Why Men Rape: An Indian Undercover Investigation

by Tara Kaushal

In the masterly article ‘Beastly’87 in The New Yorker, professor of psychology at Yale University, Paul Bloom, discusses this notion with respect to literature about slave owning and the Holocaust, quoting the psychologist Herbert C. Kelman, “‘The inhibitions against murdering fellow human beings are generally so strong that the victims must be deprived of their human status if systematic killing is to proceed in a smooth and orderly fashion.’” We therefore talk about the ‘dehumanization’ and ‘objectification’ of women—the denial of women’s autonomy, agency and humanity—as the cause of sexual violence. (It follows that we cannot accept the humanness of the perpetrators of violent crimes—but more on that later.) “The thesis that viewing others as objects or animals enables our very worst conduct would seem to explain a great deal,” says Bloom while introducing a new wave in critical theory about violence. “Yet there’s reason to think that it’s almost the opposite of the truth.”