Psychology of Violence

Justifying Sexual Assault: Anonymous Perpetrators Speak

Out Online
Tracy N. Hipp, Alexandra L. Bellis, Bradley L. Goodnight, Carolyn L. Brennan, Kevin M. Swartout,
and Sarah L. Cook
Online First Publication, December 14, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0039998

CITATION
Hipp, T. N., Bellis, A. L., Goodnight, B. L., Brennan, C. L., Swartout, K. M., & Cook, S. L. (2015,
December 14). Justifying Sexual Assault: Anonymous Perpetrators Speak Out Online. Psychology
of Violence. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0039998
 Psychology of Violence © 2015 American Psychological Association
2015, Vol. 6, No. 2, 000 2152-0828/15/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0039998

Justifying Sexual Assault: Anonymous Perpetrators Speak Out Online

Tracy N. Hipp, Alexandra L. Bellis, Bradley L. Goodnight, Carolyn L. Brennan, Kevin M. Swartout,
and Sarah L. Cook
Georgia State University

Objective: Researchers rarely have an opportunity to study first-person narratives of sexual assault
perpetration. Because of a prompt anonymously posted to a popular online community, we were able to
examine perpetrators’ own descriptions of, and justifications for, sexual assault. Method: Thematic
analysis was conducted on a sample of 68 anonymous first-person accounts of sexual assault perpetration
collected from Reddit.com. Results: Themes focus on sexual scripts, victim blame, hostile sexism,
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biological essentialism, objectification, and sociosexuality. Relationships among these themes are de-
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scribed. Conclusion: We contextualize our findings in the empirical literature on sexual assault and in
earlier related feminist theory. Our goal is to use these novel data to further inform research and
prevention efforts, making recommendations for policy and clinical efforts such as clinical intervention
with perpetrators to decrease cognitive distortions of blame.

Keywords: sexual assault, rape, perpetration, perpetrator justifications, online data

On July 26, 2012, a user of the online community Reddit.com
posed the following questions: “Reddit’s had a few threads about
sexual assault victims, but are there any redditors from the other
side of the story? What were your motivations? Do you regret it?”
Within days the thread saw a flurry of activity, including users
anonymously sharing first-hand accounts of sexual assault perpe-
tration. Realizing that these stories could be a unique source of
data from which to gain insight about sexual assault perpetration,
we downloaded the data and began analyzing the accounts. This
article reports findings from a qualitative analysis of anonymous
first-person accounts of sexual assault perpetration posted online.
This approach to studying sexual assault perpetration provides
detailed information about the interpretive lens perpetrators use to
justify their actions. The purpose of this study was to examine the
most salient features of perpetrators’ justifications for sexual as-
sault in a novel sample—Reddit.com users—in contrast to most
qualitative research on sexual violence perpetration that comes
from college student or incarcerated samples.
The question posed on Reddit.com used the phrase “sexual
assault,” a broad legal reference to criminal behavior defined
differently by state and federal laws. Sexual assault can include
behaviors that range from unwanted touching to nonconsensual
penetration, including rape. The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, along with social and behavioral scientists, use the
term sexual violence to describe many of these behaviors: at-
Tracy N. Hipp, Alexandra L. Bellis, Bradley L. Goodnight, Carolyn L.
Brennan, Kevin M. Swartout, and Sarah L. Cook, Department of Psychol-
ogy, Georgia State University.
We thank the undergraduate research assistants with the Violence
Against Women Prevention team who provided support for this project.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Tracy N.
Hipp, Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, P.O. Box
5010, Atlanta, GA 30302-5010. E-mail: thipp1@gsu.edu
tempted or completed sexual acts committed against someone
without their freely given consent, including penetration, forced
penetration, intentional sexual touching, or unwanted noncontact
sexual acts (Basile, Smith, Breiding, Black, & Mahendra, 2014).
Sexual violence is prevalent in women’s lives, yet rates of
sexual violence perpetration come primarily from studies con-
ducted on college campuses (e.g., Abbey & McAuslan, 2004;
Abbey, McAuslan, & Ross, 1998; Koss, Gidycz, & Wisniewski,
1987; Thompson, Swartout, & Koss, 2013). About one quarter of
college men report perpetrating some form of sexual violence
during 4 years at college (Abbey et al., 1998; Koss et al., 1987) and
between 12% and 14% report perpetrating some form of sexual
violence in the past 12 months (Abbey & McAuslan, 2004;
Thompson et al., 2013). Studies using community-based samples
are rare, but between 30% and 50% of men report perpetrating
some form of sexual violence since age 14 (Abbey, Jacques-Tiura,
& LeBreton, 2011; Davis et al., 2012; Senn, Desmarais, Verberg,
& Wood, 2000), with approximately 11% reporting rape or at-
tempted rape (Abbey et al., 2011).
Justifications and Motivations
Between 5% and 15% of male college students report that it is
justifiable to commit rape regardless of the dating activity
(Muehlenhard, Friedman, & Thomas, 1985); others have stated
that a man could assume that a woman wanted to have sex if she
had previously engaged in consensual sexual contact, such as
sexual touching or oral sex (Johnson, Kuck, & Schander, 1997).
Almost 8% believed that a woman who previously had sex with a
man could not claim that she was raped if the same man later had
nonconsensual sex with her (Johnson et al., 1997). Even when
college students largely reject justifications for sexual assault, they
still expect the behavior (Cook, 1995).
Qualitative researchers have interviewed convicted and incar-
cerated perpetrators (Beech, Ward, & Fisher, 2006; Mann & Hol-
lin, 2007; Scully & Marolla, 1984, 1985) and college students
(Lisak & Roth, 1988, 1990) to learn how perpetrators justify their

