Rape is highly misunderstood, Complicated and emotionally charges subject. Not only in India but around the world people like politician, religious leaders, even medical professionals comment about the dressing, behavior, and character of the victim (girl/woman). A study by amnesty International shows a shockingly proportion (34%) of the public blames the women for being raped. But interestingly very little focus have been given to perpetrator of this offense.
Blaming the victim is basically based on the stereotyped image of the offender, that he is a lusty men who is the victim of a provocative and vindictive women. Or he is seen as a sexually frustrated men reacting under the pressure of his pent-up needs, or he is thought to be a demented sex fiend harboring insatiable and perverted desires.
All these views share a common misconception: they all assume that the offender’s behavior is primarily motivated by Sexual desires, and that rape is directed towards gratifying only sexual needs. Quite to the contrary, careful clinical study of offender reveals that rape is in fact serving primary nonsexual needs. It is sexual expression of Power and Anger. Forcible sexual assault is motivated more by retaliatory and compensatory motives than by sexual ones.
Rape is called a pseudosexual act, complex and multi-determined, but addressing the issue of hostility (anger) and control (power) more than passion (sexuality). To understand pseudosexual act we can use an example which more prevalent in our society that is “Name calling or Verbal abuse“. In verbal abuse person is literally speaks about the sexual act to person or his/her female relatives but does abuser really mean that. No, certainly not, Person who abuses usually want to insult the other person by talking about forcing sex to her female relative but basically he /she want to express his/her anger. Rape and Verbal abuse are called pseudosexual act because expression of these acts are sexual but motive is expression of anger and power.
Usually, we don’t express anger to whom we are angry with, it is usually shifted to any other object or person. Anger is displaced to the person or object which is less or not harmful. Throwing your mobile on the wall is a nice example of displacement of your anger (towards yours girlfriend / family member) on your phone. In also in rape offenders anger and power is displaced to women.
To believe that rape as an expression of sexual desire is not only an inaccurate notion but also an insidious assumption, for it results in the shifting of the responsibility for the offense in a large part from the offender onto the victim. So punish to offender not the victim.