The lure of seduction/rape

I discovered why/when i get the urge to seduce. There are two necessary elements for me: (1) the target is susceptible to seduction, and (2) the target has power over me. If those two requirements are met, I will nearly always feel the urge to seduce. If just one of those elements is present, I might think about it once or twice, but the seduction never holds my interest.

Perhaps this is somewhat related: I think I also discovered why someone might rape (I didn't rape anyone, just a dream). The lure of rape is fuzzier to me than the lure of seduction, but there is also an issue of power. The victim is actively rejecting you. The act of rape negates this rejection, denies the victim even that small control over you.

The downside to rape, though, is that the focus is all on the rejection. In fact, rejection is necessary for rape -- if there was no element of rejection, there would be no reason or opportunity to rape. To be a habitual rapist then, you would have to either be rejected all the time (real rejection), or be so insecure and paranoid to think that people would reject you all the time (perceived rejection). Neither way sounds appealing, or even easy to accomplish. Do habitual rapists seek out rejection or provoke it, just to create the opportunity? I'm much too narcissistic to be courting rejection all the time like that. I don't see why anyone else would do it either unless they had a masochistic streak. In any case, I would never do it myself, it's black magic. But now I can sort of see why others do.

Haitian rape

This is somewhat of a follow up to an idea I sort of hinted at in my last post, the idea that sociopaths possibly succumb to temptation less than empaths do, such that proportionally we yield to temptation less than normal people do (i.e. fewer indiscretions per temptation), if not necessarily less in terms of raw numbers. I think there is some evidence for this -- that empaths are also quite inclined to commit crimes, they just see fewer opportunities than sociopaths do. I think the strongest evidence for this comes from times of war or other social strife when the fabric of society has broken down to the point that people are basically getting away with murder.

I read a statistic recently that 20% of the violent crimes committed after the Haitian earthquake were rapes, and that 11% of the population knows someone who was raped. It makes sense. Whenever there is unrest, whenever they can get away with something, people exploit the situation by looting whatever there is of value. In a situation like Haiti post earthquake, there isn't much more of value besides other people. For your pleasure, from this article:

But women are not the only victims that are falling prey to sexual predators. According to the AP, two small girls ages 7 and 2-years-old were victims of rape attacks and as of Monday (March 16), leaving the toddler taking antibiotics for a gonorrhea infection of the mouth.

"We are aware of problem ... but it's not a priority," Information Minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue said last month.

Lest we think that this uptick in rapes is earthquake specific (men mad with grief at the loss of a wife turning to rape?), any sort of social upheaval will do:

Rapes, which have been a big problem in Haiti even before the earthquake, were frequently was used as a political weapon in times of upheaval. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the first democratically elected president, was ousted twice after his enemies assassinated his male supporters and raped their wives and daughters.

On the wrongness of rape

From our friend the law and economics scholar in response to my request: "I wonder, could you give a quick summary of the Posner argument for not hurting people to post on the blog?":

I would be more than happy to provide a summary of Posner's arguments on why harming others is wrong. But I'd like to take a look over his text book again, so as not to misrepresent the Genius himself. Just as a taster I can tell you why rape is 'MOSTLY' wrong :). (God damn I wish it wasn't haha, that'd save a shitload of effort). In some ways I believe an explanation of why rape is "sometimes" wrong is more interesting than harm in general.

Basically, rape bypasses the market in sexual relations in the same way that theft bypasses markets in ordinary goods and services, and therefore should be forbidden. Something that bypasses the market is wrong. Here's the clinch. Sometimes rape is right. I'm going to paraphrase Posner here. Sometimes rapists derive extra pleasure from the fact that a woman has not consented. For these rapists, there is NO MARKET SUBSTITUTE - market transaction costs are prohibitive- and it can be argued, therefore, that for them rape is NOT A PURE COERCIVE TRANSFER and should NOT BE PUNISHED if the sum of satisfactions to the rapist (as measured by what he would be willing to pay - though not to the victim - for the right to rape) exceeds the victim's pain and distress.

