The Psychology of Rape

by Gina Simmons, Ph.D.

On February 11, 2011, intrepid 60 Minutes reporter Lara Logan fell victim to an attack in Egypt as she covered the unrest and overthrow of the Egyptian government. She suffered a brutal sexual attack by a gang of men shouting accusations suggesting she spied for Israel. A group of women and members of the Egyptian army rescued her. Logan flew home and remained in a hospital for five days with severe internal injuries. Since January 30, 140 correspondents have been injured or killed while covering the unrest in Egypt. The list includes reporters Anderson Cooper and Christiane Amanpour. Katie Couric described being "man-handled" while reporting in Egypt.

Sexual assault, like that sustained by Lara Logan, occurs about once every minute in the United States. In fact, one in ten rapes in the U.S. involve multiple assailants attacking a victim. In South Africa, Lara Logan's birthplace, one in three rapes involve multiple perpetrators.

Why do men around the world rape women? Rape researchers typically fall into about three different camps. Feminist researchers see anger and hatred for women as the primary cause of rape. Behaviorists focus on research showing that rapists respond to deviant sexual stimuli, unlike non-rapists. Evolutionary biologists see rape as biologically programmed to ensure that men with strong sex drives reproduce. In an attempt to understand the complexity of rape, Dr. Gordon Nagayama Hall found four main types of rapists:

• Type 1: The Aroused. Impulsive, he becomes aroused by deviant sexual stimuli such as bondage or cruelty to women.
• Type 2: The Conqueror. Often the date rapist. He believes women enjoy rape. Misinterprets signals from the woman. For example, if she invites him to her dorm room, he assumes she wants rape.
• Type 3: The Angry. Motivated by rage toward women. Acts out the anger in sexual attacks. Considered the most dangerous kind of rapist.
• Type 4: The Abused. The repeat offender. Likely abused as a child. Difficulty establishing long-term relationships.

Dr. Hall cautions against simple explanations for rape. Evolutionary biology theories do not explain the sexual assault of infants or senior citizens. Feminist theories don't explain how men with meaningful long-term relationships with women can then go out and rape strangers. He believes that by studying the multiple reasons for rape, researchers can reduce it's frequency and design better treatment methods for offenders.

I suggest the best place to begin rape prevention strategies is with our children. A recent study of 1,600 juvenile sexual assault offenders found:

• Just 33 percent of these boys perceived sex as a way to demonstrate love or caring;
• 23.5 percent believed that sex was a way to establish power and control;
• 9.4 percent found sex to be a good way to dissipate anger;
• 8.4 percent believed sex to be a way to punish others.

In a study of college men, 35 percent admitted they would violently rape a woman who had rejected a prior advance if they were assured of getting away with it. Many men and women believe a woman deserved rape if she was intoxicated, led the man on, or invited him into her bedroom. In a 2003 study, men who were highly competitive and win-oriented reported more sexual aggression and held beliefs that supported rape. This impulsive type may have much in common with the hostile group who attacked Lara Logan.

In a small town in Texas a high school cheerleader was dragged into a room and raped by two star football players. The victim, H.S., reported the crime. The boys were arrested, released and returned to the football team, while H.S. returned to cheerleading. In an act of protest, H.S. turned her back on the football player who raped her and refused to cheer for him. H.S. was kicked off the cheer team. Her family sued and the judge ruled that H.S. must cheer for her rapist. I offer another explanation for rape, of both the physical and legal kind. It appears many men, in positions both lofty and low, possess the emotional intelligence of a kumquat.

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Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur Cold Cases Heat Up

by Cathy Scott

A couple weeks ago, I sat down with CNN's anchor/reporter Ted Rowlands and producer Michael Cary to talk about the Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls murders. In Anderson Cooper's resulting blog post, Rowlands and Cary quoted a former Los Angeles Police Detective as saying, “Suge Knight ordered the hit [on Biggie Smalls]."

Smalls, 24, Brooklyn-born Christopher Wallace and also known as the Notorious B.I.G., was gunned down in L.A. while driving away from a VIBE magazine album release party at the Petersen Automotive Museum on March 9, 1997. Investigators suspect the killer was a lone gunman in an early model Chevy Impala who opened fire on Biggie's Suburban in a drive-by. Witnesses described the gunman as a thin-faced African-American man wearing a suit and a bow-tie.

The accusations toward Knight, who at the time ran Death Row Records, were from the mouth of one Russell Poole, who was one of many detectives who once worked on the Smalls murder investigation. Poole added, when he spoke with the CNN crew, that he believes the murder was organized by Reggie Wright Jr., who headed security for Death Row.

Poole went on to say he believes Knight ordered the murder of Tupac Shakur as well, even though Poole never worked on the Tupac investigation, after Shakur, 25, was gunned down in September 1996 near the Las Vegas Strip.

Bold words. The problem, however, with Poole's statements, which have become almost a mantra for him, is that there isn't a scintilla of evidence pointing to Knight as either committing or ordering the murder of Biggie Smalls. The LAPD launched both criminal and internal investigations into just that, to no avail. And Biggie Smalls' mother, Voletta Wallace, in 2006 sued the city of Los Angeles and the LAPD for a cover-up and sloppy handling of her son's case. 

