Europe & Crime
February 9, 2026
The psychology of a rapist
No one can deny that being raped is one of the most distressing, horrendous and demeaning experiences anyone could have. It almost always leaves the victim with feelings of self-loathing, self-blame and rage, and can cause post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
But have you ever wondered about rapists, like Dominique Pelicot who in December 2024 received a 20-year jail sentence for mass rape?
Why do men rape? This is a complicated question with multiple answers, as several factors play roles in producing a rapist.
A sexual assaulter can be any kind of person. This statement isn't meant to make everyone scared of everyone else; rather, it just means that there isn't one specific type who commits such kinds of crimes.
That is what Dr. Samuel D. Smithyman, a US clinical psychologist, learned when he anonymously interviewed 50 men back in the 1970s who had confessed to having raped someone. These men had diverse backgrounds, social statuses and, of course, different personalities and mentalities. What surprised him was how unconcerned they sounded when talking about such a criminal offense.
Motives behind rape vary and are difficult to quantify. However, studies show that rapists have some common characteristics:
- a lack of empathy
- narcissism
- feelings of hostility towards women
Toxic masculinity
Hamby, who is also founding editor of the American Psychological Association's journal Psychology of Violence, explained how toxic masculinity promotes rape culture. "A lot of offenders of rape and other sexual assaults are young men," she said. "The only way to have social status among male peers in many cases is to be highly sexually experienced, and not being sexually active is often stigmatized."
She believes that these kinds of peer pressure set men up to become sex offenders because "many are just in absolute panic they're going to be discovered as not sexually experienced by their peers."
In other words, there are elements at work in some cultures, and often even in media, that suggest to these men that they should assert dominance over women as a form of fake masculinity and that stigmatize those who don't have a lot of sexual encounters.
Types of rapist
There are several types of rapists. There is the opportunistic rapist, who seizes any chance for sexual gratification, such as the loss of self-control on the part of their victim under the influence of alcohol.
Another type is sadistic rapist, whose motivation is to humiliate and degrade victims.
The vindictive rapist has anger and aggression focused directly on women. Such a rapist believes he is permitted to sexually attack women because he feels he has been hurt, rejected or wronged by women in the past.
Rapists often deny having raped their victims and frequently try to justify their actions. Men who admit rape often try to find excuses for what they have done.
Sexual assault is an inexcusable act of violence and a criminal offense. Unfortunately, a lot of the victims remain silent to avoid stigmatization and being blamed by society, while their rapists are free to look for another victim.
Rape Mindset — Psychology Behind Sexual Violence
Everyone agrees that reducing the incidence of rape is a worthy goal, but the consensus about rape generally stops there. Understanding why people rape is a scientific puzzle and to make things harder, it is further roiled by strong ideological currents which view rape not only as an ugly crime but as a symptom of an unhealthy society. Other views assert that rape is motivated not by lust but by the urge to control and dominate. After all, not everyone rapes and we need to know why.
We have to understand that a study of such kind is rare and not sufficiently conducted because of numerous reasons — rapists do not self-report to psychiatric clinics, the ones identified by law fear to talk or they just deny the inappropriateness of their actions, victim studies are carried out by self-report which is an interplay of memory and “what ought to be” instead of “what is”. This article tries to summarise the current understanding from — psychological, biological, cultural, situational, and evolutionary perspectives.
In no way does this article try to justify any crime, rather, it attempts to understand the mindset.
What is rape?
The legal definition, rape is non-consensual penetration, no matter how slight, carried out by force, threat of force, or when the victim is unable to consent due to factors like intoxication, unconsciousness, or legal incapacity.
We might fall into the trap of thinking that the reason for rape is unmet sexual desires, on the contrary, a lot of evidence exists on the fact that it is rather a sexual expression of power and anger. So if power and dominance are the goals, why not just kill?
Would you rather be stuck in the woods with a man or a bear?
This question went viral across social media platforms where different people chose a bear. And this is because sexuality is central to our identity. We value our sexual integrity and autonomy. ‘Sexual autonomy,’ is simply the right to choose which sexual acts we engage in and with whom. Sexual integrity follows from this — we have sexual integrity when we have made our sexual decisions autonomously. By denying victims sexual autonomy, rapists turn them into mere means for their gratification. In interviews, rapists have often said that “it was the worst thing I could do to her”.
Interestingly, in the eyes of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), if rape is followed by murder, it is counted as murder for all data recording purposes because murder is the “principal offense”, which means that murder has higher punishment as per the Indian Justice Code.
