Given that rape, but for murder, is the most intrusive aggression of the innermost space of a person, not only is important a careful analysis of the rapist’s personality and background, aspect of these have been centred for years, the psychological, psychiatric and sociological crime studies, but a deep study of sexual aggressions victim too.
The discipline colled "Victimology", has striven hard and successfully on this subject. This term has rapidly spread over this last few years and means "a discipline whose aim is the study of a crime victim, his/her personality, byological, moral, social and cultural aspects, relationship with the criminal and the rôle undertake in the genesis of crime" (Gulotta, 1976).
Victimology studies the victim from three point of view:
Some studies investigated the difensive behaviors of victims of sexual violence, strategies of rape avoiders and victims behaviors signaling vulnerability.
Analysis of the various strategies outlined in the licterature, combined with clinical scholars’s experience with both convincted rapist and their victim, allows to define a typology of responses strategies as follows:
They proved that escape, in the aggression, is always the optimum response when it can be employed successfully.
It is obvius that, if the victim is alone in a lonely place with nowhere to run, or when is assaulted by multiple offenders, escape attempt may not be successful as a matter of fact, it might be very risk.
The probability of escape diminishes if the offender appers to be young and athletic. On the contrary, when the victim is an urban location and there are no weapons, if there are other people around, and if there are no encumbrances like, for exemple, limbs binding, the probability of successful escape will be increased. Hoverwer it is always important to be cautions since on a good percentage of offenders, the attempting to escape of victims, anly makes the brutality of the attack increase.
Strategy that consist in screaming or yelling, to attrack attention on oneself ("Leave me alone" or "Get away").
These attitudes are intented, at the outset of the assault, to convey the message that the victim has no intention to give way to her attacker.
Physically confrontative resistence ranges from moderate responses ( punching, struggling), to violent responses (attacking highly vulnerable areas of attacker like face, throat, groin, with letal intention).
There are responses imposed by critical situation factors, such as the assault’s place, the presence of a weapon, the possibility of being helped, the size and strenght of the offender and the degree of violence of the assault.
In many cases the victim can expect an increase in the violence of the attack, from her physically resistence.
These responses are intented to dissuade the attacker ("I’m a virgin" or "I have my period of cramps"), stir up empathy (engaging the offender in conversation and listening and attempting to respond in an understanding way), inject reality ("I’m frightened") or negotiate ("Let’s talk about this" or "Let’s go have a beer") to stall for time and devise the right strategy for an escape.
Even if talking with the offender can be a useful instrument to reduce the degree of violence of the offender, yet it may not be effective in stopping the assault completely. Unfortunately in the heat of a sexual attack, most rapists are not completely concerned about the victim’s needs and about her state of health (for exemple about her mestrual cramps).
It is important for the victim to avoide references as "I have HIV", or "I’m pregnant", as such statements my support the offender’s pathological fantasy that the victim is "bad" or promiscuous and so deserves to be raped.
The safest way to engage the offender through a dialogue is to appeal to his humanity by showing oneself extremely sincere and by focusing on the immediate situation ("I’m a total stranger. Why do you want to hurt me? I’ve never done anything to hurt you?).
This tecnique involves active resistance that does no actually confront the attacker (like in b). Nonconfrontative physical resistence can be feigned or quite real, spontaneos and uncontrollable. Figned responses might include for exemple, fainting, gagging, sickness or seizure. Uncontrollable or involontary responses include crying, gagging, nausea, and loss of sphincter control.
These responses may work on occasion for the victim, but being highly idiosyncratic are not reliable.
Acquiescence don’t implies offensive or defensive reactions to thward the attack. Acquiescence is often the result of paralizing fear, of terror or a belief that such responses help to save the victim’s life in most cases, acquiescence can only be a last resort when every attempt to stop the attack has failed.
Acquiescence may be interpreted by the offender as a kind of partecipation by the victim and consequently exacerbate the intensity of the attack.
In general, the decision to submit or resign to the attacker is determined by the violence of the same attack or by the victim’s emotional state or by specific fears (such as rape or death). Some women will also be able to cope with the knowledge that they will have to submit, other victims accept and feel confortable with whatever actions they feel necessary to survive the assault with a minimum of physical and mental injury.