Investigators have long suspected that Biggie was killed because of an East Coast/West Coast rivalry between the rappers, who were from opposite coasts, which they have said may have caused the death of Shakur six months earlier. Wallace's family's suit against the LAPD was dismissed in 2010. Still, Voletta Wallace has said many times she has faith that her son's killer will one day be brought to justice.

But Detective Derrick Parker, a veteran of the NYPD specializing in hip-hop related crimes, told People magazine, "No disrespect to the LAPD," says the police officer nicknamed the "hip hop cop," "but every time they get a new set of detectives on it, it fizzles out. They lose a lot."

Poole is one of those officers who rotated in and out of the Smalls case. If Knight is, in fact, responsible for Smalls' murder, where's the evidence? Bring it forward. I'm not saying Knight is a Boy Scout. Far from it. It's common knowledge that he grew up on the streets of Compton and was a member of the Mob Piru gang.

And it's not as if the cops haven't tried to get Knight. In the aftermath of both murders, police in a variety of jurisdictions have hauled him into both county jails and prison for everything from outstanding traffic warrants, possession of marijuana, and violation of parole. He served time. But he has never been identified by the LAPD or the Las Vegas police as a person of interest, let alone a prime suspect, in either murders.

I was told by a source about a year and a half ago that a multi-task force had been formed to look into both Smalls' and Tupac's murders as a part of an in-depth gang probe. So far, the members of that task force have been silent. When the task force eventually winds up its work, maybe we'll then see whether Poole's words ring true. Until then, and without evidence, it's an empty accusation.  

Knight, who was behind bars serving out a parole violation at the time Smalls was killed, has denied he had anything to do with the murder. And Reggie Wright has also said he had nothing to do with the killing. 

As for an LAPD cover-up, Los Angeles City Councilman Bernard Parks, who was chief of police at the time of the Smalls murder, said, simply, that allegations of a police cover-up are "absurd." 

Click here to read CNN's blog.

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Is Tiffany Hartley Telling the Truth? Body Language, Voice, Speech Inconsistencies Speak Volumes

by Dr. Lillian Glass

Are U.S. federal and Texas law enforcement authorities paying close attention to Tiffany Hartley, who has gone on a media blitz sharing her story about alleged pirates who shot her husband while riding a jet ski on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake? Are they truly keeping their eyes and ears open, or are they turning a blind eye and deaf ear because the topic of border control is such a political hotbed?

As a body language and communications expert, I can never turn a blind eye when I see so many signals of deception which are consistent in Tiffany’s many interviews.

The lip licking, sudden and extraneous jaw excursions, pleading hand gestures with palms facing upwards, looking down, excessive eye blinking, tilting of the head, pulling her body away, and shoulder shrugs when asked about and discussing key issues are huge red flags to me.

Likewise, I can never turn a deaf ear when I hear so many “uh’s” and “um’s” peppered throughout speech, dying off at the end of sentences when crucial information is being revealed, a monotone voice devoid of emotion, too much detailed and tangential information, righteous indignation, and most crucial of all, too many inconsistencies in a story.

It does not matter how many sheriffs or governors of states bordering the U.S. and Mexico border, or even of her in-laws, believe her. It doesn’t matter how many suspects or persons of interest are rounded up, or how many eyewitnesses come forward and rally behind her. Tiffany Hartley is exhibiting multiple signals of deception, which make her story very questionable, in my view.

One of the first indicators of deception is whether a person is consistent in their story. Tiffany Hartley has not been consistent.

From first describing the shooters to what actually happened with her husband, her story has changed drastically. It changed from the first time she opened her mouth on air, where she was seen looking plain, with her hair in her eyes, to a more pulled together look complete with makeup and her hair pulled back.

The more she appeared on TV the more she appeared to enjoy the attention. At first she was star struck even telling Gretchen Carlson on Fox and Friends that she and her husband watched her show every day. Then she continued to get more and more verbal and more and more inconsistent in keeping her story straight.

From pirates who shot at her and her husband from a distance across the boarder, they suddenly became teenagers. Then they were pirates again, who killed her husband. Then they were people who had her husband’s body. If someone was shot in the head and sustained a head injury, wouldn’t they sink to the bottom of the lake and drown? Why would anyone dive into the lake and retrieve a dead body at the bottom of the lake?

First she said she abandoned her husband, who was shot in the head, because she was too small to get him put on her jet ski. Then she said someone had him. How did she know anyone had him if she abandoned him? First she said they used an assault weapon and later she said she was looking down a barrel of a gun. First she said she was far away and now she says she is up close enough to see a gun barrel.

First, no boat was mentioned, then on Anderson Copper she said that in the one boat near her, “I saw two people but there was a third or fourth person in that boat, I just didn't see them." How does she know there was a third or fourth person in the boat if she didn’t see them? Was she on the boat?

There are other inconsistencies which are equally disturbing. As Tiffany continues to come forward and speak, there is no doubt that the truth will eventually leak out.

When it does, her now supportive in laws will suddenly not be so supportive of her. They will have had more time to process everything she said to the media. Then they will immediately turn on her.

Instead of spending her time visiting media outlet after media outlet, in my view Tiffany needs to spend her time visiting a number of lawyers so she can find the right one for her if and when authorities finally open their eyes and ears and realize that she may not be the right poster girl for border control issues.

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