Let’s look at some facts
According to a report by the WHO, about 1/3rd of women have experienced physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. The UNODC reports that globally, rape rates vary significantly, with South Africa, Sweden, and the US among the countries with the highest reported cases.
1. Latest NCRB report has about 32,000 cases of rape in 2022 (The report for 2023 is not out yet)
2. Each year, about 1/3rd of unsolved rape cases from the previous year are carried over
3. About 2 Lakh rape cases are pending trial as of the end of 2022
The NRCB publication caters to the ‘Principal Offence Rule’ for the classification of crime, thus the actual count of each crime head may be underreported. This is because when many offenses are registered in a single FIR case, only the most heinous crime (maximum punishment) is considered as the counting unit.
Natural selection
Natural selection is a process by which traits that enhance survival and reproduction become more common in a population over generations. In some animal species, forced mating, often referred to as “coercive mating,” is observed, this behaviour can be linked to reproductive strategies where males attempt to ensure the continuation of their genes by coercion when they are otherwise unlikely to secure a mate either via being a warrior, or physically attractive.
The theory is based on differential parental investment where females are choosy about mating because they spend more resources on childbearing. In short, a male can have many children, with little inconvenience while a female can have only a few, and with great effort. For a male then, coercive mating is better than leaving no offspring at all. We see very low coercive mating in species where male parental investment is high.
Example 1: Male scorpion flies have a notal organ that is designed exclusively to facilitate sexual access to a female via rape. Males who can produce food for females are allowed to mate. Males that are not able to do so, resort to the conditional rape strategy and use the notal organ.
Example 2: In orangutans, the large-sized males weigh significantly more, and are typically able to find females willing to mate with them. The small-sized males are unable to find females willing to mate. A subset of them are likely to chase down and rape females, this accounts for almost half of total mating. Orangutans are unique among apes in that they live solitary lives, females therefore do not have mates or kin that may deter or prevent rape.
Evolutionary Perspective (EP)
With its roots in the Natural Selection Theory, given by Thornhill and Palmer in 2000, EP states that rape is either directly or indirectly associated with inherited traits that in the distant past increased our ancestors’ reproductive success leading to evolved psychological mechanisms. These mechanisms involve evaluating potential victim vulnerability, motivations for men without resources to rape, differential evaluations of the sexual attractiveness of victims, differential sperm counts of ejaculates during interactions, and differential arousal caused by depictions of rape and consensual copulations.
Two strategies for how this works out are — adaptive strategy and by-product strategy.
Adaptive strategy views rape as one of the three strategies that males have developed to find mates and get sexual access and opportunity to pass on genes (being a warrior, physical attractiveness, coercion).
The by-product strategy states that rape is a by-product of male sexual desire and the need to have a higher number of novel sexual partners
Criticism of Evolutionary Perspective
First, if rape is a reproductive strategy, it’s an ineffective one. It is absurd to assume that rape may be a reproductive strategy in humans because it is in flies or ducks.
Second, the common argument is that a sizeable number of rape victims are women of non-fertile age (~4%) or that rapes are also committed against males. Many rapists are not able to achieve erection or ejaculate during rape thus indicating against EP. Also, when rapists kill their victims, it defeats the whole purpose of raping in an evolutionary sense.
Third, human males do not have morphological features analogous to the notal clamp of male scorpion flies. Moreover, if it was a reproductive strategy, large bulky male body size should have been chosen via evolution which would assist forced copulation, but that’s not what we see. Dimorphism has significantly reduced in humans.
Fourth, conceptualizing a specific act of rape more in a sexual versus a violent manner causes persons to blame the victim by assigning the responsibility for the sexual arousal of the rapist. Rape is a crime of acute violence, not sex; it should be treated as such.
EP perspective might feel like trying to justify the act of rape by providing a biological and genetic scientific explanation, this is a classic natural fallacy and something that is not the objective of any scientific study.
The Standard Social Science Model (SSSM)
This model suggests that the mind is an empty slate waiting for the culture to determine its adult mental organization thus emphasizing the effect of the environment. In short, it says that everything is learned. Changing the content or meaning of such information may result in very different beliefs, desires, goals, and behaviours.
Drawing from this, one could argue that rape is a by-product of adaptations such as a willingness to use aggression to achieve short-term goals which reflect in an antisocial life history of a rapist, extensive sexual histories in terms of first intercourse, and the number of casual sexual partners. In other cases, disadvantaged men who find it very difficult to meet the demands of life combined with their inability to cope and also rely on sex as a way of overcoming distress — have a high likelihood of reoffending.
