M&M, we were talking about rape as a phenomenon, I thought, not about "habitual rapists."
After all, in wartime many soldiers indulge in rape (although they are no longer supposed to). That does not mean that once they shed their uniforms they go on to become career rapists. The question, I think, is -- what kind of situations inspire men to rape?
Rape is a favorite device of ethnic cleansers, who use it to show their contempt for the group to which the women belong, especially in societies where a raped woman is regarded as "damaged goods." In such cases, I would submit, the "power" component in the act of rape outweighs the purely sexual component. In Rwanda, for example, it has been estimated that more than half of Tutsi women were raped at some point; many were subsequently killed, or sexually mutilated. (And some were even raped right after being killed.) Read the UNCHR's report on this, if you want your hair to stand on end. And then there's been Bosnia, East Timor, Burma, Somalia...etc., etc.
As for wartime rapists, I suspect that some heterosexuals occasionally use homosexual rape as a way of humiliating their enemies. When, for example, I hear of Russians & Chechens exchanging taunts like -- "We'll f-- you good when we get our hands on you!" -- I take them seriously.
Joan
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