Who is the Rapist?
| Published date | 01 April 1977 |
| Date | 01 April 1977 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002201837704100211 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Who is the Rapist?
"He
had
ahellish
childhood,"
states
Dr.
James
A. Brussell,
(1968),
a
psychiatrist
who
serves ad
consultant
to
the
courts
and
testified as an
expert
witness
during
De Salvo's trial.
"His
father
had
both
emotional
and
personality
distortions.
He was unbelievably
cruel
to
his wife
and
children. He
once
wrecked
all
the
furniture
when
he
became
infuriated
with
his wife
...
on
another
occasion
he
broke
all
the
fingers
of
the
mother
...
one
by
one.
The
mother
was
not
the
warm,
loving
woman
who
might
have
made
life
tolerable.
She
was,
at
best,
indifferent
...
out
of
the
house
most
nights
...
frequently
his
father
would
come
home
with
a
prostitute
and
make
the
children
watch
while he
and
she
performed
coitus or
more
unusual
sex acts. In this
atmosphere,
Albert
and
his
brothers
and
sisters
could
hardly
help developing a
premature
and
somewhat
morbid
interest
in sex.
Albert
attempted
sex acts
at
five
or six. He
often
performed
sadistic acts for
"kicks".
He
mistreated
animals
and
never tired
of
this pastime. In school, he was a
model
pupil
...
in
the
teachers he
found
a
substitute
for
what
he
had
never
known:
parental
love
...
Albert
unconsciously
sought
not
only
aloving
mother
but
also a
father
figure, an
authority
whom
he
could
love
and
respect
...
Twisted
through
his
personality
were
two
dangerous factors,
that
had
been
part
of
his life since
childhood:
the
overwhelming obsession
with
sex
and
the
need
for
a
mother's
love
...
Albert
was driven to seek
women
as an
addict
seeks drugs.
Albert
found
a
woman
who
was faithful to
him
...
but
he
needed
her
love so
desperately
that
he was driving it away.
He
wanted
her
to
prove
her
love incessantly. He
would
demand
sex
at
least twice a
day,
sometimes
five or six times
...
he
demanded
more
than
she
could
give.
She
began
to
reject
him.
The
old sex love
hunger
welled up in him. He
went
hunting
...
"
The
potential
for rape is in every person.
It
is less likely to be
manifested in
the
female
only
because
of
social,
cultural
conditioning
which
is still,
despite
the
liberation
of
the
female sex,
opposed
to
such
behaviour.
There
is also
the
possibility
that
there
may
be a smaller biological
tendency
towards
physical aggression
in
the
female generally.
The
first
question
anyone
asks
concerning
rape
is:
"What
kind
of
person
could
do
such a
thing?"
The
reply
to
this
question
is
complex.
It
is for this
reason
that
we
look
at
a
number
of
casual
explanations
or
background
features
which
rarely
occur
in
isolation
but
more
often
in
combination.
It
is as a result
of
such
interactions
that
the
rapist
ultimately
perpetrates
acts
of
rape.
In so
doing
one
neither
excuses
nor
condones
such
behaviour,
but
rather
considers
the
explanation
to
the
act,
without
losing sight
137
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