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There are a plethora of theories about rape and sexual coercion, given the central locus of the topic within gendered relations it should not be surprising to find it is highly controversial as well. However, it is only one of a number of topics within forensic psychology and is in that sense not special or unique. That does not detract from the terrible psychological and physical impact of the assault on the victim, the subsequent impact on their personal horizons in life or the side effects on their partners, friends and families. One paper that has examined rape and sexual coercion is Baumeister et al., (2002), it is not recent and it is not definitive, but that should never stop one considering it as a source of ideas. Baumeister at al.’s (2002) is just that a rich source of ideas. The review nature of the paper tends to be more balanced than articles developing theories seeking confirmation of their position and exclusion of others. Science is never neutral and in an area such as this it is rarely pure in thought and deed. Baumeister et al., (2002) list the following as features supporting or associated with coercive access to sex by narcissistic individuals: Self-serving cognitive distortions An excessive concern with being admired An inflated sense of entitlement Selectively low empathy Exploitative approach to heterosexual relations Each of these themes or topics can be expanded easily through other parties’ work. This is developed below but one should always be mindful of the difficulty of establishing a causal nexus, forensic issues often have an impasse associated with ethical issues, which prohibit entering territory where the darker side of human nature is revealed. Psychology and its sister subjects are forced to examine the issues from the side lines looking into and over cruel experiments of nature and chance. This lack of objective control makes any estimates of “causal” impact fraught with uncertainty. It is always too easy to fall into the positive interpretive bias whereby those characteristics associated with offenders are seen as causal, without effective consideration of the counter-hypothesis, which would look for the same characteristics in non-offenders, to establish the causal link, implied by positive proof. Hall and Fischer (2001) found that for 3 of 4 models of sexual masculinity and rape attitudes there was a strong correlation with a sense of general and sexual entitlement, even in the 4th model there was some supporting evidence. The fact that low empathy is identified as a possible contributory factor for rape is not surprising as low empathy is a core feature of psychopathic personality disorder and to a lesser extent a contributory feature in ASPD, which has a lower standard for anti-social and criminal behaviour. The absence of empathy means that the perpetrator will not only feel entitled to sexual contact but have little care or regard for the impact that this has on the victim. Some feminists might like to believe that this view applies to all men, based on the earlier studies of Susan Brownmiller in the classic textbook Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, which suggests that very distorted views about women, rape and coercive sex are widely held amongst males in USA colleges, and by implication all males universally. A significant proportion of men had expressed the view that they would rape someone if they felt they could get away with it without consequence. Dietz, Littman and Bentley (1984) were one of the early papers to present evidence that the observer empathy with regard to rape had a significant influence on attitudes. Participants pre-trial attitudes to rape was measured with a Rape Empathy Scale (RES). They found clear sex differences in attitudes pre-trial and they established that empathy scores appeared to moderate the attitudes towards the offence, offender and victim. Surprisingly people responded less favourably to unattractive women who tried to fight off their attacker, which curiously indicates they may have perceived the individual as “lucky” to have an opportunity for intimate contact, which is deeply disturbing. Low empathy and less concern was expressed about the victim by men and more concern and greater empathy expressed by women. There is no doubt that there are sex differences in this area of human conduct but they seem to be sandwiched within this ability or inability to experience empathy. Dietz et al., (1984) felt that societal attitudes and stereotyping played a significant role in fostering inappropriate attitudes. Foubert and Newberry (2006) have shown that attitudes can be changed to increase the empathy of the perpetrator, and to modify the views held in response to sexual conduct. Although the outcomes were self-report measures of change it was found that participants reported more empathy toward rape survivors and reductions in rape myth acceptance, likelihood of raping, and likelihood of committing sexual assault. Obviously for psychopathic individuals this might reflect a strategic endorsement of values likely to improve social desirability scores, so it is not genuine. Smith and Frieze (2003) examined rape victim empathy and perpetrator empathy, using newly developed scales and found that as in Dietz et al., (1984) women had greater victim empathy than men, which is curious after the raft of equalities measures introduced and enacted in that era from 1970 through to 2000. Empathy appeared to co-vary negatively with estimates of victim responsibility, as empathy rose the amount of blame attached to the victim decreased. Victim responsibility increased with perpetrator empathy. Thus, judges both male and female appeared to respond to their gendered roles with sex appropriate responses that effectively defended the victim or the perpetrator. One can imagine that men with lower empathy