1
 2 HIPP ET AL.
actions. Incarcerated perpetrators describe being triggered by a
conflict with another woman in their lives (Mann & Hollin, 2007;
Scully & Marolla, 1984). They report being wronged, being under
the influence of drugs or alcohol, or having emotional problems.
Other incarcerated perpetrators blamed their victims—arguing
they were seductresses and meant “yes” when they said “no.”
Some were motivated by revenge and wished to punish women
(Scully & Marolla, 1985). Still for others, impersonal sex—sex
without intimacy or emotion with an acquaintance whom they did
not care about—was attractive, and they enjoyed the adventure.
Sexually motivated perpetrators felt entitled to women. These
perpetrators believed women should always be available and re-
ceptive to sex. Perpetrators motivated by violence held the belief
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that the world was dangerous and they needed to obtain power and
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control over others (Beech et al., 2006).
College men who perpetrated sexual violence but were not
convicted or incarcerated reported hostility toward women,
hypermasculinity, feelings of betrayal and deception by women,
and a need for dominance over women (Lisak & Roth, 1988,
1990). Qualitative research on all-male peer groups (e.g., fra-
ternities or athletic teams) has shown how these groups encour-
age and promote sexual violence (Martin & Hummer, 1989;
Sanday, 2007). Hypermasculinity influences the use of force in
sexual relationships among college men (Schewe, Adam, &
Ryan, 2009), and adolescents use violence to flirt with or to
deescalate conflict with their partners (Foshee, Bauman, Linder,
Rice, & Wilcher, 2007).
Men who engage in sexual aggression tend to hold attitudes that
support violence against women (e.g., Abbey et al., 1998; Carr &
VanDeusen, 2004; Zawacki, Abbey, Buck, McAuslan, & Clinton-
Sherrod, 2003), hostility toward women (e.g., Abbey & McAuslan,
2004; Abbey, McAuslan, Zawacki, Clinton, & Buck, 2001), and
hypermasculinity (e.g., Carr & VanDeusen, 2004; Malamuth,
Linz, Heavey, Barnes, & Acker, 1995; or see Tharp et al., 2013, for
a review). Men who engage in sexual aggression tend to use
alcohol heavily and engage in impersonal sex (Abbey & McAus-
lan, 2004; Abbey et al., 1998, 2001; Malamuth, Sockloskie, Koss,
& Tanaka, 1991).
Men who commit rape are more likely than the general public to
generate reasons why a woman may have deserved to be assaulted
(Burt, 1983). Some researchers interpret these justifications ac-
cording to social norms (Cook, 1995; Goodchilds & Zellman,
1984), which increase men’s proclivity for rape (Bohner, Siebler,
& Schmelcher, 2006). Others frame the issue in terms of sexual
scripts: gendered social norms that guide sexual behavior, fre-
quently leading to victim blaming, objectification of women, and
hostility toward women (Buchwald, Fletcher, & Roth, 2005; Her-
man, 1988; Krahé, Bieneck, & Scheinberger-Olwig, 2007). Both
of these interpretations have components of what some describe as
rape culture.
Over time, populations, and methods of data collection, hostility
toward women and victim blaming have emerged as consistent
predictors of sexual assault or consistent themes in perpetrators’
narratives. In contrast to previous research, this study uses data
from an online community to explore whether—and if so, to what
extent—these predictors/themes emerge naturally in the absence of
a study specifically constructed to examine them.
Online Data Collection
Online communities provide a new avenue for qualitative study
on a range of issues by allowing for the collection of candid user
data on sensitive topics, such as sexual violence (Wilson, Aronson,
& Carlsmith, 2010). The Internet is generally perceived as a
technology that allows anonymous interaction. Social pressures
that lead to conformity in face-to-face interactions are reduced or
completely absent online, resulting in lower inhibition (Suler,
2004) and less susceptibility to social desirability bias (Joinson,
1999). Furthermore, studies of perpetrators that use other forms of
media (e.g., news stories) are subject to bias from the way these
media outlets interpret violent behavior (Dorfman, Woodruff,
Chaves, & Wallack, 1997; Slingerland, Copes, & Sloan, 2006). By
obtaining stories published online directly by perpetrators them-
selves, the data are not subject to the same biases that can exist
when stories about violent offenders are filtered through news
media sources.
The social news website Reddit.com is one of the most popular
