Sexual Assailants Research Articles

Socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of the perpetrators of sexual assaults assessed at the psychiatric department of Mahdia

IntroductionSexual assault constitutes a major problem in Tunisian society. There is no definitive typology of the characteristics of those who sexually assault. The great diversity of sexual assault behaviors and the different underlying motivations do not allow us to describe a typical profile of the sexual assailant. There may be cognitive, personality trait, lifestyle, and pathway distortions involved in the etiology and maintenance of deviant sexual behaviors.ObjectivesTo establish the socio-demographic and clinical profile of the perpetrators of sexual assault appraised in the psychiatric service of Mahdia.MethodsThis is a descriptive retrospective file-based study on all subjects assessed at the Taher Sfar Mahdia psychiatric department for sexual assault during the period from January 01, 2010 to December 31, 2020.ResultsOur sample consisted of 18 interviewed subjects. The median age was 40 years with extremes of age of the accused ranging from 30 to 61 years. The entire population is male. He was essentially of average socio-economic level. A psychiatric diagnosis was retained in 50% of the perpetrators of sexual assault: bipolar disorder (27.7%), schizophrenia (11.1%), antisocial type personality disorders (5.5%) and mental retardation (5.5%). Indecent assault was the most common assault followed by rape. The minors were victims in 33.3% of the cases Among those arrested, 72% were considered responsible for their acts and only one is considered irresponsible.ConclusionsThe studies having focused on the characteristics of the sexual aggressors concluded with a profile of the young man, single and badly inserted which does not constitute in any case a typical profile.DisclosureNo significant relationships.

You grabbed me as though you owned my body, but I’m here to say you’re wrong: toward a letter to the Zamora sexual assailant

ABSTRACT Developing an idiom derived from deep southern female politeness, this article calls out one of the sexual assailants whose assaults undermined the author’s career path as a historian of the Mexican revolution, its counter-revolution, of Mexican gender, ethnicity, race, and poverty. Behaving not as though the assailant – and those people and institutions supporting sexual assault – deserve to know her background, the extent of her work in Mexico and South America, but rather as though her democratic ethos matters, she creates a literary road map – or talisman – into the woman the assailants permanently undermined.

Good in Bed? Power and Ethics in Psychoanalysis and Life

In reflecting on the present moment, which involves revelations of high-profile rapists, sexual assailants, and those using their power to sexually coerce and exploit (including iconic figures Harvey Weinstein and Donald Trump), this article considers the relationship between the destructive and oppressive forces that underlie these abuses, and aspects of “ordinary” sexuality that people struggle to integrate in their relational lives. The author explores the ways that such ordinary sexuality, particularly under ubiquitous conditions of patriarchy, is likely to include aspects of objectification, coercion, and exploitation. Further considered is the psychical and relational fallout of the counteractions currently being mounted against such violations and abuses. Two brief case vignettes, one of a heterosexual man, the other of a heterosexual woman, are used as exemplars of the tolls that coercive abuses and their remedies may be taking on sexual relatedness.

Lessons in Self-Defense: Gender Violence, Racial Criminalization, and Anticarceral Feminism

