the miscellany chronicle

bit of this, bit of that

2.22.2007

no, she didn't.

I've been reading through the Pandagon archives, and I found one article from June 2005. It starts off as being about-- shocking-- rape at the Air Force Academy-- but ends up having a lot of information about actual studies about rape culture. Most of them directly contradict comforting rape stereotypes (she was a slut, she wanted it, she brought it on herself) by actually studying the behavior and psychology of rapists, not their victims.

The BSU [Behavioral Sciences Unit of the FBI] is famous for helping track down serial killers, but they do a lot more mundane criminal work than that. One important innovation that was driven by the BSU was that BSU member Roy Hazelwood cleaned up and innovated the sex crimes division of the FBI to make it more effective at solving crimes and research.

After years of work in this area, just guess what conclusion Hazelwood came to about the best way to approach sex crime justice and prevention? You guessed it. Hazelwood drew on feminist work in the area of sexual assault and rape and concluded that the previous theories of rape and sexual assault that emphasized sexual desire were completely backwards and that most rapists have power and control issues, with only a select few really having sexual desires that drove them to rape specifically. Completely contrary to what the “boys will be boys” crowd espouses about rape and sexual desire, the ones who attack out of sexual desire are the most dangerous, not the least.


Read the rest here.

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