If the previous strategies to avoid the attack have failed, acquiescence is deemed to be the optimum response to protect life and reduce to a minimum physical injury in a situation such as sexual assault, but it’s important for the victim to be relaxed in this choice and, at the same time, be aware that postassault guilt feeling will probably arise.
Hereby I will examine the case of a serial rapist of Milan charged with more than 50 rapes over a period going from June 1973, when he was 18 years old, to May 1996, when he was 41 years old, in the Milan –Bergamo – Monza area; he was sentenced four times, the latest in 1996 (he is serving the prison sentence at the moment), when the punishment was more severe according to the new law on sexual violence dated 15 February 1996 n° 66, but also because, beside sexual violence he did some robberies to cinemas and chemist’s shops.
Let’s see in the following charts which are the four sentences regarding the above-mentioned serial rapist:
Chart n°1 : Summary of the attacks of 1973/1974
PLACE OF VIOLENCE |
Milan |
PERIOD OF VIOLENCE |
June – september 1973 |
VICTIM’S NUMBER |
8 |
DATA OF CAPTURE |
25 september 1973 |
CRIMINAL TRIAL |
23 January 1975 |
PUNISHMENT |
Partial vice of mind Socially dangerous 4 years + 4 years of watched freedom |
COURT OF APPEAL |
19 dicember 1975 confirmation of a judgement |
SUPREME COURT OF APPEAL |
Confirmation of a judgement |
DEVELOPMENT OF HIS FREEDOM |
Detaines in San Vittore where he was struck and wounded by two prisoners that charged him to have confesses his crimes. |
END OF PUNISHMENT |
13 april 1978 Surveillance Court revokes his watched freedom |
Chart n°2 : Summary of the attacks of 1981/1982
PLACE OF VIOLENCE |
Bergamo |
PERIOD OF VIOLENCE |
march 1981 – may 1982 |
VICTIM’S NUMBER |
11 |
DATA OF CAPTURE |
22 may 1982 |
CRIMINAL TRIAL |
10 may 1983 |
PUNISHMENT |
Able to understand and to want 7 years + 6 month |
COURT OF APPEAL |
19 march 1984 Parcial vice of mind 5 years + 6 month + watched freedom the least for 1 years |
SUPREME COURT OF APPEAL |
25 september 1984 Confirmation of a judgement |
DEVELOPMENT OF HIS FREEDOM |
He start to discount the punishment on may 1982. October 1986: half-freedom December 1986: relase by the indult application |
END OF PUNISHMENT |
In 1988, when the socially dangerousness stopped, his watched freedom was revoked |
Chart °3 : Summary of the attacks of 1990/1991
PLACE OF VIOLENCE |
Milan |
PERIOD OF VIOLENCE |
march 1990 – January 1991 |
VICTIM’S NUMBER |
6 |
DATA OF CAPTURE |
7 January 1991 |
CRIMINAL TRIAL |
22 october 1991 Gip – abbreviato (Magi) |
PUNISHMENT |
Parcial vice of mind 4 years |
COURT OF APPEAL |
11 september 1992 Punishment reduces to: 3 years + 10 month+ 2 years of precautionary measure (watch nursing home) |
SUPREME COURT OF APPEAL |
21 april 1993 Confirmation of a judgement |
DEVELOPMENT OF HIS FREEDOM |
Domiciliary arrest and sheltering at the psychiatric departement of the ospital "Città di Monza". In June 1993, reduced the punishment in the Court of Appeal of Monza, and than removed , the month after, in the "hause of imprisonment of Opera". |
END OF PUNISHMENT |
In 1994, expiated the detention punishment, he was released. |
Chart n°4 : Summary of the attacks of 1996/1997
PLACE OF VIOLENCE |
Milan and Monza |
PERIOD OF VIOLENCE |
february – may 1996 |
VICTIM’S NUMBER |
11 |
DATA OF CAPTURE |
26 June 1996 |
CRIMINAL TRIAL |
22 January 1998 |
PUNISHMENT |
Able to understand and to want 23 years + 1 month |
COURT OF APPEAL |
14 october 1998 Reduction only of the detention punishment 19 years + 6 month |
SUPREME COURT OF APPEAL |
|
DEVELOPMENT OF HIS FREEDOM |
|
END OF PUNISHMENT |
So as rapist have different characteristics unified by the kind of crime they have committed, victims have different typologies as well. Not only because the rapist chooses victims who have only sex in common but also because the behaviour of victims is different as a real reaction to the attack; I will study how it happens.
