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The Eleventh Hour graphic and show opener.

Host Lipsyte talking about the topic of today's program - sexual assault and the renewed discussion about something in the conditioning of men that condones the brutality. He cuts away to recent alarming rape statistics.

Host Lipsyte introduces his guests: Elizabeth Holtsman, Brooklyn District Attorney; Susan Xenarios, Dir. St. Lukes/Roosevelt Hospital Rape Intervention Ctr.; Michael Kimmel, PhD Sociology Professor SUNY

Interview concludes and Host Lipsyte cuts to a pre-taped segment with two convicted rapists, and two women who have been raped.

INSERT PRE-TAPED INTERVIEW WITH RAPE VICTIMS:
Janet Jackson (rape victim) 7:56
I could have said, No, I won't take you but it would have been kind of rude. I thought well just be nice. It doesn't he says it isn't far away. Well, he ended up giving me directions to a vacant lot. And he was very cruel, very sadistic, you know, kept telling me. He has other friends that are on the way. And they're all going to, you know, getting right me.
Robert Lipsyte 8:20
Claire was raped eight years ago by a man who picked her up in a neighborhood bar. She went to his house willingly. But then he turned violent.
Claire (rape victim) 8:30
You know, I felt like, you know, a deer that has a predator, two feet away, and it just freezes and it just waits. You know, I was just waiting.
Janet Jackson (rape victim) 8:42
When I tried to fight. I did try to fight because once you know, I know what was gonna happen. I tried to, you know, kick him between the legs and open the car door. And he just wasn't, I just wasn't able.
Claire (rape victim) 8:59
I wasn't gonna play stupid. I mean, I was gonna get the hell out of there alive and I was gonna do anything that he wanted me to do.
Janet Jackson (rape victim) 9:06
That's when he pulled a knife. And then he just kept me in the car all night. away I felt told this rapist that there's no excuse for what he did. There's no reason there's nothing in his past that excuses it. There's no attitude that excuses it. I just hate it. But also, another part of me is curious, why would someone do what would make somebody do something that's so cool, and so hurtful to another person that it changes their life.

Exterior The Adult Diagnostic Treatment Center in Avenel, New Jersey. Pan up on brick building surrounded by chain link fence and barbed wire.

Man with long brown hair shot from behind walking into office, woman seated at desk he takes a seat across from her.

Host Lipsyte narrates. Prisoner (shot from behind to protect identity{ seated across from woman at desk. Lipsyte states sexual abuse by male prisoner's mother contributed to his becoming a rapist.

Convicted rapist (face darkened to protect identity) speaking with unseen unknown interviewer about being sexually abused by his mother.

African American male (shot from behind to protect identity), convicted rapist serving 15 year sentence (as narrated by Lipsyte), sitting at table with woman taking notes.

African American male prisoner, darkened so as not to reveal identity, talking about his experience growing up with no affection.

Back to self-defense training. woman pinned to the ground by male in helmet - practice in boxing ring, recreating "rape" scenario as others watching.

INTERVIEW

Robert Lipsyte 14:24
We're back with Elizabeth Holtzman and Susan scenarios and Michael Kimmel. Susan, you work with primarily with with rape victims. Did you have any feelings of emotion or even sympathy for the perpetrators in that tape?

Susan Xenarois 14:39
Well, I I think we need some perspective. I it's true. I think what that tape brings out is that there's a high percentage of inmates of rapists that we know of that have histories of sexual abuse in their lives. My concern, you know, with these two rapists, and interviewing is That, even though to women may have been contributing to their lack of self esteem and their anger and their rage toward women, most children who are sexually abused or abused or neglected do not become rapists. And and I think that we need to look at and keep that perspective in sight, because that does concern me. And I think that's a dangerous statistic and a dangerous issue.

Robert Lipsyte 15:26
The dangerous to do that no, no, I understand that the danger being that the fact that these two men may have been brutalized by women, gives an excuse to their brutalizing other words,

Susan Xenarois 15:36
I think it is used, and I think that we know that violence is intergenerational, and there is a continuum of violence, and there was a cycle of violence. It's learned behavior. And I think we know that much. Now.

Robert Lipsyte 15:48
I understand what you're saying. But let me let me ask that question again. Did you have any particular feeling of sympathy for them? And second of all, did you see any value in this attempt to rehabilitate them?

