Diana Reese: Studying why men rape

Over the past year, I've written a number of stories about rape victims. There was the 23-year-old Indian student, brutally gang-raped on a bus in New Delhi, who died as a result.

There's Rehtaeh Parsons in Canada and Audrie Pott in California, both of whom committed suicide after the ordeal of their rapes. There's the West Virginia high school student who was raped by two football players in Steubenville, Ohio.

And, of course, there are the three young women kidnapped and held hostage for years by Ariel Castro, who later was found hanged in his cell.

My interest in writing these stories may stem from the fact that I have three friends whose daughters were raped. Each by someone she knew. Two ended up pregnant; one is raising her child, the other gave her baby up for adoption. One still struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anorexia.

I have to wonder: Why do men rape? And is it as common as it seems?

So of course I find the results fascinating — and staggering — and depressing — from the massive U.N.-sponsored study looking at the causes and prevalence of rape in Bangladesh, China, Cambodia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Papua New Guinea. Part of that research was published this week in "The Lancet Global Health."

Obviously, the study's results don't reflect American culture, and the researchers stress that their findings are from just six countries and should not be used to make generalizations even about all of Asia.

Some 10,000 men were questioned, although the word "rape" was never used. Instead, they were asked if they'd ever had sex with a woman against her will or with someone too drunk or drugged to agree (or perhaps disagree). Which, of course, is what rape is, yet too many people fail to understand that sex without consent is rape, and a girl passed out at a party cannot give her consent.

Nearly 1 in 10 of the men in the study has raped a woman, but that figure jumps to 1 in 4 if you include wives and girlfriends among the victims. The results varied widely from region to region, with the highest numbers in Papua New Guinea and the lowest in Bangladesh and Indonesia.

Why did these men force women to have sex with them? More than 70 percent cited "sexual entitlement" as the reason. They simply believe they have the right to have sex with any women, whether she agrees or not. I can't help but wonder if that sense of entitlement is responsible for some of the rapes in this country, especially when considering the culture surrounding high school and college athletes.

Nearly 60 percent said they had raped for entertainment because they were bored or seeking some "fun." Theirs, obviously, and not the woman's. About 40 percent of men blamed punishment or anger for their sexual assaults on women. (The men could give more than one reason so the results don't add up to 100 percent.)

Rape began early for many of these men; half of those who had raped were just teenagers the first time. Four percent had participated in a gang rape. Almost half of the men had used either physical or sexual violence against their wife or girlfriend.

The goal is to figure out how to change behavior. Researchers wrote, "The challenge now is to turn evidence into action, to create a safer future for the next generation of women and girls."

Diana Reese is a journalist in Overland Park, Kan.