Lessons in Self-Defense:Gender Violence, Racial Criminalization, and Anticarceral Feminism Emily Thuma (bio) In August 1980 more than a hundred activists gathered in Washington, DC, for the National Conference on Third World Women and Violence. Organized by the DC Rape Crisis Center, the conference marked the first time that black, Latina, Asian, and Native American women working in rape crisis centers (RCCs) and battered women’s shelters in the U.S. convened both nationally and autonomously. The coordinators explicitly named “concerns of isolation, alienation, and racism” within these organizations as a key rationale for the gathering and their larger goal of cultivating a new national network of women and men of color engaged in antiviolence activism.1 The DC center was uniquely poised to host such a conference, as it was the only African American–led RCC in the country at the time. Conference participants culled lessons from their experiences as anti-violence organizers in communities of color and as people of color working in largely majority-white RCCs and battered women’s shelters. While racism within these institutions was one catalyst for the meeting, collective concern about their increasing involvement with the criminal justice state was another closely related impetus. Feminist activists had founded upwards of five hundred RCCs and shelters around the country during the previous decade, making these institutions two of the most prolific and widespread organizational forms of the larger women’s movement. Most offered some combination of counseling, support groups, hotlines, and shelter, and many included community education initiatives in their repertoires as well. Activists’ need for funding to sustain these programs, as well as their desire to confront the hostility and dismissiveness that law enforcement [End Page 52] and the courts showed rape survivors and battered women, had brought them into growing contact and collaboration with criminal justice agencies (Bevacqua 2000; Schechter 1982). As scholars have shown, this “alliance with the state” reflected, as well as inadvertently fueled, the ascendancy of a law-and-order agenda under the auspices of a highly racialized “war on crime” (Bumiller 2007; Gottschalk 2006; Kim 2014; Richie 2012). The increasing focus on criminalization invariably constrained the transformative social justice goals of the antiviolence movement but also its organizational cultures; as sociologist Nancy Matthews puts it, many antiviolence programs gradually appeared and functioned more like “social service agencies than social movement organizations” (1994, xiii). What is less often acknowledged in the academic literature is that the question of whether, how, and to what end feminist antiviolence activists should accept criminal justice funding and prioritize criminal legal reforms was vociferously debated within individual agencies, at regional and national conferences, and through independent media. In one sense, the National Conference on Third World Women and Violence could be construed as a meeting of the proverbial margins of the U.S. feminist antiviolence movement. Yet the attendees’ manifold political affiliations meant that the conference represented a distinctive center emerging from the interface of multiple social movements: U.S. third world feminism, black feminism, indigenous decolonization, and prisoners’ rights, among others. The slate of workshops and panel discussions ranged from “Medical Abuses: Sterilization” and “Feminism and Third World Women” to “Working with Men Committing Violence” and “Lesbianism: Third World Perspective.”2 Members of the “International Panel” provided a discussion of state-sponsored violence against women in Angola, South Africa, Chile, and Nicaragua and inspired passage of a formal, conference-wide resolution to demonstrate support for the South African Anti-Apartheid movement (Dejanikus 1980). Indeed, the name chosen for the conference signaled the organizers’ desire to reconfigure so-called “minority women” as part of a “Third World majority” of women whose lived experiences required an intersectional analysis of patriarchy and gender violence. Many in attendance questioned what “more prisons, longer sentences, and increased convictions” accomplished aside from “penaliz[ing] the most disadvantaged of offenders” and bolstering the legitimacy of an expanding prison system.3 Over the course of the two days, presenters [End Page 53] lifted up the recent cases of Joan Little, Inez García, Yvonne Wanrow (Swan), and Dessie Woods, four women of color who each killed her (or her child’s) sexual assailant and became the subject of a broad...

Assets at Risk: Menstrual Cycle Variation in the Envisioned Formidability of a Potential Sexual Assailant Reveals a Component of Threat Assessment

Situations of potential agonistic conflict demand rapid and effective decision-making. The process of threat assessment includes assessments of relative fighting capacity, assessments of the likelihood of attack, and assessments of the extent to which one′s assets are at risk. The dimensions of physical size and strength appear to serve as key parameters in a cognitive representation summarizing multiple constituents of threat assessment. Here, we examine the thesis that this same representation summarizes asset risk. The fitness costs of sexual assault are in part a function of conception risk, as pregnancy due to assault compromises female choice and imperils existing and subsequent male investment. Prior research indicates that women′s attitudes and behaviors vary systematically across the menstrual cycle in a manner that would have reduced the likelihood of sexual assault during periods of greatest fertility in ancestral women. If the envisioned size and strength of a potential antagonist is used to represent asset risk, and if the threat that sexual assault poses to a woman′s reproductive assets is in part a product of her fertility, then the conceptualized size and strength of a potential sexual assailant should be a function of conception risk. We find support for this prediction in a large sample of naturally-cycling women in urban Southern California, indicating that asset risk is summarized using the same representation as relative fighting capacity and likelihood of attack. Presumably, this elegant use of a single representation for multiple aspects of threat assessment facilitates rapid decision-making in agonistic contexts.

