THE ROOTS OF the ‘RAPIST MIND’
Also of Gisèle Pelicot’s ’51‘ rapists – On ‚raping‘ science
‚Perpetrator‘ and ‚victim‘- Malicious blurring of concepts
During the highly publicized trial of Gisèle Pelicot’s rape case in 2024 (France), she was named TIME magazine’s Person of the Year. She was drugged dozens of times by her husband and „offered“ by him to at least 50 men who apparently abused her against her will. Some men claimed that they were deceived and that the woman was „playing the game. Even in such cases, perpetrators benefit from legal doubts about the concept of ‚against her will‘. In the process, rape victims are accused of „provoking“ it, paving the way for condoning sexual violence and undermining justice.
In stark contrast to this still widespread veiled prejudice that often blames the victims of rape, Ms. Pelicot’s extremely courageous decision to demand that this case be heard in full public view stands. In doing so, she sought to place the shame on the perpetrators rather than the victim. This exposure of a deep-rooted prejudice touches on an age-old dynamic that poisons sexual intercourse between men and women and legitimizes a rape culture (and by no means only in so-called war zones). In this essay, I will attempt to explore the roots of this male dominance and rape mentality. In addition, I will argue that „science“ also plays a role in perpetuating harmful misconceptions about the relationship between men and women that lead to structural inequality and sexual violence.[1]
TIME magazine’s selection of „Person of the Year“ is not based on right or wrong, good or evil, but on the degree of influence that person has (had) on public life. This becomes immediately clear, for example, when one juxtaposes four recent „winners“: Gisèle Pelicot, Taylor Swift, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. This choice says a lot about what a society considers important and, indirectly, about its cultural norms and values: „You can tell a society by its heroes.“ So is Gisèle Pelicot also a heroine?[2] In any case, that was not what she was looking for. The media emphasize that she went from being a victim to a heroine, but I think it is more appropriate to say that she is BOTH a heroine AND a victim! Her strength lies in this duality: she did not seek hero status, but justice, and she wanted to shift the guilt and shame of rape from the victim to the perpetrator. Despite this great spiritual strength, her life was, in her own words, devastated. Devastated by 50 rapists, plus one. What a horror it must be to be raped „51“ times by your spouse, a person you trusted.
Interestingly, in this context, „persons of the year“ seem to have no gender or sex (anymore). Apparently, the designation of „hero“ in TIME is unrelated to gender or sex. But what about these 51 rapists? Are Pelicot’s rapists „persons“ or specifically men? And can they be considered „exclusively“ perpetrators? Or are they also „losers“ in some sense? Losers, because they can also be considered „victims“ of the distorted image of male-female relations cultivated within the patriarchal system. After all, isn’t the „rapist mentality“ a product of socio-cultural conditioning in many societies? Phew! I can already hear the protest, I will have to clarify, because this seems to be moving towards legal strategies that try to portray perpetrators as „victims“ in order to minimize their responsibility. This is not about that at all, this is about a critical analysis of the social structures that feed this mentality without condoning the individual responsibility of the perpetrators.
Sex – from coitus to penetration to rape?
I have years of experience teaching about the development of the human embryo. Often this simply revolves around the question, „Where do we come from? How does an embryo develop, how does a child „come into being“? I put the latter in quotes because the idea that children are „made“ and „owned“ reflects, in my view, a dehumanization of reproduction. Sexual reproduction has traditionally been framed in terms of power dynamics and ownership, defined by cultural expectations rather than biological realities. Similarly, all the horror and pain of sexual abuse in #metoo situations, for example, stems from a rapist mentality or „mindset“ that is hundreds of years old. This mindset is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of the roles of men and women in sexual reproduction (procreation). And modern science, which since the 17th century has been seen as a source of objective truth and progress, has not sufficiently disrupted this dynamic. On the contrary, it has often confirmed rather than challenged the image of male and female roles.
Interlude
In the epic movie Once Upon a Time in America, the moving main musical theme composed by Ennio Morricone is heard twice in its entirety during two completely different scenes. The first time is during a scene in which the main actor, a boy, secretly peers through a hole in the wall at his girlfriend while she is doing ballet exercises. The fact that she is aware of his peeping is indicated by the furtive glances she casts in his direction. A scene of innocent infatuation between a boy and a girl. Years later, the young man in question is now a feared gangster and meets his former girlfriend, now the wife of his friend, the gang leader. It ends in a gruesome rape in the backseat of a car. The act is filmed unflinchingly and in all its ruthless violence. It becomes too much even for the driver, who stops the car and forcibly throws the rapist out. And all the while, the movie’s romantic music theme plays again. What are the composer and director trying to say? Is this intentional? I think so. By raping her, he has lost his love, his beloved, forever. He ruins love, ruins himself. Morally, he loses what he wanted to conquer through violence. He is the loser, without doubt. The scene and the music work together to express the complex emotional and moral downfall of the rapist. The violence is not condoned, but is shown as a tragic act of self-destruction. This shows how sexual violence not only harms the victim, but also the perpetrator. Aren’t rapists and abusers also „losers“ in some way?