scores might in certain situations of disinhibition, as a consequence of alcohol or personality type, attempt coercive sexual contact. This does not remove the element of personal responsibility but it should make society cognisant of the source of the risks in societal attitudes (endorsed through the media), the availability of alcohol and drugs, and the need for special education of men, to try and deter them from inappropriate action and to foster empathic behaviour wherever possible. Smith and Frieze (2003) found like may others that women rated higher on victim empathy than men, with empathy co-varying negatively with responsibility. Blame was essentially inversely proportional to empathy. Thus, very few studies have examined the possibility of no empathy and the impact it would have on victimisation. Ward, Hudson, Johnston and Marshall (1997) developed an integrated review of cognitive distortions by offenders and their work has continued to advance this theme, which might be partly related to the fact that it is used as a basis for therapeutic work. Cognitive distortions should be partly amenable interventions that result in change. Realistically one can imagine that the offender has put in a lot of cognitive effort and time to build these views and mechanisms, making them quite resistant to change. There is no doubt that offender seek to justify their inappropriate behaviours in many cases which suggests that some sex offenders are emotionally disturbed by what they do, as those dependent on drugs are, but they are equally challenged by the need to change their problematic behaviour. Ward et al., (1997) suggested that research in the sexual offending domain, specifically cognitive products, information processing, cognitive change, and the impact of affective and motivational factors on cognitive processes, were the basis for their model. This combination of thoughts, feelings and action or cognition, emotion and behaviour is the core of most analytic models in clinical psychology from which it is derived. Thus, there is ample evidence that something is awry in terms of social information processing amongst individuals that commit sexual offences. Ward et al, (1995) felt that there were affective deficits amongst the sex offending community. They even went as afar as suggesting that Baumeister's construct of cognitive deconstruction, the process by which people attempt to reduce the negative implications of self-awareness, provides both a middle-level theoretical explanatory framework that integrates the psychological issues in sex offending.. Although they tentatively suggested that the distortion might be a pre-cursor to offending there are few studies prospectively examining individuals who will later become a sex offender. Behind many of the studies on empathy for rape victims, blame and responsibility, is the idea that people make attributions related to causality. Thus, in considering someone being raped it is known that if the women had been or was in a bar it is often assumed that she was eseentially “fair game” and she knew what she was there for. This completely unacceptable view persists even now, because people should accept that people always have a choice, even where intimacy has commenced or existed in the past. There should be zero tolerance of inappropriate behaviour. In considering attributions made about rape one can imagine they are sometimes protective. Women might imagine that it is a particular type of woman that gets rape. This is essentially a selfserving and re-assuring view that suggests that they will not be raped because they are not part of that group of women, as if such a group exists. The attitudes towards sex workers who are raped is an extension of that view. Attributions can equally apportion blame and this can be expressed in views about the type of clothing worn, places frequented and even people with whom the individual associates. This view was expressed in a murder case with a sexual element where the individual was carrying a blow-up phallic symbol. No matter what the views on carrying these items in public view this does not mitigate an assault on the individual. As has been noted above offenders often produce self-serving justifications and biased views to exonerate themselves from any blame, this is a part of the social cognition of both offenders and non-offenders. It is simply that in offenders it is used to justify wholly inappropriate and anti-social acts. References Baumeister, Roy F.; Catanese, Kathleen R.; Wallace, Harry M. (2002). Conquest by force: A narcissistic reactance theory of rape and sexual coercion. Review of General Psychology, 6(1): 92135. Dietz, S.R., Littman, M., & Bentley, B.J. (1984). Attribution of responsibility for rape: The influence of observer empathy, victim resistance, and victim attractiveness. Sex Roles, 10 (3-4): 261-280. Foubert, J.D., & Newberry, J.T. (2006). Effects of two versions of an empathy-based rape prevention program on fraternity men’s rape survivor empathy, rape myth acceptance, likelihood of raping, and likelihood of committing sexual assault. Journal of College Student Development.47 (2006): 133-148. Hall and Fischer (2001). Does entitlement mediate the link between masculinity and rape-related variables? Journal of Counseling Psychology, 48(1), 39-50. Smith, C.A., and Frieze, I.H. (2003). Examining Rape Empathy From the Perspective of the Victim and the Assailant. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 33(3): 476–498, Ward, T., Hudson, S.M., Johnston, L., and Marshall, W.L. (1997). Cognitive distortions in sex offenders: An integrative review. Clinical Psychology Review, 17(5): 479–507. Ward, T., Hudson, S.M., & Marshall, W.L. (1995). Cognitive distortions and affective deficits in sex offenders: A cognitive deconstructionist interpretation. Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment 7(1): 67-83.