Ventriloquizing Rape in Menander’s Epitrepontes

Ventriloquizing Rape in Menander’s Epitrepontes Hunter H. Gardner (bio) Menander’s Epitrepontes offers a variant of New Comedy’s “rape motif,”1 insofar as its action is generated by the sexual violation and resultant pregnancy, both occurring prior to dramatic time, of a citizen woman who will turn out unwittingly (if, in the end, happily) to have married her rapist. Critical discussion surrounding these plots has dealt with the fundamental question of semantics, that is, how to evaluate attitudes towards an act—rape—for which the ancient Greeks (or Romans, for that matter) had no direct and unambiguous linguistic expression.2 Edward Harris (2006, 297–32) argues that the interest of modern critics in rape per se is misguided and anachronistic, since the ancient freeborn Greek evaluated sexual assault primarily on the basis of the perpetrator’s intent and on the consequences of the act for the honor of the victim’s family: Did the assailant act out of desire, or was he willfully abusing his power over the victim, that is, was the assailant committing hubris? While conceding that poets were not indifferent to the suffering of sexual assault victims, Harris offers ample evidence to suggest that such an assault, which we refer to as rape, was legally condemned only when it was understood as an act of hubris against the victim’s male kin; for Harris (2006, 330), sexual assault was not acknowledged as an insult against someone whom we would call the rape victim.3 Rosanna Omitowoju’s (2002) study on the terminology of sexual violence in Athenian forensic oratory and New Comedy has emphasized other semantic groups (e.g., bia and its cognates) important for the regulation of rape,4 but also stresses the relatively insignificant role that a woman’s consent plays in defining sexual crimes. Similarly, Vincent Rosivach’s (1998) study of the attitudes towards rape expressed in New Comedy tends to read the genre’s treatment of sexual violence in opposition to that of tragedy, particularly Euripides’ successful, now fragmentary, Auge.5 Rosivach (1998, 44) notes that Menander and his Roman successors focus overwhelmingly on the emotional maturation and contentment of the young male lover, rather than on the suffering experienced by female victims of sexual assault. One problem with such evaluations of evidence, however, lies in the [End Page 121] tendency to privilege the dominant, usually masculine point of view offered in generic enterprises ranging from New Comedy to history and oratory, rather than listening carefully for the muted (but still audible) voices of more peripheral characters.6 Cultural anthropology has long recognized the complex overlay of signals, human intention, interaction, and specific context which determine what description an action should be given. While social ‘norms’ as indicated through, e.g., legal texts are surely part of that overlay, they do not constitute its totality. Cultural phenomena, when approached as contextualized symbolic actions to be interpreted, cannot be reduced to any single ontological status. As such, legal definitions of hubris cannot adequately describe the myriad of exchanges that take place between a sexual assailant and the resisting victim of that assault. While a full account of these signals, what Clifford Geertz (1973) calls “thick description,” does not survive intact in any single ancient text, its traces are surely evident in poetic descriptions of sexual violence. For Geertz, the study of cultural productions is a study of signs. Using Gilbert Ryle’s famous attempt to distinguish the twitch of an eye from a conspiratorial wink or a parody of a wink, Geertz recommends a densely contextualized interpretive approach for understanding the simplest of gestures to the most recherché artistic performance (a Beethoven quartet): “The thing to ask is what their import is: what it is, ridicule or challenge, irony or anger, snobbery or pride, that, in their occurrence and through their agency, is getting said” (1973, 10).7 Following this line of argument, we may attempt to understand rape as a cultural phenomenon by the “enlargement of the universe of human discourse” (Geertz 1973, 14),8 rather than the reduction of it; in other words, we may ask “What is getting said?” about sexual violence in ancient texts, and discover something much...