The victims of the serial rapist whose case I examined, have been more than 50, even if the ones who have reported the case to the police have been only 35; the other ones have never been identified.
Victims have been chosen at random by their attacker, they are unknown to him and they have only sex in common. The man doesn’t care a bit about their size, hair’s colour, not even their age, going from 19 for the youngest to 62.
They were attacked in the entrance-hall or near the elevator, on getting home late at night. The man, under the menace of a knife or a shard of bottle, or even a gun (turned out later to be a toy-gun), compelled them to indecencies and perverted acts.
Most of them, besides suffering sexual violence, was robbed of money and jewelry by her attacker who sometimes made her give him an identity card in order to know her name and threatened her with death in case she should report him to the police.
The "modus operandi" of attacking was always the same: "I’m going up too" he used to say after approaching the victim near the elevator.
Than, as soon as they were inside, he pushed a button whateverand extracted his weapon (a shard, a drift, a knife or a gun), by which he threatened the victim, bidding her silence and then he submitted her to violence acts, often degrading and aggressive too. One of the peculiarities common to a lot of attack from the rapist we are talking about, besides his physical description made by the victims, was a particular erotic technique he used, which consisted in licking and sucking the victim’s right foot. Sometimes they were attacked even before approaching the elevator.
But what I want to analyse more deeply is the variety among the victim’s reactions to a situation which is almost always very similar.
In fact:
Let’s examine in details, the attack’s reaction by the 35 victims who reported the serial rapist in question:
Chart n° 5 : victims of the attacks of 1973
Victim |
Age |
Place of aggression |
Type of crime |
Weapon used |
Reaction |
1 |
22 |
Elevator |
Attempt to violent indecency Bodily harms |
Knife |
She strikes him with a kick in the low abdomen and makes him to escape |
2 |
19 |
Elevator and car |
Violent indecency Rape False inprisonment Duress |
Knife + shard of bottle |
Frightened, she beckon any reaction. He obliges her to take her car and to retire in a dark place, where he compel she to carnal violence more than once. After 5 hours he lets her go back home |
3 |
31 |
House landing |
False inprisonment Duress Bodily harms |
Knife + shard of bottle |
The attacker asks her telephone number to be able to meet her again and to have sexual intercourses with her |
4 |
28 |
Elevator |
False inprisonment Violent indecency Aggravated robbery Duress |
Knife |
Being asked to get undressed and masturbate him, the woman, frightened, agree. After getting what he wanted, he steal her money and runs away. |
5 |
40 |
Elevator |
False inprisonment | Knife |
She gets her attacker not to menace her with his knife by saying she would consent; after that, she rebels, gets hold of the knife and compels him to run away |
6 |
45 |
Elevator |
Attempt to violent indecency Bodily harms |
Shard of bottle |
She reacts and the man, while scuffling, hurts her neck and than runs away |
7 |
30 |
Elevator |
Aggravated robbery Duress False inprisonment |
Knife |
Being asked for money, the woman delivers her hand-bag to the man who takes it over. Then he takes the woman to the ground floor; she succeed in reacting, runs into her apartment and locks the door |
8 |
21 |
Elevator |
False inprisonment Aggravated robbery Duress Violent indecency |
Knife |
She follows the stranger’s orders without attempting resistance |
Chart n° 6 : victims of the attacks of 1982
Victim |
Age |
Place of aggression |
Type of crime |
Weapon used |
Reaction |
1 |
27 |
Elevator |
Rape Bodily harms |
Scissors |
No particular reaction recorded |
2 |
40 |
Steps entry staircase |
Rape Indecency Bodily harms |
Pointed object |
The woman doesn’t show any particular reaction, but fortunately some next-door neighbours arrive who put the attacker to flight |
3 |
23 |
Near the entrance door |
Rape Indecency Bodily harms |
Knife |
No particular reaction. The man after menacing and raping the victim, makes her accompany him to the door |
4 |
44 |
Near the elevator |
Rape Indecency Robbery |
Knife |
No particular reaction recorded. The woman submissively accepts her attacker’s requests |
5 |
22 |
Back door |
Continous attempted rape | Knife |
The woman shouts and her attacker hits her with fists. He hurts her and breaks one lens of her glasses, then runs away |
6 |
28 |
Near the elevator |
Attempted rape | Pistol + scissors |
She shouts and the man shuts her mouth. Than he tries to get her undressed. She defends herself with an umbrella and after 15 minutes struggle he goes away |
7 |
29 |
Near the elevator |
Continous attempted rape Bodily harms |
