强奸犯到底是一群怎样的人？看看科学家们怎么认为

In 1976, a Ph.D. candidate at Claremont Graduate University placed a rather unusual personal ad in newspapers throughout Los Angeles: “Are you a rapist? Research anonymously by phone to protect your identity. Call this number from 9 am to 9 pm.

1976年，克莱尔蒙特研究生大学(Claremont Graduate University)的一名博士生在洛杉矶的多家报纸上刊登了一则很不寻常的个人广告：“你是强奸者吗？匿名电话调研，保护你的隐私。可以从早9点至晚9点拨打这个电话。”

He sat by his phone, skeptical that it would ring. “I didn’t think that anyone would want to respond,” said Samuel D. Smithyman, now 72 and a clinical psychologist in South Carolina.

他坐在电话旁，担心没人打来。“我觉得没人会回应，”现年72岁的塞缪尔.D.史密斯曼(Samuel D. Smithyman)说。他现在是南卡罗来纳州的一名临床心理学家。

But the phone did ring. Nearly 200 times.

但是，有人打来。而且有近200人。

At the other end of the line were a computer programmer who had raped his “sort of girlfriend,” a painter who had raped his acquaintance’s wife, and a school custodian who described 10 to 15 rapes as a means of getting even with “rich bastards” in Beverly Hills.

电话的另一端，有强奸了“算是女友”的电脑程序员；强奸了熟人妻子的画家；还有一名学校看管人，他作案10至15次，说是为了报复比弗利山庄的“有钱的混蛋们”。

By the end of the summer, Smithyman had completed 50 interviews, which became the foundation for his dissertation: “The Undetected Rapist.” What was particularly surprising to him was how normal these men sounded and how diverse their backgrounds were. He concluded that few generalizations could be made.

夏天结束时，史密斯曼完成了50次采访，那成了他的论文《未被发现的强奸犯》(The Undetected Rapist)的基础。令他特别惊讶的是，这些人听起来很正常，背景很多样化。他的结论是，几乎无法对他们进行一般性的概括。

Over the past few weeks, women across the world have recounted tales of harassment and sexual assault by posting anecdotes to social media with the hashtag #MeToo. Even with the focus only on the second category, the biographies of the accused are so varied that they seem to support Smithyman’s observation.

在过去的几周里，世界各地的女性都在社交媒体上以 #MeToo 为标签，讲述自己遭到性骚扰或性侵犯的故事。即使我们只关注性侵犯，也会发现指控者的故事各不相同，似乎与史密斯曼的调查结果相一致。

But more recent research suggests that there are some commonalities. In the decades since his paper, scientists have been gradually filling out a picture of men who commit sexual assaults.

不过最近的研究表明，共性是有的。在他的论文发表几十年后，科学家们逐渐理出了有性侵行为的男性的概貌。

The most pronounced similarities have little to do with the traditional demographic categories, like race, class and marital status. Rather, other kinds of patterns have emerged: These men begin early, studies find. They may associate with others who also commit sexual violence. They usually deny that they have raped women even as they admit to nonconsensual sex.

最明显的相似点与传统的人口统计类别没什么关系，比如种族、阶级和婚姻状况。相反，出现了其他一些类型：研究发现，这些人从很早就开始性侵；他们可能会与其他也有过性暴力犯罪的人有联系；他们通常否认自己强奸过女性，尽管他们承认发生过未经对方同意的性关系。

Clarifying these and other patterns, many researchers say, is the most realistic path toward curtailing behaviors that cause so much pain.

很多研究人员表示，澄清这些模式是遏制这种导致极大痛苦的行为的最现实途径。

“If you don’t really understand perpetrators, you’re never going to understand sexual violence,” said Sherry Hamby, editor of the journal Psychology of Violence. That may seem obvious, but she said she receives “10 papers on victims” for every one on perpetrators.

“如果你并不真的了解犯罪者，你就永远不会理解性暴力，”《暴力心理学》(Psychology of Violence)杂志的编辑谢丽.汉比(Sherry Hamby)说。这似乎是显而易见的，但她说每收到“十篇关于受害者的论文”，才会有一篇关于犯罪者的论文。

This may be partly connected to a tendency to consider sexual assault a women’s issue even though men usually commit the crime. But finding the right subjects also has complicated the research.

这种现象的一个原因是，人们倾向于认为性侵是女性的问题，尽管犯罪的通常是男性。不过，寻找合适的研究对象也使研究变得复杂。

Early studies relied heavily on convicted rapists. This skewed the data, said Neil Malamuth, a psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has been studying sexual aggression for decades.

早期的研究严重依赖于被判刑的强奸犯。加州大学洛杉矶分校(University of California, Los Angeles)的心理学家尼尔.马拉姆思(Neil Malamuth)研究性侵已有数十年，他说，这种情况扭曲了数据。

Men in prison are often “generalists,” he said: “They would steal your television, your watch, your car. And sometimes they steal sex.”