CİNSEL SALDIRGAN PROFİLİ; BİR OLGU SUNUMU

ABSTRACT Although there are numerous studies related to victims of sexual assault, there are few reports about assailants. In this study, a profile of sexual assailant was presented. The case was male, and 17 years old. In his received expression which was taken with claim of crime about sexual assault, the assailant said that he graduated from primary school, worked in production of Tahin halva, liked to touch women and enjoyed looking attheir underwears. The assailantnarrated that he chose women with differentreligiousbeliefs as Alaouite, because he predicted those not to wear underwear. He added that he knew these women’s desires about a man, predictedall of these from their faces, and entered into their homes without sexual intercourse. He expressed that some of women liked his behaviour, and the others feared. Investigativedocument reported that the assailant was a cannabis user, entered into people's homeswhich he followed them before, turned flashlightto the victim's face, cut their underwearswith razor, touched only, was not in asexual intercourse and went away the home after taking theirunderwears. The assailant was a case of fetishism, because he desired underwears of women. And, remarkable point was that desire was only directed to women who had an ethnic identity as Alaouite which was common in south region of TURKEY. Furthermore, another interesting feature of case was absence of sense of revenge or hate while doing this, and assault was carried out attacks in order to remove only his curiosity. In this study, we aimed to present a case of fetishism directed towards women with only a certain religious belief. Keywords: Sexual assault, assailant, ethnic fetishism

Assailants' Sexual Dysfunction During Rape: Prevalence and Relationship to Genital Trauma in Female Victims

Partial or complete failure to maintain an erection sufficient for coitus is known to occur in a proportion of sexual assailants during the rape episode. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the presence of coercion, physical violence, and genital injury associated with sexual assaults is influenced by the assailant's erectile impotence. This prospective, observational study evaluated consecutive female patients presenting to a free-standing urban sexual assault clinic during a 3-year study period. Sexual assault victims presenting directly to four downtown emergency departments (EDs) are routinely referred to the clinic for evaluation after triage and initial assessment. The clinic is associated with a university-affiliated emergency medicine residency program and is staffed by forensic nurses trained to perform medical-legal examinations. The primary outcome was to compare the frequency of anogenital findings documented in women whose assailant experienced no erectile dysfunction vs. those victims who reported erectile impotence in the assailant. During the study period, 569 sexual assault victims were eligible to participate in the study; 47 (8.3%) reported that their assailants had experienced erectile impotence. Except for assailant age, the two victim groups were comparable in terms of marital status, alcohol and drug use, known assailant, and time to physical examination. In attacks where erectile dysfunction occurred, there was a higher incidence of physical coercion (60% vs. 32% without physical coercion, p < 0.001) and subsequent non-genital trauma (72% vs. 46%, respectively, p < 0.001). Thirty-two women (68%) had documented anogenital trauma despite the assailant having erectile dysfunction. There was no significant difference in the overall pattern of anogenital injury between the two groups (chi(2) = 9.1, p = 0.036). Erectile impotence occurred in up to 8% of sexual assailants during the rape episode. Despite this erectile dysfunction, the majority of sexual assault victims sustained anogenital trauma. In the attacks with erectile impotence, there was a higher incidence of intra-rape violence and subsequent non-genital injuries.

Laser Microdissection Separation of Pure Spermatozoa from Epithelial Cells for Short Tandem Repeat Analysis*

Short tandem repeat (STR) analysis is a valuable tool in identifying the source of biological stains, particularly from the investigation of sexual assault crimes. Difficulties in analysis arise primarily in the interpretation of mixed genotypes when cell separation of the sexual assailant's sperm from the victim's cells is incomplete. The forensic community continues to seek improvements in cell separation methods from mixtures for DNA typing. The feasibility of applying laser microdissection (LMD) technology to precisely separate sexual assault cell mixtures by visual inspection coupled with laser dissection was assessed through three experiments. First, various histological stains were evaluated for use with LMD and DNA analysis. Second, different DNA isolation methods were evaluated on LMD-collected cells. Finally, STR analysis was performed on LMD-separated sperm cells from mixtures of semen and female buccal epithelial cells. The results indicated (a) hematoxylin/eosin staining performed best in its ability to differentiate sperm and epithelial cells while exhibiting the least negative effect on further downstream analysis; (b) both QIAamp and Lyse-N-Go methods were useful for recovery of DNA from LMD-collected sperm cells; and (c) LMD separation provided clear STR profiles of the male donor with the absence of any additional alleles from the female donor. This report describes an efficient, low-manipulation LMD method for the efficient separation of spermatozoa from two-donor sperm/epithelial cell mixtures.