Knife |
He orderes her to mesturbate him. She agrees, but as soon as he diverts his attention, she bites his right hand, gets hold of the knife and compels him to run away |
8 |
52 |
Near the elevator |
Attempted rape Indecency |
Scissors |
He tries to rape her but she rebels; they hear a car, the woman says it’s her husband and the man goes away |
9 |
52 |
Near the elevator |
Continous attempted rape Bodily harms |
Dagger |
He hits her with a dagger then flies away |
10 |
23 |
Near the elevator |
Continous attempted rape Bodily harms |
Drift |
She shouts and struggles saying she would satisfy him completely. While struggling, she hurts herself and he flies away |
11 |
26 |
Near the entrance door |
Attempted rape | / |
She shouts and compels her attacker to run away |
Chart n° 7 : victims of the attacks of 1990
Victim |
Age |
Place of aggression |
Type of crime |
Weapon used |
Reaction |
1 |
27 |
Between 2° and 3° level |
Violent indecency Robbery |
Pistol |
The woman gives way to the pressures without opposing any resistence |
2 |
36 |
While getting into the house |
Attempted aggrevated robbery | Pistol |
The attacker orders the woman to give him the money in her hand-bag; the woman reacts and after pushing him and puts him to flight |
3 |
40 |
In front of the entrance door |
Aggrevated robbery Rape |
Pistol |
The man does violence to the woman repeatedly while she cannot oppose any resistance. Then, after congratulating on her and declaring himself "satisfied", he goes away |
4 |
27 |
On the 1° level |
Robbery | Pistol |
The woman says to her attacker that there is her father who lives next door to where they are at the moment. The man doesn’t seem to be scared by that. She than starts calling her father aloud and puts the man to flight after having made her give him her left shoe |
5 |
25 |
In front of elevator |
Robbery Violent indecency Attempt rape |
Pistol |
Being asked to masturbate himself, the woman react; thereby touching off her attacker’s rage, he hits her on her temple with his gun’s –butt. After slapping her and getting what he wanted, the man flies away |
Chart n° 8 : victims of the attacks of 1996
Victim |
Age |
Place of aggression |
Type of crime |
Weapon used |
Reaction |
1 |
38 |
Elevators door |
Rape Aggrevated robbery |
Knife + pistol |
The woman endures violence passively without being able to react |
2 |
26 |
Building entrance hall |
Rape Robbery |
Knife |
No particular reaction recorder. The petrified woman undergoes her attacker’s will |
3 |
20 |
Landing between ground floor and 1° level |
Rape Aggrevated robbery |
Knife |
The woman is frightened by her attacker’s menaces doesn’t oppose his requests |
4 |
24 |
Building entrance hall |
Rape Aggrevated robbery |
Knife |
The woman refuses to undergo her aggressor’s heavy requests. He forces her holding her hair. After raping her, he ask her to lead him to the door where she is asked for sexual performances again. The woman reacts, opens the main door and pushes him outside |
5 |
31 |
Building entrance hall |
Rape Aggrevated robbery |
Knife |
The victim doesn’t oppose any resistence to the aggressor |
6 |
41 |
Near elevator |
Rape Aggrevated robbery |
Knife |
She doesn’t react to her aggressor’s repeated violence in the least. He goes away after a few hours and tells the woman to lay on the floor and count up to 100 before stending up |
7 |
30 |
Inside under- ground level garage |
Rape Aggrevated robbery |
Knife |
No particular reactions recorded. The woman hands the documents to the man who threatens her to death if she reports him to the police |
8 |
62 |
Elevator |
Rape Aggrevated robbery |
Knife |
The woman begs her aggressor to put down the knife with which he is menacing her but then she undergoes the violence without opposing any kind of resistance |
9 |
25 |
Behind the entrance door |
Obsceneties | / |
The woman realizes she’s being followed; she runs into the entrance hall but, on turning round, she sees a man outside the door, who’s looking at her and is masturbating. The woman shouts and puts him to flight |
10 |
/ |
In front of elevator |
Attempt rape Robbery |
Knife |
The victim realizes the man’s aims when he attacks her. She calls names, shouts and asks for help. The man reacts hitting her a fist and after words he goes away |
11 |
/ |
In front of elevator |
Attempt rape Robbery |
Pistol |
The woman succeeds in reacting immediately. Getting into the elevator, she sets the starter going and shouts at the top of her voice. The attacker is struck speechless at it and leaves |
As one can see from the charts, the victim’s reactions are rather different one from the other. There is the women who isn’t in the least scared either by her aggressor or by the weapon with which she is being threatened, as I said before has always been aware of the attack; she reacts and consequently she runs away or she tries somehow to frighten her aggressor or asks for help.