他说，被关进监狱的通常是“多面手”：“他们会偷你的电视，你的手表，你的车。有时也会窃取性。”

But men who commit sexual assault, and who are not imprisoned because they got away with it, are often “specialists.” There is a strong chance that this is their primary criminal transgression.

但是，那些有过性侵但逃脱了惩罚、未被监禁的人通常是“专家”。性侵很可能是他们的主要犯罪行为。

More recent studies tend to rely on anonymous surveys of college students and other communities, which come with legal language assuring subjects their answers cannot be used against them. The studies avoid using terms such as “rape” and “sexual assault.”

最近的一些研究往往依赖于大学生和其他群体的匿名调查，这些调查作出法律承诺，向受访者保证，他们的回答不能用于指控他们。这些研究避免使用“强奸”和“性侵”等字眼。

Instead, they ask subjects highly specific questions about their actions and tactics. The focus of most sexual aggression research is acknowledged nonconsensual sexual behavior. In questionnaires and in follow-up interviews, subjects are surprisingly open about ignoring consent.

相反，他们询问一些关于性侵行为和策略的非常具体的问题。大多数性侵研究的重点是承认非自愿性行为。在调查问卷和后续采访中，研究对象令人惊讶地坦然承认自己不理会对方不同意。

Men who rape tend to start young, in high school or the first couple of years of college, likely crossing a line with someone they know, the research suggests.

研究表明，男性的强奸行为往往从年轻时就开始了，比如从高中或大学前几年起--很可能是违背了他们认识的某个人的意愿。

Some of these men commit one or two sexual assaults and then stop. Others - no one can yet say what portion - maintain this behavior or even pick up the pace.

有些人进行了一两次性侵，然后停止了。还有些人--还没人调查出这个比例是多少--继续这种行为，甚至加大了频率。

There is a heated debate among experts about whether there is a point at which sexual assault becomes an entrenched behavior and what percentage of assaults are committed by serial predators.

关于性侵是否会在某一刻成为一种固定下来的行为，以及有多少比例的性侵是惯犯所为，专家们进行了激烈的争论。

Most researchers agree that the line between the occasional and frequent offender is not so clear. The recent work of Kevin Swartout, a professor of psychology and public health at Georgia State University, suggests that low-frequency offenders are more common on college campuses than previously thought.

大多数研究者认为，偶尔性侵和经常性侵之间的界线并不清晰。乔治亚州立大学(Georgia State University)的心理学和公共卫生教授凯文.斯瓦托特(Kevin Swartout)最近的研究表明，在大学校园里，低频率罪犯比以前人们认为的更常见。

“It’s a matter of degree, more like dosage,” said Mary P. Koss, a professor of public health at the University of Arizona, who is credited with coining the term “date rape.”

“这是一个程度问题，更像是剂量，”亚利桑那大学(University of Arizona)的公共卫生教授玛丽.P.科斯(Mary P. Koss)说。她被认为是“约会强奸”一词的发明者。

Dosage of what? Certain factors - researchers call them “risk factors” while acknowledging that these men are nonetheless responsible for their actions - have an outsize presence among those who commit sexual assaults.

什么的剂量？在那些进行性侵的人中，某些因素的影响很大。研究者称之为“风险因素”，同时也承认这些男人应该为自己的行为负责。

Heavy drinking, perceived pressure to have sex, a belief in “rape myths” - such as the idea that no means yes - are all risk factors among men who have committed sexual assault. A peer group that uses hostile language to describe women is another one.

在那些进行过性侵的人中，酗酒、性带来的知觉压力、以及轻信“强奸谬传”--比如，认为说“不”就是表示同意--都是风险因素。对另一组人来说，对女性使用敌视语言是另一个风险因素。

Yet there also seem to be personal attributes that have mediating effect on these factors. Men who are highly aroused by rape porn - another risk factor - are less likely to attempt sexual assault if they score highly on measures of empathy, Malamuth has found.

然而，似乎也有一些个人特性对这些因素起到了中介作用。马拉姆思发现，很容易被强奸色情片挑起性欲（另一个风险因素）的男性，如果在同理心测试上的得分很高，就不大可能尝试性侵犯。

Narcissism seems to work in the other direction, magnifying odds that men will commit sexual assault and rape.

自恋似乎起着相反的作用，它会增加男性进行性侵和强奸的可能性。

Asked “if they had penetrated against their consent,” Koss said, the subject will say yes. Asked if he did “something like rape,” the answer is almost always no.

科斯称，当被问及“是否违背对方的意愿进行性交”时，研究对象会回答说“是”。当被问及是否进行了“类似强奸的行为”时，答案几乎总是否定的。

And this is not a sign that the respondents are psychopaths, said Hamby, the journal editor. It’s a sign that they are human. “No one thinks they are a bad guy,” she said.

《暴力心理学》的编辑汉比表示，这并不表明受访者是精神变态。这表明他们是人。“没人认为自己是坏人，”她说。

Indeed, experts note one last trait shared by men who have raped: They do not believe they are the problem.

事实上，专家们还注意到了进行过强奸的男性所共有的最后一个特点：他们不认为自己有问题。