Susan Xenarois 15:59
I did not have that much sympathy for them personally. But that I think is my bias. I do not think we rehabilitate Well, you know, there are a number of sex offender programs and treatment programs throughout the country. And and I may be going out on a limb with this, but I do not think that it, we've done it we've succeeded. If we did succeed, we would not have high recidivist rates with rapists. I would like to see if we're going to put money and energy and expertise into sex offenders, I would like to see it directed toward children. First time sex offenders with children no matter what age latency age, pre adolescent age, early adolescence, I'm not so sure we can really rehabilitate adult sex offenders

Robert Lipsyte 16:42
before we move on, what would you have done with those two would you keep, just keep them in jail, and not spend money on the 12 therapists and

Susan Xenarois 16:52
there's been a lot of money spent. And indeed, many of these people and treatment programs do come out much earlier than their sentencing time. And they do get parole earlier. We're talking not just social issues and societal issues, we're also talking interest, psychic issues of pathology. And every rapist has a different pathology and a different story. We can't control them after they're out of prison. We just our program just experienced three women who were victimized in a park by serial rapist who was on work release, for instance, and a price prisoner. So we have and I think people in our field have a lot of skepticism with our system

Robert Lipsyte 17:34
. Is that anecdotal? Liz is is there a pattern of risks? I can't even say that word. Is there a pattern of rapists repeating?

Elizabeth Holtzman 17:44
Sure. rapists often commit serial rapes. And we have many, many unfortunately, tragic situations where one man will go out and rape many, many women and not only rape them, but torture them in other ways, brutalized them in other ways, stab them, shoot them. They may be killings involved. You're talking about very brutal, very dangerous people.

Robert Lipsyte 18:09
What value do you see in rehabilitation or that kind of rehabilitation?

Elizabeth Holtzman 18:13
Well, I agree that we need to start young. Maybe if we considered rape a series of crimes it is we would spend much more time in the society, paying attention to research on how to deal with it. Maybe there are no answers. But we don't have adequate programs for young people look at what happens in family court when I first became da, juvenile offenders would go out on probation if they were I mean, 12 year olds or 13 year old 12 11 years will go out on probation. Because there were no programs for them. Maybe we have one program in New York City to deal with them. We have an astronomical increase in the Lisa reporting of teenage sex abuse. So obviously, our so our criminal justice institutions and haven't begun to respond adequately,

Robert Lipsyte 18:56
well, in terms of starting early is is there. This is a reach perhaps Is there a profile? I mean, other than a young male being sexually abused, is there a profile of someone who will become a rapist?

Susan Xenarois 19:14
I can give you one. Okay. Recently, we had a case of an eight year old boy, who ain't only penetrated a kindergartener in a school. And because of the age of the eight year old perpetrator and this is a young child, an eight year old is young analy penetrating and sodomizing a kindergartner, there was no doubt that this did not happen. We do know that this child has experienced some sort of sexual violence. He knew what to do this is learned behavior. Yet there was no place this was not going into court. There were really no treatment facilities for him other than a mental health. And and there was no way to assure that the family was also going to get treatment.

INTERVIEW CONTINUES:

Robert Lipsyte 19:56
And there was no reason to think that anything was going to happen after That's correct. And so Except that it would probably happen

Susan Xenarois 20:01
again. Now this is a profile of a young boy that I can see that with the message to him at that point is that's okay, that behavior is okay. And nothing's going to happen.

Robert Lipsyte 20:11
Michael, let me pass that back on to you. In terms of that, that, that profile who who are we looking at?

Michael Kimmel 20:17
I think that there are two, there are two questions in that question. The first is the psychological profile. And I think that there is some evidence that there is the cycle of violence, and that that tends to be intergenerationally reproduced, but I don't think we can stop there. I think that the the social profile, this the cultural profile, if you will, is that we live in a culture that supports and condones and accepts this. When you asked earlier, us, Susan, what her emotion was when she was watching that I thought, well, maybe you'd asked me that. So I thought I'd tell you. My emotion was not so much what when I watched the rapist, but when I was listening to the women talk about their experience, and I felt an overwhelming sense of shame that I live in a culture in which this kind of systematic destruction of women's lives happens. That last woman, particularly was particularly poignant talking about feeling annihilated. And I thought to myself, what is it that makes men so angry at women, that they would seek to do this? Because none of the rapists that we heard interviewed and very few rapists, in fact, who are working victim rapists, talk about feeling lost, and that's why they committed the rape. Both of those men said they felt rage, they felt anger, they said that they felt they felt like like pieces of dirt, they felt powerless. Now, I think that's the cultural profile. We live in a culture in which men are in fact in power, in which men have power over women. And yet, most men individually feel utterly powerless. And it's in that space between the expectation of being powerful, and the feeling of powerlessness, that I think a lot of men get very angry at women, very angry in general. And I think that that, in fact, provokes a lot of the rape as retaliation or revenge.