online communities in the world today (Duggan & Smith, 2013)
and has already been used as a source of data on sensitive research
topics (De Choudhury & De, 2014). Users submit all website
content in the form of comments or links redirecting visitors to
news articles, images, or videos hosted on other sites. Members
vote on the comments and links, determining the order in which
content is displayed to members of the online community. The
question posted to Reddit.com from which these data were gener-
ated made it to the front page of the website, illustrating the
popularity and visibility of the topic, which ultimately yielded over
12,000 comments.
The Present Study
The sample of narratives used in this study, written by
self-identified perpetrators of sexual assault, were neither re-
cruited from adjudicated nor college populations, although both
may be included here. Furthermore, they were not recruited for
any study based on a specific form of sexual assault or feature
thereof. These data were drawn from anonymous online ac-
counts of sexual assault perpetrators. We cannot characterize
the demographics of this particular sample, yet available demo-
graphics of Reddit users suggest that these data may reflect a
sample potentially more similar to the general population,
rather than from the aforementioned subpopulations that form
the basis of much of what we currently know about sexual
assault perpetration (Duggan & Smith, 2013). Additionally, our
use of qualitative data offers a unique opportunity to study
sexual assault perpetration. Campbell and Townsend (2011)
noted the need for qualitative work to further understand the
language that victims use to describe their sexual assault expe-
riences; we believe that such work is also necessary to under-
stand the language that perpetrators use. To this end, our
thematic analysis seeks to explore the ways in which perpetra-
tors describe justifications for their sexual violence. Our find-
ings may support and further contextualize existing knowledge
about sexual assault perpetration, and these data may also
provide unique insights into understudied aspects of perpetra-
tion.
 JUSTIFYING SEXUAL ASSAULT
Method
Data Collection
On the morning of July 29, 2012, several news outlets published
stories about a controversial Reddit.com thread, which asked users
to share their motivations for perpetrating sexual assault and
whether they regretted their actions (Baker, 2012; Bennett-Smith,
2012). These publications brought a deluge of traffic to the thread
from other websites. We extracted users’ responses after receiving
an expedited approval from our local institutional review board 6
days after the question was initially posed. This publicly available
data did not include personally identifying information, because
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the rules of the Website explicitly prohibit posting personal infor-
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mation. Responses ranged in length from one word to approxi-
mately 2,000 words.
Data Reduction
We reduced our dataset from 12,000 posts to 68 using the
following steps:
1. Given the number of comments, the website displayed
approximately 10% of the posts on the first page of the
thread. Comment order is based on a Reddit sorting
algorithm, which is designed to push the most popular
posts to the top of the thread, indicating that these were
the most commonly viewed responses. We drew our data
from this first page, including only first-generation re-
sponses to the thread. Each response creates a tree, with
the ability to comment on each initial response or to an
ensuing response, creating branches and yielding conver-
sations between Redditors. The first page of data com-
prised 1,128 first-generation responses, with comments
to these first-generation responses ranging in number
from zero to 1,350. The decision to restrict our data
analysis to these first-generation responses was made for
a number of reasons. Project feasibility required that we
draw boundaries around what our dataset comprised. We
also reasoned that comments written in response to oth-
ers’ narratives might qualitatively differ from initial re-
sponses, where users shared their experiences in direct
response to the initial prompt.
2. In an attempt to retrieve a sample less biased by media-
generated interest, we included only first-generation re-
sponses from the first 2 days after the initial question was
posted. Therefore, our dataset of 1,128 was reduced to
779 by removing 349 comments posted 3 or more days
