Police Interview Shows How Rapists Think

“I am not a rapist. I am a good guy.”By Naomi LaChance

Raymond Gates, an Ohio man who was sentenced to nine years in prison for the rape of a 17-year-old, tried to explain his crime away by blaming everything but himself.

Raymond’s police testimony highlights common ways that perpetrators try to shed blame for their crimes. A Periscope video, livestreamed by 18-year-old Marina Lonina, showed the young woman yelling “no, it hurts so much,” “please stop,” and “please no,” according to police documents provided to Teen Vogue. Lonina was sentenced to nine months in prison for obstructing justice.

“It was consensual,” Raymond told Columbus, Ohio Police Detective Brent Close, according to a police interview summary.

“She tells me, ‘Yes, everything’s cool.’ She’s cool with making out. She’s cool with us getting naked. She’s cool with us being there, Then all of a sudden, you know, a couple of seconds before… I mean, I’m sure. That’s what happens, girls are like ‘Oh. It’s just going to hurt’ and stuff like that,” Raymond said.

He added: “She just got, like, last second. Like, ‘I don’t want to do this.’ Then we started doing it and everything was cool.”

“This girl came back to my house, she’s eighteen, she’s a virgin. She’s telling me she wants to lose her virginity, man, like that she’s ready to do it and everything. And then right a couple seconds before, and she’s like ‘I don’t know,’ and stuff like that. I mean, that’s how girls get when they lose their virginity,” Raymond said, according to the interview summary.

“I am not a rapist. I am a good guy. I have only been with a few women. I am not a rapist,” he said in a police interrogation video.

“After I’m inside of her she’s like stop. I’m already inside of her at that point, man,” he continues. “It hurts when a girl gets her virginity taken… [this accusation] is news to me, buddy.”

For anti-rape activists, there is no valid excuse Raymond could have provided. “You can say no, and no means no, and it’s over. You’re breaking the law by continuing when someone says no,” said Alison Berke Morano, a co-founder of The Affirmative Consent Project.

“When it came down to it, she said no,” said Brian Pinero, vice president of victim services at RAINN, an anti-sexual assault organization. “No matter what was going on before, the response to having intercourse was no.”

The victim told police that after the rape, she cried as Raymond spooned her. Before she left, she asked him why he had assaulted her. He told her that “he did not know what taking a girl’s virginity was like and he thought she was okay with it,” according to the police document.

By bringing up the woman’s sexual inexperience, Raymond was blaming the victim, Pinero said.

“That’s just a poor excuse to justify actions and it’s not it does not matter what level of experience someone has sexually. It doesn’t matter if it’s their first time or their 20th time having sex, no is no,” he said.

“They’re super common excuses,” writer and activist Jaclyn Friedman said of Raymond’s statements to the police. “What they tell me is he really does not care about her. He wants to find excuses to wipe it away.”

The victim described herself as “very intoxicated” — at one point, she was sitting on the bed, talking to Raymond. She tried to stand but stumbled back. That’s when he got on top of her and began kissing her, according to the police document.

“In general, someone who is slurring their words, stumbling, unable to be coherent, or obviously passed out, is too drunk to consent. Additionally, we often mistake issues of alcohol and consent for being about not knowing how drunk someone is. The reality is that people can use alcohol like a date rape drug,” sex educator Lena Solow wrote in Teen Vogue.

“Most of the time the perpetrators know, they just don’t take it seriously. You hear in this guy’s narrative, he hears her say she doesn’t want to, and he just blows right past it,” Friedman said.

“It’s victim blaming,” Pinero said. “To me it doesn’t matter what’s involved. If the word no is given, it’s over.”

---

7 Ways to Love Your Body After Experiencing Rape

“There’s no amount of time you have to wait to be sexual.”

STAY SAFE

A year or so ago if you typed Women are Boring into the Internet the results would probably make you weep. Forums about how boring and stupid women are, a #womenareboring trend on twitter, and endless articles from mainstream media publications with titles such as ‘What Men find boring about Women’. However, thanks to the work of two PhD students, this terrifying tide of search-engine results has finally been changed. 

And you thought Indian women form the most docile lot, who seldom choose to talk about their sexual gratification or the lack of it? Well, looks like you’ve just been proven wrong!
According to Dr. Nisha Khanna, a leading psychologist, marriage counselor and a relationship expert, more and more women are coming out of the closet about their sexual dissatisfaction, specially the married ones. We spoke with the doctor, who has been working over the years with couples to help them put their marriages back together and the revelations about the sexual frustrations of Indian women were absolutely startling!

According to Khanna, most Indian women have started complaining about lack of sex, since the busy careers of their husbands/partners are not leaving them with enough time for sex and because women are well aware of orgasms and epitome of sexual satisfaction, they are not ready to compromise anymore.

“I’ve had various couples walking into my clinic, who’ve not even consummated their marriage properly. Some of the newlyweds haven’t had sex more than 10 times in the span of one year, that’s alarming and women in these marriages are anything but happy.

Dr. Khanna attributes this sexual discontent mainly to the fact that an increased number of Indian men are seeking emotional enrichment in their marriages and because they are leading busy lives, they are opting for an emotional connect over a sexual one.
As per Khanna, lack of sex is one of the main reasons some Indian women have started initiating extramarital affairs because their husbands are not able to fulfill their carnal desires.

“When men fail to devote time to their wives, the better halves start feeling ignored and some of them even go to the extent of avenging the ignorance by beginning affairs with men, who are half their age. The best part- these women make sure the husbands get to know about it. What’s more, when their male partners follow the same route, these very women have the double standard of not approving the illicit affairs of their respective partners,” Dr. Nisha was quoted as saying, while explaining the extent to which Indian women are ready to go to pleasure themselves.

As per Khanna, women are living in fictitious world and are seemingly getting obsessed with sexual satiation instead of focusing on what they can do to make their marriage work.

Asked what she suggests to couples, who are on the verge of a divorce due to lack of sex, Khanna quips, “Eventually, the mature partner has to work on to saving the marriage by addressing the unrealistic expectations of their partner. They have to be told that sex is just one ingredient important to the recipe called ‘marriage’ and it’s not the only important ingredient.”