Robert Lipsyte 22:06
Also, maybe I hear you also saying that and stop me if I'm using this word incorrectly. But there's a kind of a psychic rape by, by more powerful men, on other men, whether it's in their jobs or exploitation. And in a sense, they're they're passing this this rape on, in fact,

Michael Kimmel 22:23
let's just take a look at what the common denominator is, in the glenridge. case, as well as the Central Park case, we're talking about gang rape, we're not only talking about individual rapists, what is it about those gang rapes, it's about male bonding, it is about the experience of young adolescent boys demonstrating their manhood not even with the woman as much as with each other. think

Robert Lipsyte 22:44
of when you think it's sexual among the boys as well as social,

Michael Kimmel 22:47
I think that there is what I would call a homo social element in there. That's what male bonding is about whether there's an erotic component in that or not, I don't want to speculate. But I do think that homo sociality, proving to other other boys that you are in fact a real man that you're more of a man than they are. Think of the consequences for a minute, if any one of those boys in Central Park says, This is not a good idea, I want to go home now. I don't like this idea. In fact, the response the responses, these would be such ferocious, such ferocious as to the person who said that it might let the woman off the hook for a minute. I think I think we you and I could experience that in an everyday level. If we're walking down the street, and we watch a woman being verbally harassed on the street. Imagine if you were to say to those man, Hey, guys, leave her alone. I don't think she likes this. She can, you can see she's really uncomfortable and afraid. Think about the ways in which those men would then turn on you. So I think there's two things going on, aside from the actual rape. There's the male bonding of the men, and the terrorism that some men use over others. And secondly, there's the complicity, that that everyday men experience because we feel powerless to stop it. Because we know what the consequences will be.

Robert Lipsyte 24:05
Which which leads us all perhaps to the question of education. How do you teach men that this is, you know, totally inappropriate behavior? How do you teach men not to rape?

Susan Xenarois 24:18
Well, it's interesting, we're just going into the high school and junior high schools now and doing workshops and sensitivity groups with students. And it's and it's fascinating to me, because we are really understanding more and more how ingrained and deeply seated these old social myths and value systems are. And, and I think that what we're really saying is that we've got a long job ahead of us. We still have the majority of junior high school and high school kids saying that the girls saying, if he paid for me, and if I'm in his girl, then he can do what he wants to me sexually and I have no rights.

Robert Lipsyte 24:57
That's very discouraging, because that's 50's that's what I came out, Michael used the word, shame. He felt some shame list. And what has always struck me is that and I'm sure this has passed through your office, that rapists don't feel shame. Yet the victim so often feel shame and the fact that newspapers don't print her name to protect her in a sense protects her from shame. I mean, it's not even her shame.

Elizabeth Holtzman 25:24
Well, I'm not sure that rapists don't feel shame. They many cases they don't feel any remorse, they have no understanding that they hurt somebody. These cases, they seem to indicate that they knew they were hurting somebody. But in many cases, they feel there's also the myth that women really want violence, they want to be raped, that women want to be degraded. I think the point that was made before that rape is not an act is only surface a sexual act is really an act of humiliation and degradation. I think for us to begin to get attitudes that deal with women, as full human beings in this society and also deal with attitudes in which men can prove themselves without having to subordinate degrade another human being that they can prove their validity without violence without putting somebody else to have. Those are very deep and tough issues.

Robert Lipsyte 26:15
And where would you Where would you start? Oh,

Elizabeth Holtzman 26:16
I think you have to start everywhere. To start with textbooks in schools, you have to start with images on TV, you have to start with more women in political office to help to begin to develop an agenda. You have to go throughout the society.

Robert Lipsyte 26:32
Do you think there's any possibility if indeed, the statistics are true, and that there there is more rape? That it is a reaction to the women's movement to a reaction to women more, there are more women in political life? There are more women as role models, there are more women in business and in the media?

Elizabeth Holtzman 26:53
Barely I don't see that as a reaction to that at all. I don't think it's a political I don't think it's political. In that sense. I think it's very fundamental in terms of their own personal identity. But we what we really need to ask is what makes men feel so powerless in the society and therefore need to assert themselves in this way. And one of the factors in our culture that encouraged them to assert that sense of power against women and an enemy's avans is a society that condones violence in many, many ways. Whether I mean absence of gun control laws, Rambo, western movies, we glorify violence, it's deeply ingrained. But what we see now is that how much this feeling towards violence is the approval of violence turns against women. It's a way of allowing particularly young boys in many cases to prove their manhood

Robert Lipsyte 27:41
and as you said earlier, it also allows rape is not such a critical crime. Thank you very much for being with us. This is the 11th hour. I'm Robert Lipsyte.

Show credits over Eleventh Hour graphics.

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