This can also be a result of the cycle of abuse indicating that it can distort a person’s understanding of relationships, boundaries, and appropriate behaviour, which may lead to the perpetration of similar acts of violence. Childhood abuse often results in deep psychological trauma, leading to issues such as low self-esteem, anger, and difficulties in managing emotions.
Cognitive Distortions
These are inaccurate or biased ways of thinking which can lead individuals to justify harmful behaviours. Common cognitive distortions among rapists are — minimizing the impact of their actions or blaming the victim, thinking that the victim deserved this, or believing that he is permitted to sexually attack women because he feels he has been hurt, rejected, or wronged by women in the past.
Some rapists justify their actions by dehumanizing their victims, seeing them as mere objects or means to an end. This cognitive distortion allows them to avoid and carry out the act without feeling empathy or guilt.
For example, the criminal Richard Ramirez, also known as the “Night Stalker,” was known to deny the seriousness of his crimes. Some rapists describe a sense of emotional detachment during the act, where they distance themselves from the reality of their actions. This dissociation can serve as a coping mechanism to avoid confronting the moral and emotional consequences of their behaviour.
Cultural Conditioning
It refers to the shared beliefs, norms, and practices within a society that shape individual behaviour and attitudes. These factors play a significant role in shaping attitudes toward sexual violence. In many studies, young men resort to rape as that is the only way to have social status among male peers as not being sexually active is often stigmatized.
Our society’s obsession with the appearance of women’s bodies sustains rape culture by promoting objectification. Girls learn from a young age that what matters most about them is the way they look, above all else. The problem with objectification is that objects don’t have feelings, attitudes, or intelligence — objects are there for us to use. Once a woman is seen as an object (and in particular, a sexual object), it is much easier to commit sexual violence against her.
For instance, a rapist can believe that if a woman says no, she really means yes, and she is just playing “hard to get.” Yet another repeat offender said: “I felt as if I had gotten something that I was entitled to, and I felt I was repaying her for sexually arousing me
Is rape a sexual desire or an act of violence?
It is necessary to first establish that rape is not a behavioural or mental disorder, but a criminal offense. Although some rapists may have a psychological disorder, there is no such disorder that compels people to rape.
a result of Darwinian selection and are of the opinion that it evolved to increase the reproductive success of men. They point out that most victims are women of childbearing age, saying this supports their hypothesis that rape derives from a desire to reproduce.
However, their book, "A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion," was sharply criticized in the science journal Nature. It said that the pieces of evidence cited by the authors were misleading, biased or "equally support alternative explanations."
In fact, most social scientists, psychologists and feminist activists are of the opinion that rape nearly exclusively has to do with issues of power and violence. They say that rape is not about lust but motivated by the urge to control and dominate, and that it could also be driven by hatred and hostility towards women.
Hostility toward women
Rapists often see women as sex objects who are there to fulfil men's sexual needs. They tend to hold false beliefs, often described as rape myths. For instance, a rapist can believe that if a woman says no, she really means yes, and that she is just playing around or challenging him.
Antonia Abbey, a social psychologist at Wayne State University in the US city of Detroit, wrote that one repeat assaulter believed the woman “was just being hard to get." Another believed that "most women say 'no' at first most times. A man has to persist to determine if she really means it."
Abbey quoted yet another repeat offender as saying: "I felt as if I had gotten something that I was entitled to, and I felt I was repaying her for sexually arousing me." This man described both of his rape experiences as "powerful," "titillating," and "very exciting."
Sherry Hamby told DW that in some cultures, patriarchy and dominance are expressed through a kind of "dehumanization" in which women are seen as inferior beings to men. This makes it much easier for women to become the targets of aggression.
According to Hamby, for men in such cultures, "part of their cultural training is for them to lose touch with their emotions." They do not know how to deal with their own feelings and even worse, they are not aware of the feelings of others or simply do not care.
The link between narcissism and rape seems to be especially strong when repeat offenders are concerned. One of the key characteristics shared by rapists and narcissists is a tendency to dehumanize others.
The victim
More than 96% of the reported rape cases have female victims. In India, rape is defined as something a man does to a woman highlighting the gendered nature of the crime. Even though anyone can be raped, rape is a gendered crime in the sense that women are more likely to get raped and thus they live in the fear of being raped which affects their lives drastically. And when they experience it, it feels like a “threat fulfilled” followed by blaming oneself erroneously for not pre-empting it, which is unfair.
