Into the mind of a Rapist; the Psychosocial Disorder - Gospel Edoho John (GEJ)

Rape has become the pandemic of contemporary time, constituting public health emergency of social concerns. Rape is a form of sexual penetration carried out against a person without the person's consent. The act may be carried out through physical force, or against a person who is incapable of giving valid consent, such as one who is unconscious, incapacitated, has some psychological disability or is below the legal age of consent. While rape is defined in terms of penetration, other forms of sex harassment are termed sexual assaults. It is prevalent violence against woman and children. Widespread and systematic violations act such as rape is primarily committed by males against females.

Etymologically, Rape means to snatch, to grab, to seize and take away by force. The carrying away of a woman by force with or without intercourse, constituted rape in Roman law. Thus, rape is a criminal sexual conduct. The various types include; date rape, gang rape, marital rape, incestualize rape, child sexual abuse, prison rape, acquaintance rape, and statutory rape. Sexual intercourse with a person below the age of consent, i.e., 18 years in Nigeria; the age of legal competence is referred to as statutory rape. The World Health Organization states that the principal factors that lead to rape are:

I. The belief in family honor and sexual purity;

2. The attitudes of male sexual entitlement;

3. Weak legal sanctions for sexual violence.

Whereas no single justification or facet explains the motivation for rape; the underlying motives of rapists can be multi-faceted; anger, power, sadism, sexual gratification, or evolutionary proclivities. However, some factors have significant causal evidence supporting them, thus, the psychosocial disorder of the rapist. Psychosocial refers to one's psychological development in and interaction with a social environment. It is a sociobiological approach that looks at individuals in the context of the combined influence that psychological factors and the surrounding social environment have on their physical and mental wellness and their ability to function. Example can be the Psycho-social short stature; a growth disorder that is observed between the ages of 2 and 15, caused by extreme emotional deprivation.

Mental investigation of rapists suggests a central analytic process of sexuality to include infantile forms of the "Oedipus complex" a term popularized by Sigmund Freud as the central tenet of psychoanalysis in his clinical treatment and counseling of client. Oedipus complex refers to a child's unconscious sexual desire for the opposite-sex parent and hatred for the same-sex parent. the opposite being the “Electra complex”, proposed by Carl Jung to refer the girl child psychosexual competition with her mother for possession of her father. Whereas desire for the parent in both boys and girls are experienced differently: boys in a form of castration anxiety, girls in a form of penis envy - fear of damage being done to their genitalia by the parent of the same sex (e.g. a son being afraid of his father) as punishment for sexual feelings toward the parent of the opposite sex results in radical sex drive. In the course of childhood development, the complex is in the third - phallic stage (ages 3–6), among which others are; (i) the Oral, year 0-1 (ii) the Anal, year 1-3 (iii) the Phallic, year 3-6 (iv) the Latent, year 6 till puberty, and (v) the Genital, puberty upward - in which the source of libido pleasure is in a different erogenous zone of the infant's body. Erickson further developed the stages to include, early childhood, middle childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, middle and late adulthood.

The argument is that infants can derive sexual pleasure from any part of their bodies because of closeness to the parents, and that socialization moderates the instinctual libidinal drives into adult heterosexuality. Socialization is what make the child human, thus, correction of excesses during infancy brings about retrieval. Functional mental disorder is rooted in a child's development process. When a baby is orally aggressive to the mother’s breast at stage one, may transcend into chewing gum and the ends of pencils, if not corrected, smoking, kissing pleasures, as well as oral sexual practices may develop, and such fixation might result in a passive, gullible, immature, manipulative personality. The two factors contributing this formation are, in the development of self-image, they are discrete from the external world, e.g. the child understands pain when it is applied to their body, thus identifying the physical boundaries between body and environment; and experiencing delayed gratification leads to understanding that specific behaviors satisfy some needs. Thus, by identifying with both parent, the child internalizes morality, thereby, choosing to comply with societal rules, rather than having to reflexively comply in fear of punishment. Socialization role functions to transform new born from biological beings to social beings.

Frequently, victims may not recognize what happened to them was rape. Some may remain in denial for years afterwards. The females may not identify their victimization as rape for many reasons such as feelings of shame, embarrassment, non-uniform legal definitions, reluctance to define the friend as a rapist, or because they have internalized victim-blaming attitudes. Society sometime exacerbate the trauma, when people who have been raped are sometimes considered responsible for the crime. This refers to the rape myth acceptance that certain victim behaviors like being intoxicated, flirting or wearing sexually provocative clothing may encourage rape, or that victims asked for it for not resisting their assault. Consent may be complicated by law, context, culture and sexual orientation. Besides, verbalized “no” to sex may be interpreted as “keep trying”, or even “yes” in terms of mutual understanding by offenders, e.g. in marital rape.

Rape is barbaric, aside its psychological, physical and social effect. Deadly STDs such as HIV can be transmitted through rape. Acquiring AIDS through rape puts people risk of suffering more psychological problems. As sexual violence affects all parts of society, the response to sexual violence is comprehensive, taking place on the individual, administrative, legal, and social levels. Sexual assault may be prevented by secondary school, college, and workplace education programs. Counseling, therapy, and support group initiatives exist to be helpful following cases of rape, especially where there may be complicating factors related to the violence itself till the point of recovery. We stress the importance of encouraging nurturing, with better and more gender balanced parenting, to prevent sexual violence. At the same time, adopt effective socialization as a developmental approach, with during childhood and in adolescence and young adulthood, the element would include discussions of parenting skills, the stereotyping of gender roles, stress, conflict and violence. This are in addition to the criminal justice process established by law against adult offenders as the disposition of the law is supposed to make reformation in the mind, social, and physical environment of perpetuators.

 *******************************************************************

Gospel Edoho John (GEJ) is a social worker and academic researcher.

Director of BOLT initiative (Building the Orientation of Leadership in Teenagers)