A biomedical view of mass rape

A joint fact-finding team on the mid-May riots, known by its acronym TGPF, has announced its final report saying, among other things, that rape and other kinds of sexual assault did take place during the rioting. This is the second of two articles prepared by Wimpie Pangkahila, a professor at the School of Medicine of the Udayana University in Bali, an andrologist and sexologist, who discusses characteristics of rape.

DENPASAR, Bali (JP): Rape victims will usually undergo aftermath effects, both physically and psychologically.

Physical effects may be torn genital organs and other parts of the body, hemorrhages, infections, sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy. Much worse, rape may end in murder.

The psychological effects that a rape victim has to undergo, which may last years or even throughout life, may come in three phases, namely the acute reaction phase, the post-traumatic phase and the recovery phase.

In the first phase, the victim is shocked, frightened and emotionally shattered. Also she will be a disbelieving person. She will feel at the same time shame, anger, guilt and humiliation raging inside her. She will suffer more if in this phase she begins to show symptoms of a sexually-transmitted disease.

After a few weeks in this first phase, the victim will enter the post-traumatic phase, which will last between a few weeks and several months.

In this phase, a victim will try to communicate with her family and friends. She may try to do her regular activities and lead her normal life. However, deep in her heart, she is still in the grip of her fear and nightmare. Things will get worse if in this phase the victim finds out that she is pregnant. In case of pregnancy, it is almost certain that the victim will opt for abortion.

The final phase is the phase for recovery. How long this phase will last will largely depend on the age of the victim, her personality, the support she has, the handling of the rape case itself and the way people in her immediate surroundings treat her.

In this phase, she is frequently haunted by her recollection of the past and her nightmares. She will be afraid when alone and have difficulty in sleeping. She also cannot easily trust men and will be afraid of any sexual activities.

Furthermore, when she is married, she may not enjoy her sexual life because of sexual dysfunction such as the loss of sexual drive, dyspareunia (pain when performing sexual intercourse) and vaginismus (abnormal stiffness of the muscles around the vagina). The effects that a rape victim must go through are really horrible.

A mass rape victim will find these effects more tormenting because mass rape is generally gang rape, especially if it is orchestrated for certain objectives.

Rape victims need physical and psychological treatment in proportion to the effects they have to bear. Then this treatment must be followed up by measures to deal with new effects which may emerge later in accordance with the phases they go through. Such victims need special attention and empathy. Therefore, they must be professionally handled.

Rapists may be distinguished in five groups;

* Men who are intellectually disturbed or undergo disturbance of their consciousness, such as mental retardation, psychosis or being under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

* Men with disturbances in socialization and learning processes.

* Men with personal disturbances.

* Men with neurosis or deviation.

* Normal men (usually perpetrators of statutory rape).

It must be noted that a rape perpetrator is not a hypersexual person.

When committing rape, most rapists will undergo sexual dysfunction in the form of erection dysfunction (27 percent), early ejaculation (5 percent) and hampered ejaculation (26 percent). Cases of hampered ejaculation are very seldom found.

The high percentage of hampered ejaculation shows that a sexual reaction is hampered by the component of power or anger.

This sexual dysfunction shows that rape is not an act mainly prompted by a sexual urge; that the absence of sperm during an examination of the victim shows that it is caused by hampered ejaculation or serious early ejaculation phenomenon; and that erection dysfunction may not enable the penetration of the penis into the vagina. The victim, nevertheless, will suffer from the effects of the rape because she has undergone sexual violence.

From an examination of the 21 rape victims, it was found that 11 of them had their hymen intact. This shows that forcible sexual intercourse did not really take place. The rapists might suffer from sexual dysfunction when raping their victims. Still, the victims suffered from the effects of the rape because they underwent sexual violence. As for the remaining 10 victims, they had their genital organs slightly hurt.

With respect to rape cases, particularly in the category of mass rape, the following must be considered and discussed;

* The legal definition of rape is sexual violence accompanied by the penetration of the penis into the vagina.

According to research, 27 percent of rapists undergo erection dysfunction and 5 percent early ejaculation, so penis penetration may not be possible at all. So, if the legal definition is the only guideline, in this case there is no rape. In fact, the victim has undergone the same treatment and believes that she has been raped and has to bear all the effects.

* As science and technology in the medical area have made a lot of progress, the likelihood of a rapist using a certain drug or the provision of certain drugs to rapists by a certain group orchestrating mass rape must be taken into consideration. Under the influence of certain drugs, sexual intercourse accompanied by violence, hatred and anger may take place.

To reveal a rape case, especially one of mass rape, professional help from doctors and psychologists must be sought because this may be the only hope for the victims.

An a-priori attitude demanding a victim as evidence, if necessary a victim still hysterically groaning and crying, is not a correct attitude and will only obstruct exposure.

The writer is professor at the School of Medicine of the Udayana University, an andrologist and sexologist.

Window: To reveal a rape case, especially one of mass rape, professional help from doctors and psychologists must be sought because this may be the only hope for the victims.