as an explanation for anything at all!
And it has a very good example of the role that rationalization plays in the minds of rapists:

Most subjects in these studies freely acknowledge nonconsensual sex — but that does not mean they consider it real rape. Researchers encounter this contradiction again and again.

Asked “if they had penetrated against their consent,” said Dr. Koss, the subject will say yes. Asked if he did “something like rape,” the answer is almost always no.

Studies of incarcerated rapists — even men who admit to keeping sex slaves in conflict zones — find a similar disconnect. It’s not that they deny sexual assault happens; it’s just that the crime is committed by the monster over there.

And this is not a sign that the respondents are psychopaths, said Dr. Hamby, the journal editor. It’s a sign that they are human. “No one thinks they are a bad guy,” she said.

Indeed, experts note one last trait shared by men who have raped: they do not believe they are the problem.

It seems as if rapists too suffer from linguistic confusion: They rape, they know that they rape, but they just don't like the word!
A weird thing about this is that the journal editor also seems to accept the idea that, since they don't think of themselves as rapists, i.e. they choose other words to describe themselves and their sexual assaults, they aren't psychopaths! As if the definition of a psychopath were: 'a person who never justifies or rationalizes his behavior!'

 

[Roboramma]

That you don't understand the question doesn't make it meaningless, and you gave me no "real answer" at all, but you may be right about one thing: Maybe "linguistic confusion" does explain why you can't grasp the concept of rationalization. If you look it up, you'll notice that it isn't the explanation for any human behavior:

I agree with you that rationalization doesn't explain any behaviour by itself. There has to be some motivation for the behaviour prior to the need to rationalize it. The rationalization is the explanation for how someone could bring themselves to do something that they would otherwise feel disgusted by.

For instance, having sex with someone that they are attracted to is generally something people want to do. Coercing someone into sex is generally something they would feel disgusted by. Rationalization can allow them to overcome the latter while still experiencing the former.

I think from your view there is an intrinsic connection between any value you find in sex and the mutual nature of it. Without that feeling of mutual enjoyment, there's nothing to enjoy, and so it's hard to understand how someone can want to have sex with someone who isn't enjoying the experience.

My reply to that is that while that might be 99% of what people enjoy about the experience, there is also just physically "getting off". As I evidence for that I offer the ubiquity of porn, which doesn't really offer a mutual experience at all.

The fact that there is something that these people enjoy, even if it is not remotely close to the full experience, is enough to explain why they want that aspect of the experience. The fact that they are ******** explains why they would be willing to cause others to suffer to get something that they want.

 

[xjx388]

I agree with you that rationalization doesn't explain any behaviour by itself. There has to be some motivation for the behaviour prior to the need to rationalize it. The rationalization is the explanation for how someone could bring themselves to do something that they would otherwise feel disgusted by.

Exactly. Rationalization is not the cause of the behavior; it’s the mechanism people use to assuage guilt over having done something wrong. I think dann wants to understand WHY but I don’t think that’s something most people ever could understand.

 

[dann]

Well, at least you seem to have given up on the idea that

Justification/rationalization is the explanation for all bad human behavior

And about time too. That you (and, most recently, Ron Tompkins: "You will never obtain a satisfactory answer to your question.") think that my question is unanswerable doesn't worry me much. The link that you provided us with shows that researchers are making progress in this field.

 

[xjx388]

Well, at least you seem to have given up on the idea that

Oh, no; I still think that! More precisely, R/J is the mental process that allows us to fight off “our better angels,” when we really want to do something we know is wrong.

And about time too. That you (and, most recently, Ron Tompkins: "You will never obtain a satisfactory answer to your question.") think that my question is unanswerable doesn't worry me much. The link that you provided us with shows that researchers are making progress in this field.

And so does any of that research help you “cognitively empathize,” with people who want to rape? Researchers may be able to identify risk factors and such but they will never be able to explain exactly WHAT makes someone want to rape other people. In fact, the answer doesn’t even matter. What matters is identifying what interventions might help prevent rape in the future.

 

[dann]

I agree with you that rationalization doesn't explain any behaviour by itself. There has to be some motivation for the behaviour prior to the need to rationalize it. The rationalization is the explanation for how someone could bring themselves to do something that they would otherwise feel disgusted by.