The PRACTICAL OBJECTION is that rapists are hard to distinguish empirically from mere THIEVES OF SEX and that giving them free rein would induce women to invest heavily in self-protection. Posner goes on...and states "the fact that any sort of RAPE LICENSE is even thinkable within the framework of the wealth-maximisation theory that guides so much of the analysis in this book is a limitation on the usefulness of that theory". I believe Posner is probably not a sociopath. But I mean... writing about the difficulties of giving a 'license to rape' because it's hard to distinguish between genuine rapists and those who are 'thieves of sex': haha :). I recall long conversations with some girls at university on the "license to rape"...I fucked them all in the end without the license. :). To be honest I think I would have to think long and hard to give an explanation of why "rape is generally wrong" in terms that a person of average intelligence and experience would understand. It rests on the idea that the market is supreme...until that is understood it's just empty words.

Sociopaths in the news: rape/incest and filicide

Today's theme is horrible things parents can do to their children.

First is a British man who was jailed for raping two of his daughters and fathering many children with them over 27 years. The two daughters were impregnanted a total of 19 times. Nine children survived, five were miscarried and five were terminated. Seven of the living children suffer genetic deformities.

There is nothing about this man that would lead me to believe that he is a sociopath other than the depraved nature of the crimes. Actually I suspect that he is not a sociopath because I would expect a sociopath to use birth control. I think in general the thought of procreating gives sociopaths the chills. Maybe we suffer the paranoia of many a medieval monarch that our children will grow up to be our doom. This seems especially likely when you have raped the child's mother. The fact that this father did not use any sort of birth control makes me want to chalk it up to the empaths' particular brand of evil.

The next story is about a two children who were saved from a freezing river last winter only to be killed by their mother. Well, the two-year old died (by a slit throat), but the seven-year old survived. There are some interesting quotes from law professors (experts?) about the nature of evil:

Cases of mothers who kill their children, like Susan Smith and Andrea Yates, continue to fascinate the public, even as the rates of filicide -- the act of a parent who kills his or her own child -- have remained fairly stable.

"Because these cases are so tragic, they pull at your heartstrings, but they happen all the time," said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, California.

In 2005, 555 children under the age of five were victims of homicide, compared with 544 in 1976. The rate peaked in 1991 at 778 and bottomed out in 1971 at 511, according to statistics from the Department of Justice.

Another fairly stable statistic: In more than 50 percent of child homicides, the killer is a parent.

"The natural defense to anticipate is insanity, because why would a mother kill her own child?" Levenson asked. "It certainly can be insanity, but it's not always the case. Perfectly sane people can do horrible things, and they do, every day."

Mothers can be motivated to kill their children by several factors, according to criminologist James Alan Fox, Lipman Family professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University.

Some act on genuine psychotic delusions, as jurors determined to be the case with Texas mother Andrea Yates, who told doctors she drowned her five children because God told her to do so. Others can be motivated by selfish reasons: Susan Smith's alleged motive for killing her children was that she perceived them to be an obstacle in her relationship with her boyfriend.

"It's a crazy thing to do, but crazy describes the behavior, not the mind," Fox said, adding that between 300 and 350 children have been homicide victims in 2008.

"It doesn't make sense to most of us, but that doesn't mean the state of mind of the person is mentally ill. You may know what you're doing and have very selfish motivations," he explained.

Out of all these murderous mothers, I think the closest to a sociopath is probably Susan Smith, next closest is this Iowan mother, and least likely is Andrea Yates. Sociopaths don't need god telling them to kill someone -- their self-interest can be enough. Of course, sociopaths rarely kill because killing is complicated, messy, risky, and other things that you would expect rational beings to avoid. But sometimes there is sufficient justification for killing -- like when countries go to war or execute prisoners. You know, killing for a good cause.