2.3. THE CAUSES OF SEXUAL OFFENCES
2.3.4 Media coverage
Byrne and Taddeo (2019) state that Television (TV) and media at large, but especially TV (movies) are filled with scenes of pornography and women being threatened, raped, beaten, tortured and murdered. Such regular coverage and people’s exposure to such often brutal and insensitive visual imagery with pornography and violence has shown to decrease empathy for rape victims, as pornography encourages the objection of women and endorses sexual aggression especially towards women.
According to Hutchful (2020), it appeared that television shows that the increased depiction of violence and sexual explicitness mostly on women tends to result in insensitivity towards females, who become victims of violence and generated a widespread attitude that society is accepting such violence.
Byrne and Taddeo (2019), establish that elementary school children, who watched many hours of violence on television tended to exhibit more aggressive behaviour as teenagers and were more likely to be arrested for criminal acts as adults. Many movies shown on television (or nowadays on social media) are found to be supportive of violence and sexual exploitation of women and by the extent that TV series or movies show virtually no consequences to the violent or domineering behaviour towards women. In most cases, the victims are harmed, and the offenders are not punished, which seems as if the regular exposure of unpunished violence sends a message to viewers that violence is tolerated or even celebrated, where the perpetrators are seen as heroes.
28 2.3.5 Peer pressure and gang groups
Cohen (2020) claims that all of us have to make decisions that will influence the people around us or our own lives and society. Therefore, people constantly need to evaluate their options and make well-considered decision. These decisions can be influenced by various factors, many of which are shared social views and pressures to conform to others’ standards, for example, peer pressure, which is especially prominent among children and adolescents, to be accepted and fit in with in a certain gang or group.
Most forms of sexual violence, such as gang rape, are predominately committed by young men through peer pressure, while sexual aggression is often declared a defining characteristic of being “a man” in most young gangs or groups and it significantly related to the wish to be held in high esteem (Hellmann, 2008).
Abbey, Helmers, Jilani, McDaniel, and Benbouriche (2021) examine whether the peers’ attitude towards sexual assault and violation was associated with the likelihood of having committed sexual assault. They found that individuals who perceive their peers as approving of sexual assault are more likely to commit sexual assault themselves. Agreeing with such notion of peers’ influence, Van, Walrave, De Marez, Vanhaelewyn, and Ponnet (2021) reveal that individuals who believed that there was strong peer pressure to encourage or coerce them to engage in sexual activity were also more likely to perpetrate sexual assault at a later stage. This research also suggests that men who associate themselves with sexually aggressive peers are much more likely to report coerced intercourse outside the gang context than men not mixing with sexually aggressive peers.
According to Miller, Tancredi, McCauley, Decker, Virata, Anderson, and Silverman (2012), research on the effects of peer influences on sexual assault perpetration indicates that an individual’s perceptions of his peers’ attitudes and behaviours about sex and sexual aggression are correlated to sexual assault perpetration. This study also found that perceptions of peer approval of forced sex are directly related to sexual assault perpetration.
29 2.3.6 Substance abuse
Finney (2004) acknowledged that there was a strong correlation between alcohol consumption, sexual assault and violence, where most perpetrators become aggressive after the consumption of alcohol and perceive women as sexually arousing and then end up forcing themselves sexually onto a victim, as they want to satisfy their aggressive need. Abbey, Parkhill, Jacques-Tiura and Saenz (2009) emphasise that alcohol increases the chance that a man would incorrectly interpret women as wanting sexual activity and this misinterpretation increases the probability of a sexual assault.
Their research examined the role of alcohol as a facilitator of sexual assault and the results concluded that most participants who consume alcohol perceive themselves and their partners as being more sexually active than they perceive partners who are sober.
Mathews, Jewkes, and Abrahams (2015) confirm that consuming alcohol or drugs tends to make it more difficult for women to protect themselves, as it affects the cognitive and motor skills effectively acting on warning signs. Men who are heavy drinkers in social situations tend to use alcohol consumption as an excuse for their own unacceptable behaviour that contributes to sexual assault. Drinking alcohol and using drugs tends to also place women in settings, where their chances of encountering a potential offender are greater. Alcohol consumption has been linked with assault perpetration through several pathways (Abbey, Zawacki, Buck, Clinton, &
McAuslan, 2001).
2.3.6.1 Alcohol abuse
Read, Colder, Livingston, Maguin, and Egerton (2021) show that research on the role of alcohol consumption in sexual assault perpetration has focused on two different mechanisms, through which alcohol can have an effect: a pharmacological and a psychological effect. Pharmacological mechanisms of alcohol consumption refer to a decrease in cognitive functioning because of alcohol consumption and to a decrease in inhibitions. After consuming alcohol, individuals lose sight of distal cues, such as empathy for the victim and the long-term consequences of their actions. Instead, they tend to focus on more immediate cues, such as sexual arousal, anger, and frustration.
This effect has been theorised to be more likely to occur in men who are predisposed to sexual aggression.
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Psychological mechanisms of alcohol consumption refer to the interaction between the perpetrators’ beliefs about the effects of alcohol on their own behaviour and the pharmacological effects of alcohol. According to Abbey (2011), alcohol can affect how intoxicated individuals interpret the behaviour of others around them to conform to what they want to happen. For example, if an individual is looking to engage in sex, they may interpret a woman’s willingness to dance as an invitation to have sex.