after the original questions were posed.
3. We excluded comments that described first-hand ac-
counts of victimization (n ⫽ 61), second-hand accounts
of victimization or perpetration (n ⫽ 27), cases that
described a combination of first-hand victimization with
a second-hand account (n ⫽ 1), and miscellaneous com-
ments, which did not describe first-hand perpetration
(n ⫽ 577), leaving 113 comments.
3
4. From these remaining 113 comments, we excluded those
that did not describe justification for their actions (n ⫽
19), those that described false accusations rather than
perpetration (n ⫽ 14), those that described child sexual
abuse (n ⫽ 10), and two cases that could not be classi-
fied. The incoherency of one post made it unsuitable for
analysis; the other unclassified post was clearly fictional,
recounting a sexual assault scene from a popular movie.
The remaining 68 narratives were thematically analyzed to
explore how perpetrators justified or made meaning of their ac-
tions.
Data Analysis
We took an inductive approach to thematic analysis (Braun &
Clarke, 2006), relying on themes to emerge from the data rather
than seeking corroboration of prespecified themes within the nar-
ratives. A team of trained and supervised undergraduate research
assistants individually read through all narratives, identifying po-
tential codes and definitions as they went. In line with a group-
based, comparative and consensus approach to coding (Harry,
Sturges, & Klingner, 2005), potential codes and definitions were
discussed and compared at group meetings, resulting in the devel-
opment of a final code list with corresponding definitions. The
same research team, working in teams of two, applied the final
code list to narratives they had not previously analyzed. A separate
team of graduate researchers, trained and experienced in qualita-
tive research methods, conducted a final round of analyses to
independently verify consistency in both code application across
initial coders and code definitions across narratives. Consensus on
the thematic structure was reached between graduate student re-
searchers and a faculty supervisor. Coauthors of the manuscript
further corroborated the structure of the results. All analyses were
conducted within the context of ATLAS.ti version 7.0 qualitative
data analysis software. Because the unit of analysis was the entire
sexual assault narrative, and a large majority of the narratives were
relatively short (e.g., one paragraph), each narrative was treated as
a single text segment. Many narratives described multiple themes
and were coded accordingly. Codes were therefore applied to the
entirety of each person’s response; this allowed for examination of
the relationships among themes at a broad, narrative level.
We report the percentages of each theme below. Percentages
generally illustrate the frequency or commonality of a theme;
however, it is important to note that responses to this thread were
open-ended, and therefore specific details were volunteered rather
than prompted. The absence of a theme from a given narrative does
not ensure that the theme was not reflected in the assault, only that
it was not described by the respondent in their narrative.
Results
Data from this project are rich with themes that hold import for
sexual violence researchers. We focus on the most salient themes
related to perpetrators’ justifications for their sexual assaults, in-
cluding sexual scripts (37%), victim blame (29%), hostile sexism
(24%), biological essentialism (18%), objectification (18%), and
sociosexuality (18%). We discuss each justification theme sepa-
rately before illustrating the relationships among themes. To illus-
 4 HIPP ET AL.
trate each theme, we provide unedited, direct quotations from the
site’s users. Some quotations have been shortened, but quotations
have not been otherwise edited or censored. Therefore, some
respondents use certain words (e.g., rape) to describe behaviors
that do not match commonly accepted definitions, and some share
graphic descriptions of their sexually violent behavior. Addition-
ally, many narratives illustrated multiple themes; consequently,
quotations that are used to illustrate one particular theme may also
depict another theme.
Sexual Scripts
Sexual scripts guide our behavior in intimate or sexual encoun-
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ters, symbolizing what is appropriate, anticipated, or desired. Sex-
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ual scripts are heavily implicated in work on sexual violence (e.g.,
Byers, 1996; Krahé et al., 2007) and were well illustrated within