Rape against men was earlier accounted for in section 377 of IPC (Indian Penal Code, unnatural offenses) which was omitted in the new Justice Code called BNS (Bhartiya Nyaya Samhit) which came into effect in July 2024, thus leaving no grounds for the men to file a rape case, making them vulnerable to male-to-male, female-to-male rapes. In the UK, male rape only became recognized as a crime in 1994; before then, rape could only be committed by a male against a female.
The definition of rape is still penile-centric with two arguments:
First, for the act to occur the man must have an erection which means he was aroused and thus consenting — a flawed induction.
Second, there is something worse about “penetrating” someone than forcing someone “to penetrate”. Of course, a problem with this view of rape is that men are raped too.
What is wrong with rape is that it indefensibly sets back a person’s sexual integrity whether it is a man, woman, or non-binary.
The offender
Globally, most of the rapists are male. Though less common, women can and do commit rape. In the US, female perpetrators are responsible for 2–5% of reported rape cases, in India, fewer than 1%. Making the perpetrator of rape gender-neutral could be analysed as a denial of the gendered nature of rape offenders and could thus belittle the harm caused to women directly and indirectly by rape.
In fact, in the Indian Justice Code, BNS, the sections about sexual offenses are the only ones where “a man” is used for the offender instead of “whoever”.
Most rapists do not specialize in rape which means that rape is typically committed after an escalating history of nonsexual crimes, a history of juvenile delinquency, and nonsexual arrests.
Other demographics
Rape offenders vary widely in age, but a majority of them are young adults. Ethnicity can influence the likelihood of offending, reporting, and prosecution of rape, but data often reflects the broader demographics of the country, thus no conclusive argument except every socio-economic stratum has incidences of rape.
Relationship between victim and offender
As per the NRCB 2022 report, in 96.6% of offenses of sexual violence, the offenders were known to the victim as a Family member, Friends (Friends/Online friends/Live-in partners/pretext of marriage/ separated husband), Acquaintances (Family Friends/Neighbours/ Employer or Other Known Persons)
Types of rape by relation of victim and offender
Partner Rape: It is one of the most common types of rape and is severely underreported. The offender is an intimate partner who commits sexual violence usually in response to suspicion or evidence of adultery. The BNS does not consider sexual acts by a man with his wife if she is above eighteen as unlawful, decriminalizing marital rape.
Date Rape: Rape done when there has been some type of dating, romantic, or potentially sexual relationship between the perpetrator and victim where sexual activity would have been generally seen as appropriate, if consensual. The term “date rape” was first used in a book in 1975 by American feminist journalist, author and activist Susan Brownmiller. It is one of the most common types of rape and also where victim blaming is highly likely.
Authority Rape: When a person in authority or a position of trust conducts the rape which includes war rapes, jail rapes, police rapes, officer rapes, school rapes, slave rapes, etc. to assert control and dominance over the victim with the likelihood of reporting and getting caught is minimal. Such offenders are generally non-repeaters.
Stranger Rape: It is a rare type of rape but fits the stereotypical image of a rape situation where the rapist is completely unknown to the victim. It is more likely to be well planned, involve violence, and highly likely to be reported immediately.
While a victim can be anybody, there are several reasons why rape is more traumatic for women — it disrupts a woman’s parental care, causes a woman’s partner to abandon her, and can cause a woman serious physical injury or death. Besides, circumvention of mate choice can severely jeopardize women’s reproductive success.
*Note that all the data is subject to reporting of cases to legal systems. Men fail to report rape when it jeopardizes their masculine self-identity whereas women fail to report rape when the rape does not fit the classic stereotypical rape situation.
Aggression and Dominance
Aggression is a range of behaviours that can result in harm to others, often driven by the desire to establish dominance or control. Data on the frequency and contexts of male aggression against females in primates suggest that males often use force, or the threat of force, to increase the chances that females will mate with them, and/or to decrease the chances that they will mate with other males.
Infanticide is also seen in animal species and is considered a form of sexual coercion because it involves the use of force and increases male sexual opportunities by making females available for copulation again.
Females resist male aggression through a variety of counterstrategies, including alliances with other females and with male protectors, and modification of the timing of reproduction by faking ovulation.
While studying animal behaviour can offer insights, it is important to recognize that human behaviour is influenced by complex social, moral, and ethical factors that are absent in animal species, they should be considered while examining human actions.
So is there anything unique in humans when it comes to reproduction and sex as compared to other species? In humans, we see psychopathological overlaps between sexual behaviour and violence which is pretty unique.