Forensic analysis of condom and personal lubricants by capillary electrophoresis

Condoms may offer sexual assailants a simple and relatively effective means by which they may remove and dispose of the biological evidence of their contact with the victim. Without this valuable probative evidence, the investigator may need to turn to such alternative forms of physical evidence, such as the residue remaining from the condom lubricant, and any other additional lubricating substances, which may have been used by the assailant. In this study, 68 different condom and personal lubricant samples were analysed using micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography (MEKC) with ultraviolet absorbance detection. The electropherograms were processed by principal component analysis (PCA) and classified with linear discriminant analysis. This classified 233 samples out of 263 into their correct sample group. An alternative method of classification in which the sample electropherograms were converted to vectors and a correlation was determined by the cosine of the angles between these vectors. This correctly classified 172 samples of the 296. Results indicate that the combination of CE with chemometric data treatment offers the potential of being a rapid and efficient means by which condom and personal lubricant samples may be differentiated. Although this analytical method at present lacks the sensitivity required for sexual assault swab analysis, it is hoped that future developments in instrumentation detection capabilities will permit its use one day as a routine casework tool.

Electrospray and MALDI Mass Spectrometry in the Identification of Spermicides in Criminal Investigations

Electrospray ionization (ESI) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry have been used to examine evidence in a sexual assault investigation. Because condoms are being used increasingly by sexual assailants and some condom brands include the spermicide nonoxynol-9 (nonylphenoxy polyethoxyethanol) in the lubricant formulation, the recovery, and identification of nonoxynol-9 from evidence items may assist in proving corpus delicti. A method was developed for the recovery of nonoxynol-9 from internal vaginal swabs and for its identification by reverse phase liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (LC ESI-MS), nanoelectrospray ionization (nanoESI) mass spectrometry, and high resolution MALDI Fourier transform mass spectrometry (MALDI-FTMS). The method was tested on extracts from precoitus, immediate postcoitus, and four-hours postcoitus vaginal swabs provided by a volunteer whose partner does not normally use condoms, but for this trial used a condom having a water-soluble gel-type lubricant that includes 5% nonoxynol-9 in its formulation. Subsequently, LC ESI-MS was used to identify traces of nonoxynol-9 from the internal vaginal swab of a victim of a sexual assault.

Correlates of Sex Offender and Offense Traits by Victim Age

The authors studied offender, offense, and victim characteristics according to victim age cohort among a sample of over 800 incarcerated sex offenders. Their findings were somewhat different from those previously reported, and suggest that rapists of adults were more psychopathic, sexual assailants against adolescents appeared to be more typical family men, and child molesters were more opportunistic chronic sex offenders. The authors believe their findings begin to shed light on the nature of sex crimes committed against victims of different age.

Mechanisms governing empowerment effects: A self-efficacy analysis.

This experiment tested the hypotheses that perceived coping and cognitive control self-efficacy govern the effects of personal empowerment over physical threats. Women participated in a mastery modeling program in which they mastered the physical skills to defend themselves successfully against unarmed sexual assailants. Multifaceted measures of theoretically relevant variables were administered within a staggered intragroup control design to test the immediate and long-term effects of the empowerment program and the mechanisms through which it produced its effects. Mastery modeling enhanced perceived coping and cognitive control efficacy, decreased perceived vulnerability to assault, and reduced the incidence of intrusive negative thinking and anxiety arousal. These changes were accompanied by increased freedom of action and decreased avoidant behavior. Path analyses of causal structures revealed a dual path of regulation of behavior by perceived coping self-efficacy, one mediated through perceived vulnerability and risk discernment and the other through perceived cognitive control self-efficacy and intrusive negative thinking.