What are we destroying with our raping, when the relationships of what should be loving equality are torn apart by introducing the power factor into the relationship? The latter has proven to be the essence, for example, in the MeToo# affair. The compulsive and uncontrolled tendency to bring (functional) power over someone – after all, one is ‚the boss‘, the mentor, the supervisor, the practitioner, etc. – as dominance into the personal relationship one has with that particular person. Then transgressive behavior „emerges,“ and through a cocktail of dominance thinking, toxic masculinity becomes rape, in the physical sense, but much more often in the psychological sense.
The polarization (and sometimes ‚war‘) between male and female, between feminine and masculine, actually stems from a misunderstanding of sexual biology that I would like to expose here. Sexual relationships and concepts of sex and gender are still often linked to the thought roles of male and female in sexual reproduction. We tend to confuse levels and categories like sex, gender, sex, gender, which also happens in the „LGBTQ+ debate“. That masculine and feminine have traditionally been associated with procreation is almost inescapable: biological bi-sexuality serves procreation. In human society, however, masculine and feminine have also become psychological and social, and therefore spiritual and ethical, „categories. What happens when you mistakenly cling to these supposedly „higher“ categories and level the thought and value systems associated with „lower“ biological sexuality? Do males ‚fertilize‘ females? Is the Kama Sutra about procreation? Is sexuality between men and women in a modern society still primarily about procreation and „making“ children?
The pre-scientific ideas and images that have been debated for centuries about man and woman, male and female, have their origin in primary reality, the reality in which we live and experience. In this context, of course, men and women are not at all equal, either biologically or psychologically. They are, of course – and this is how we ascend to the „higher“ levels – equal(worthy) in a psychological, social and philosophical sense. It is on this latter truth that the powerful concept or mindset of Polarity is based: polarities are not opposites, but two complementary and mutually beneficial magnitudes. They are not in competition with each other, but complement each other, forming a unity without power differentials or associations with good and evil.
The pre-scientific ideas and images that have been debated for centuries about man and woman, male and female, have their origin in primary reality, the reality in which we live and experience. In this context, of course, men and women are not at all equal, either biologically or psychologically. They are, of course – and this is how we ascend to the „higher“ levels – equal(worthy) in a psychological, social and philosophical sense. That the masculine and feminine are (seem to be) so different and opposite does not necessarily mean that they would not be equal or equal to each other. It is on this latter truth that the powerful concept or mindset of polarity is based: polarities are not opposites, but two complementary and mutually beneficial magnitudes. They are not in competition, but complement each other, forming a unity without power differentials or associations with good and evil.
But has the contribution of „science“ to the perception of sexuality always been correct? Could it have made a different contribution here? Has it failed to correct the „baker’s talk“ and thereby legitimized incorrect views of sexuality?
„Plowing the woman and planting your seed“?
At the beginning of the 17th century, sperm cells were discovered in the male semen („seed“). Under the primitive microscopes of Van Leeuwenhoek and Swammerdam, the plurality of the male „seed“ intruded irresistibly: millions of „animalcula“ (that’s what they were called: little souls) turned out to be swimming around in the man’s ejaculate. The inescapable conclusion at the time was that each so-called sperm cell represented a possible seed. Seed, sperm? Does a man produce „semen“? That’s what was thought for centuries.
There was, so to speak, no other substrate for the germ of a new human being than this moist „ejaculate“. Even in ancient cultures it must have been „interpreted“ in this way: in order to conceive a child, it was apparently necessary to introduce this substance into a woman’s body. Without it, there was no way. The child did not come from the woman (even though she carried and gave birth to it), but from the man! The „seed of man“ has been spoken of for thousands of years in ancient stories and writings (the Bible, mythologies, creation stories). The germ of new life was found in the seed (plant) or egg (animal). For a seed to grow, it must be sown in the earth. Almost logically, the image arose that in the case of man, HE conceived a child in her, HE apparently fertilized her with His „seed,“ HE was the bearer of the seed (germ) that was to be planted in the woman. And so, in the 17th century, spermatozoa were thought of as „seed“ cells. Even today the term germ cells is used.
This idea proved to be wrong a century later when the human egg was discovered around 1850 by De Graaf, Von Bär and others. At that time, the egg was known as the germ principle in animals. Years later, when „egg cells“ (germs) were also found in the female human body, this led to the inevitable conclusion that human reproduction required a fusion of sperm (cell) and egg (cell). As in plants and animals, a human germ cell develops into a fruit through the fusion of the two sex cells. Thus, the sperm cell, the seed, was actually dethroned. What actually transpired? That the germ of a new human being is thus the zygote. [3] The analogy to the seed of a plant, which must fall into a mature soil in order to grow, must be sought in the so-called implantation (or ’nesting‘).