We have seen the case of the victim who hits him defiantly with a kick and compels him to fly away. The woman who tries to distract him and when she succeeds, she bites his hand, disarm him and puts him to flight.
These are examples of women who, thanks to their immediate and courageous reactions, succeed in avouding sexual violence. On the contrary, there are other cases, perhaps more frequent, when women feel pietrified and, because of their fear, underge passively their aggressor’s orders and comply with his sexual requests without opposing the least resistance. One of these, even comes to the point of taking her car, as she had been asked by the man, she drives as far as a secluded and dark spot, where she is compelled to suffer sexual abuse for 5 hours.
After all that, she drives her aggressor back to where they where before.
4. How to cope with the sexual attack
The scholars of this subject belife that aggression begets aggression. When rage and aggression exceded what is necessary to force victim’s compliance, a violent confrontative responses on the part of the victim only serves to increase the violence in the attack and to place the victim in a risky situation for serious physical injury.
As a consequence, they recommend the first responses to violence not be the violence. The rapist, often convinced of having all sexual rights the victim, will use whatever force necessary to gain victim compliance; confrontative physical resistence in these cases would be unwise unless the victim is confident that it will work.
The best strategy appears to be encouraging the rapist to start talking about himself (playing on his narcissism) so that the victim becames a real person for him, rather than a sexualized object.
Nonconfrontative physical strategies may also work, but they tend to be unreliable being highly idiosyncratic to the individual rapist. As noted before, some of these responses are spontaneous and unintentional, so it might be advisable for the victim to overcome these responses if they can make the situation worse.
If the victim is unable to engage the offender in a conversation and the attack continues, gets worse, or appears to be lethal, the victim must try to fight with every mean available (to attack offender’s eyes and groin, or hit him with a rock or stick).
If the attacker remains after verbal confrontation, he has no weapon, and answers with threats or retorts, the victim should immediately resist physically, hiting him with kicks and fists. If the attacker’s response consist in greater anger and violence, the victim should cease physical resistence.
The reccomended response with the rapist is "verbal", and the words must convince the offender that the victim is not the person hated by him ("it sounds like you’re really angry at someone, but it can’t be me. We have never even met before").
On the contrary, she must avoid statements that may justifys the attack in the mind of the rapist.
In fact it is always dangerous challenging the fantasy of these men. Because there are no reliable, safe and effective responses, the victim must do anything necessary to get out of the situation. That may mean feigning partecipation at the assault and, at a critical moment, making use of surprise and striking the offender’s vulnerable areas as viciously as possible. This is necessary for the victim to convert fear into rage and a sense of helplessness into a battle for survival.
But we realize that most of the advice given to the potential victims, may be forgotten at the moment of panic when the victim is confronted by a potential rapist. The victim may lose her head and so not have the necessary time to evaluate the different responses to have.
The strategies worded can be summarized as follows:
if it is unsuccessful:
if it is unsuccessful:
if it is unsuccessful:
GULOTTA, G. in collaborazione con VAGAGGINI M., (1976), La vittima, Giuffrè, Milano.
GULOTTA, G., VAGAGGINI, M. (1981), (a cura di), Dalla parte della vittima, Giuffrè, Milano.
HENTIG, H., (1948), The criminal and his victims, Yale University Press, New Heaven.
KARMEN, A., (1990), Crime Victims: An Introduction to Victimology, Brooks Cole, Pacific Grove (CA).
MAWBY, R.I., WALKLATE, S., (1994), Critical Victimology, Sage, London.
PONTI, G., a cura di (1995), Tutela della vittima e mediazione penale, Giuffrè, Milano.
RESSLER, R., BURGESS, A., DOUGLAS, J., (1988), Sexual Homicide: A Motivational Model, The Free Press, New York.