Why Men Rape: An Indian Undercover Investigation

by Tara Kaushal

All evidence indicates that rapes within marriages, by pati devs* for whom they keep Karva Chauth, are actually more traumatic and destabilizing than stranger rapes, even though they typically involve less physical violation and defilement.

The POCSO Act of 201294 makes no exception for the ‘age proximity’ of the parties involved in underage sex. A minor can’t consent, ergo it is rape; in rape, the female is always the victim, and the male, the assaulter.

“Families are more willing to have the stigma of rape rather than having the stigma of their daughter choosing her own sex or life partner,”

is 99.1 per cent of rapes that are unreported if you include marital rape; if you don’t—85 per cent of sexual violence committed by someone other than the current husband is unreported101.

“Making a pass at a woman is normalized, seen as part of socialization, a transition to masculinity, acceptable. But when the same logic is extended, crossing the boundary to become rape… the rapist is granted a villainous identity.

The ‘born bad’ aka nature theory implies a fixity, an immobility, a predestiny—ideas that don’t align with the dreams, race and pace of a capitalistic world.