Understanding Sexual Violence, by Diana Scully

his book, as well as "The Evil That Men Do" by Michaud and Hazelwood, is a travel into a territory that is as fascinating as it is frightening. It gives a picture of dangerous criminals, rapists and killers - a picture that may be hard for many people to comprehend, or even begin to contemplate.

The book: "Understanding Sexual Violence: A study of convicted Rapists" by Diana Scully results from interviewing 114 convicted, American rapists. As the Author herself is the first to admit, this is not a balanced and representative selection of this "breed" of criminals. This is due to the fact that most rapists probably never are caught - and because most of those that are convicted are the ones that typically have used physical violence to commit what often times is termed stranger-to-stranger rapes. This is statistically the type of rape that occurres far more seldom than the likes of date rapes, acquaintance rapes, partner rapes etc.

In spite of this understandable and logical lack of "balance", the book will give lots and lots of valuable information and insights to anyone working in the fields of safety and self-defense for women, sexual violence and male aggression towards women. The book also paints a gruesome picture of life behind the prison walls in medium and maximum security facilities in USA, seen through the eyes of these criminals.

It is indeed a brave and direct book that the author presents us with. She goes head on with the traditional view that rape is not about sex. Here she shows that rape IS sex for many of these fellons - or rather that the men claim that sex is an objective. This view is now being discussed by many researchers - that there may be an element of sex involved for some, if not many of the rapists. It is too early to draw any conclusions of course, also because it is so easy to blame the rape on sex drive rather than anger, stress, need to control etc. If we begin to contemplate the thought that rape also has a larger element of sexual desire - then ultimately this may lead to changing some of the advices given to women who wish to protect themselves from rape, sexual attacks and sexual battering.

Scully continue to argue against other widely held views on rape and rapists, when she claims that there may not be any direct link between adult rapes and mistreatments and alkohol and drug abuse as a child. She holds this view simply because many of the people interviewed here did not fit into any such background and upbringing.

Another interesting point of view is that she shows that the men she interviewed here claimed to pick their victims quite randomly. The author states that these victims simply were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Personally I don't know if I believe this wholeheartedly. I will rather argue that many are unaware of the process involved in choosing a target, and that other criminals have stated their ways of selecting a target quite clearly. Whatever you end up believing, this is great food for thought! And needless to say this is a book that I can recommend you read to make up your own mind - it's a great book by any standard!

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