The Psychology of Rape in Humans
There has been research and four characteristics came as recurrent traits in rapists — aggressive, dangerous, power-hungry, and manipulative. But are matters so simple? Maybe it is the rapist’s early developmental history, during which he may have acquired distorted beliefs concerning sexuality and the nature of women, or maybe rape could be a conditional strategy adopted by all men in certain situations to secure sexual access to a female as a product of natural selection or maybe it was just a war going on. The explanations of behaviour usually have two kinds of factors — proximal (close to the incident) and distal (far in the past).
Criticism of SSSM Model
First, not all victims of trauma or child abuse become rapists, thus there have to be additional individual traits that when present predispose someone to become a rapist.
Second, this model states that rape is motivated by non-sexual needs which makes it unclear why alternate forms of violence were not used.
Third, the SSSM model does not explain why rape happens in other species. There is no evidence for training in animal species specifically for sexual violence.
Fourth, this model is hard to test as it is difficult to control the environment of an individual and isolate the effects of a specific cultural thought or situation.
Traits of Rapists
Power and Control
It refers to the ability to influence or direct the behaviour of others, often to maintain dominance in a relationship or situation. Our society values men most when they adhere to the harsh expectations of hyper-masculinity. Being hyper-masculine has a lot to do with power. Sex is the weapon; control is the motive.
Research shows that some individuals who commit rape may have experienced feelings of inadequacy or past trauma, which they try to overcome by exerting power over others. One of the prominent defects is the absence of any close, emotionally intimate relationship with other persons of any gender. When under stress, their judgment is poor but not their intellect. Then why commit such an irrational act? Out of desperation and emotional turmoil. Rape is like a last desperate attempt to deal with stress after which rape becomes a symbol of power and conquest — a feeling that men crave.
Antisocial Behaviour
Antisocial conduct is any criminal, delinquent, or violent behaviour in which the interests of one person are disregarded for the benefit of oneself. It is the opposite of the cooperative behaviours that form the basis of formal and informal social contracts.
Among adult offenders, characteristics include impulsivity, callousness, irresponsibility, lack of remorse, being conning and manipulative, failure to express feelings, early behaviour problems, violent adult behaviour, lying, parasitic lifestyle, sexual promiscuity, elementary school maladjustment, criminal history, separation from biological parents under age 16, and a history of running away from home. Some of these people persist in their behaviour throughout their life while most limit it to adolescence and early adulthood. Research shows that the inability of a man to transition from high “mating effort” to “high parenting effort” also contributes to a sex offense.
Mating effort refers to energy expended in acquiring and keeping sexual partners, whereas parental effort refers to energy expended in the care and protection of the mate and especially offspring.
Pornography Addiction
Media and pornography influence attitudes toward sexual violence. A study found that exposure to sexually violent media content can increase aggressive behaviour in individuals who already have hostile attitudes toward women.
Porn works by reducing inhibitions.
- Internal inhibitions are decreased by exposure to the kind of media we see
- Social inhibitions in the form of disapproval of peers are also reduced and people overestimate the acceptance of uncommon sexual practices.
- Appetite for stronger material is increased upon consumption of common forms of porn
Many notorious rapists and killers have confessed to the effect of porn. E.g. Ted Bundy confessed in interviews before his execution. He claimed that his addiction to violent pornography fuelled his fantasies and escalated his criminal actions. Ramirez, a serial killer and rapist, was exposed to violent imagery and pornography at a young age, which he later cited as a factor that desensitized him and contributed to his criminal behaviour. John Gacy, also known as the “Killer Clown,” was a convicted serial killer and rapist. He reportedly consumed large amounts of violent pornography, which he acknowledged as influencing his perverse desires and actions.
However, it’s important to note that while these criminals cited media influence, the majority of people who consume similar content do not engage in such acts, indicating that a combination of various factors leads to final behaviour.
Why do all men not rape?
Looking at societies where there are practically no rape incidents, we need to ask, “Why do men not rape? For example, rape has been reported to be rare or absent among such disparate societies as the pygmies of the Iturbi forest in Africa, the Ik of the African mountains, The Aboriginals of the northeastern US, and the Trobriand islanders of Oceania.
The conclusions were that there are two major factors responsible for the absence or low incidents of rape: “rape-free” societies are characterized by sexual equality and the notion that the sexes are complementary, and importance attached to the contribution women make to social continuity. It was observed that most of these societies were matrilineal (family tree based on female lineage).
