Personality

 
 

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Psychological Context

Table of Contents

 

 

  Prominent Characteristics

  • Though male sexual perpetrators interviewed for this study varied in their personalities, the men had a couple of prominent characteristics that were common among a large portion of them:

    • aggressiveness and self-centeredness

    • an aversion to long-term relationships

  

  Aggressiveness and Self-Centeredness

As Interviewee 2 described himself:

I’ve never been passive.  I was assertive.  In other words, if I were a passive type of person and she said “Let’s go,” I would have just said, “OK, let’s go.”  But I like to get my own way.  I’ve always liked to get my own way.  I have lied to my friends and family in order to get my own way.  So it’s more of an attitude toward a human being’s own feelings, instead of my feelings.  I’m too engrossed in what I want all the time.  And I’m used to getting what I want.  Because, by manipulating my friends and family, I generally do get what I want.  From the time I was little, I had found ways to get, to do things my way. . . . But, at the time, I didn’t give a shit, just didn’t care.  I’d been gettin’ my way for 47 years, and I’d do it for another 47. 

  • Interviewee 2 provided some clear indications to an underlying flaw within the date rapist personality, and that is his self-centeredness. 

  • He seeks only to satisfy his own desires and ignores the victim’s perspective. 

  • As another perpetrator, Interviewee 3, phrased this phenomenon:  "I’m my own self.  I don’t listen to nobody anyways."

 

  Aversion to Long-Term Relationships

  • Another personality pattern threaded throughout many of the interviews with sexual offenders was an aversion to beginning a long-term relationship with a woman. 

 Interviewee 15 remarked:

Never called her again.  This was a pattern.  . . . It’s easy to see it in hindsight.  This was the pattern I was developing at that time in my age and I stuck with that pattern.  We go out; we have sex; we enjoy each other.  The rest of ‘em [dating men], they’re as much into sex as I am.  But I always denied myself [a relationship] or didn’t know how to communicate with women.  Didn’t want a relationship.  I tended to screw up the relationships that I did have.

  • In another interview, an informant discussed what he called relationships, but what actually appeared to this researcher to be closer to exploitation of women for sexual gratification and other pleasures. 

Interviewee 12 stated:

I used different females for different things in different categories.  You know, I had relationships.  But they were unhealthy relationships because, after a while, I'd lose interest.  I'd want something new.  I'm so used to having different things new.  So, once I have sex with this one, by the time I come back, it's new again.  Access.  It's all about access.  I controlled this whole situation.  When I call you, whatever I want to do, that's what we're going to do.  Whenever.  And whatever.  If I call and say, you know, “What you doin' tonight?  You want to kick it with me?”  She says, "Yeah."  “Okay, I'll pick you up at a certain time.”  When I come pick you up, wherever I go, you know, whoever I'm around, and whatever I do, it's all me.  You have no say whatsoever over this here.  You know, most of the women I messed with was infatuated by the things I had [the house, cars, jewelry, money, etc.].

  • This statement combined both the lack of commitment to women in relationships and the earlier theme described, namely, self-centeredness. 

  • The woman has no rights to an opinion or preference; instead, she must defer to the man’s will.

 

  Conclusion

  • These personality characteristics provide a conceivable foundation from which the researcher and reader can begin to understand the date rapist's intent, namely to satisfy his own sexual needs.

 

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