For instance, having sex with someone that they are attracted to is generally something people want to do. Coercing someone into sex is generally something they would feel disgusted by. Rationalization can allow them to overcome the latter while still experiencing the former.

THANK YOU! I was beginning to worry that only rape apologists were left in the thread because tldr had driven away everybody else.
However, I don't think that most rapists need to overcome any feelings of disgust: They are not disgusted at all. On the contrary, they are attracted to the exact same thing that most of us are disgusted by, and their rationalizations are pretence, bad excuses, hypocrisy.

I think from your view there is an intrinsic connection between any value you find in sex and the mutual nature of it. Without that feeling of mutual enjoyment, there's nothing to enjoy, and so it's hard to understand how someone can want to have sex with someone who isn't enjoying the experience.

Yes, that sums up my attitude.

My reply to that is that while that might be 99% of what people enjoy about the experience, there is also just physically "getting off".

I don't think that "physically "getting off"" gets only 1%, but ...

As I evidence for that I offer the ubiquity of porn, which doesn't really offer a mutual experience at all.

You are right, of course, that the experience of porn doesn't offer a mutual experience. However, what it does offer is the illuson/fantasy of a mutual experience, sometimes very explicitly so: POV porn where the actress even appears to be talking to the masturbator, giving him (or her) the illusion of (more than) consent.
So even when we move into the fantasy realm, i.e. porn, we seem to find that most men are actually turned on by reciprocity, by consent. I can imagine that it probably doesn't require much research to find POV rape porn of a kind where the actress plays unconsenting, but it is comforting to know that this it's unlikely to be the first kind of porn that a clueless teenage boy might stumble upon.
As it is, there appears to be an awful lot of what I would describe as blackmail/extortion porn where the actress is somehow pressured into a kind of consent only to discover that she is enjoying the experience. I find the latter part of it comforting to know, in as far as the appeal still seems to be that the woman enjoys the experience too, but the first part of is worries me because the combination of the two things may lead very clueless teenagers to believe in the old myth, which has been mentioned in this thread a couple of times, that as a rule the woman has to be reluctant at first, but if the man is pushy enough, she will eventually end up enjoying it, thus contributing to creating inadvertent rapists.

The fact that there is something that these people enjoy, even if it is not remotely close to the full experience, is enough to explain why they want that aspect of the experience. The fact that they are ******** explains why they would be willing to cause others to suffer to get something that they want.

If by "these people" you mean rapists, then I don't think so. Then there would be much easier and not nearly as risky (for the perpetrator) ways of getting off: prostitution.


PS A very long time ago, I came across a piece of feminist criticism of porn where it was claimed that porn was intrinsically misogynistic because women were portrayed as perpetually horny and always willing. My first thought was that the author should praise herself lucky if she found a copy of a porn magazine (Yes, that's how long ago this was!) under her teenage son's mattress with photos of women who seemed to enjoy having sex since that would imply that this was the kind of sex that he was turned on by: the consensual kind!

 

[dann]

You are unable to see the difference between:

R/J is the mental process that allows us to fight off “our better angels,” when we really want to do something we know is wrong.

Justification/rationalization is the explanation for all bad human behavior

Well, that can't be helped, then. You seem to be blind to this very important part of Roboramma's post:

There has to be some motivation for the behavior prior to the need to rationalize it.

That is, you treat it as if rationalizations are an indispensable prerequisite for rape, as if they didn't often appear only after the crime, post festum.

And so does any of that research help you “cognitively empathize,” with people who want to rape? Researchers may be able to identify risk factors and such but they will never be able to explain exactly WHAT makes someone want to rape other people. In fact, the answer doesn’t even matter. What matters is identifying what interventions might help prevent rape in the future.

Another contradiction in terms since "identifying what interventions might help" depends on knowing "WHAT makes someone want to rape other people," which the researchers are well aware of. Your "exactly" is disingenuous. It only serves the purpose of prolonging your insistence on the obviously wrong idea that "they will never be able to explain" ... even when they actually are explaining.
They're getting there!