So the woman is not „impregnated“ or „fertilized“ by the semen of her male partner (or rapist!), but by her …… child (embryo)! And that is when the embryo is implanted. At that time, we should have definitely said goodbye to the misinterpretation of the dominant role of men in reproduction. After all, it says: „to plow women and plant their seeds“ (see the last quote of this paper). Scientists should have corrected this image, but they did not: even in our modern concepts of conception, pregnancy, artificial insemination, and „making children,“ the outdated mental concept of male dominance in the so-called fertilization process still applies. For example, anyone who looks at the ICSI process under a microscope cannot deny that this procedure of artificial fertilization is done „against the will of the egg“. Thus, almost everyone still thinks that the male factor (man, sperm, sperm cell) is the active and dominant actor in the so-called fertilization. This is NOT true. Men do not impregnate women, sperm do not enter the egg as an actor and do not fertilize it as a „passive“ object. It is a coming together that results in a fusion of what is actually incompatible (because of polarity, after all). The embryo, the child itself, is the initiator of the process.
The (sexist) icon of men as procreators is outdated and scientifically incorrect. It is wrong and also perpetuates a fatal misunderstanding of the sexual and social relationship between men and women. The supposed biological dominance of the male, which has become a way of thinking about sexual, social and gender relations between men and women, is based on a Darwinian and (again) incorrect interpretation of sexual reproduction! People can do more than that, they should know better about sex and love. I always say something like, „Man is a being that can transcend procreation“. Human beings are also not essentially about reproduction or procreation. Reproduction means „repetition of what has gone before,“ and that is what becomes impossible at the level of individuality, and therefore at the level of human biography. The human species, yes, it reproduces, but individual human beings? A human being cannot reproduce himself in his descendants, a human being is not reproducible.
Back to a coming together?
Just as slavery and racism are modern issues that societies should acknowledge as mistakes made in an ignorant and unscrupulous past, scientists should take responsibility here and at least admit to creating false images of men and women, starting with sexuality and reproduction.
For example, let’s also stop talking about sex (intercourse) in terms of penetration, as is so common these days. These are not synonyms. The essence of sex and sexuality is coming together, is coitus, is love, and transcends sexuality and reproduction. I realize that penetration (though of course not „against one’s will“) can be sexually pleasurable (gay, straight or bi) but enjoyed in the context of a coming together. That is what the Kama Sutra is about. Let’s fix that and get rid of the „penetration metaphor. This applies to both sexes (or three, if you prefer)! Eggs are not penetrated by sperm, it is about communion and exchange, about inviting and being accepted, about union. The transformation of penetration. If you want to know how the rapist mentality („raping mind“) came to be, and how it still very often lives on in people’s minds and hearts, try to understand the last quote of this article. Let us unlearn the rapist mentality, detoxify it, and not make male dominance a criterion for becoming Hero of the Year. If you are ever confronted with someone who has been raped (she, he or „it“ or whoever or whatever), don’t „blame“ that person as a victim, but encourage that person to report it, following Gisèle Pelicot’s shining example.
The Roots of Misogyny?
I end with a quote from Stephen Harrod Buhner (from „The Secret Teachings of Plants: The Intelligence of the Heart in the Direct Perception of Nature“).
Semen“ is Latin for a dormant, fertilized ‚plant egg‘, a seed. The ejaculate of a man is chemically more like the pollen of a plant. You see, it is really more accurate to call it ‚mammalian pollen.‘ Calling it seed (semen) confirms a folly deeply embedded in our culture, namely, that „men plow women and plant their seed,“ when in fact what they are doing is pollinating flowers. Doesn’t this change everything between us?
Yes, this changes everything between us. Between man and woman, between father and mother, between female and male, between each other, between all of us.
Jaap van der Wal MD PhD, anatomist-embryologist and phenomenologist-philosopher
Maastricht, December 31, 2024
https://medium.com/@jaapvanderwal/the-roots-of-the-rapist-mind-74f048d9afed
[1] Here I will limit myself to sexuality between men and women. Rape, sexual abuse is almost endemic to all forms of „sexual“ intercourse in many societies. The poisonous principle of exercising sexual power over another human being „against their will“ also manifests itself in the abuse of children, homosexuals, and all possible modern variations of gender and sex. Being raped against one’s will, being transgressively overpowered in one’s bodily integrity, is globally a transcultural, transnational, and trans-religious phenomenon.
[2] As an exception to the social trend of not distinguishing between men and women and using neutral terms like „person,“ I make an exception here from the bottom of my heart. For surely it is also the context of her gender that gives her heroism a special accent. The violence done to her is deeply intertwined with patriarchal structures.
[3] Here it is left open whether a zygote should be considered a cell or a unicellular (human) organism.