these data. In the narratives that follow, respondents described
men’s desire for sex, how men are supposed to initiate sex, and
how women are not supposed to desire sex, are supposed to have
weaker sex drives, or resist male partners’ advances. Respondent 6
demonstrated this gendered sexual script when describing how he
coerced his girlfriend into sex after he had already noticed that
she was tired and said they could stop: “I got up and asked if she
wanted to have sex, she says ‘I don’t know’. I say ‘come on, you’re
really hot blah blah blah’ just spitting anything that might get
me some pussy.” Another respondent described misjudging his
casual sex partner’s desire, assuming that she was playing the role
of reserved gatekeeper, “I was horny and I misjudged the girl
completely, thought she was just being reserved” (Respondent 21).
Denial of resistance, one common component of sexual scripts,
is the notion that women actually mean “yes” when they say “no”
to sex (Shotland & Hunter, 1995). This belief is grounded in the
idea that women should be resistant and reserved in sexual inter-
actions and that men should persist in response to a woman’s
resistance. One respondent clearly describes the cultural expecta-
tion that a woman is not supposed to openly want or ask for sex,
that a woman is supposed to resist while a man is supposed to
persist:
She started to say “no i can’t” but in a giggly/playful way. I just kept
kissing her and tried again and she said “I haven’t done this sober in
a long time” . . . At the time I had this impression that girls didn’t want
to be seen as sluts or whores so they would pretend that they didn’t
want to have sex when really they did. And because of the playful/
giggly nature of the way she was saying these things I assumed that’s
what she was doing. . . . (Respondent 21)
Sexual scripts are both gendered and culturally bound. Numer-
ous respondents illustrated sexual scripts, sex as male-driven and
heteronormative, and some respondents’ descriptions of their as-
saults ran counter to those dominant scripts—stories of women
perpetrating sexual assault against men or accounts of sexual
assault between two people of the same gender. The respondents
noted how this altered theirs, and others’, perceptions of the
assault. One female respondent clearly described how others’
interpretations would be affected by her gender:
I got obliterated one time at a party. I mean completely out of my
mind. . . . It took me a solid five or 10 min in my drunken stupor to
realize they had been passed out the whole time . . . When I realized,
I felt fucking sick with myself, and decided to tell them the next
morning. Here’s the thing though, I’m a girl. Immediately upon telling
him this he burst out laughing at me, called me a rapist, and we went
to breakfast with our friends. So in a way, I raped a dude. It scares me
to think how that situation would have played out if the roles were
reversed . . . if I was a guy and had to tell a girl what went down. I
could have been a criminal and a social pariah if I had different
chromosomes, but instead I got free breakfast. (Respondent 3)
One particularly illustrative comment within this series of nar-
ratives showed how cultural scripts in different parts of the world
influence the meaning brought to sexual assault. One respondent
described that, by reading the thread on Reddit, he realized he had
raped his boyfriend.
It’s kinda crazy how in the US, particularly in heterosexual relation-
ships they have such a different view of what rape is. I’m gay and
from a South American country so after reading this thread I realize
that according to an American point of view, I have raped and had
been raped. . . . (Respondent 11)
The respondent goes on to describe penetrating his boyfriend
one night while his boyfriend was passed out. His boyfriend
resisted when he awoke, yet the respondent continued. “After-
wards we never talked about that again, because it didn’t seem to
me and to him like a big deal . . . But I realize now I’m a rapist.”
Victim Blame
Victim blame has been widely studied in the sexual assault
literature; it compounds trauma postassault for survivors while
also normalizing sexualized violence for perpetrators and society
at large (Grubb & Harrower, 2009). Men blamed their victims for
drinking too much, not saying “no” clearly or loudly enough, and
not physically resisting their advances. One respondent described
badgering his girlfriend multiple times, in spite of her repeated
verbal and physical resistance. He describes that she eventually
stopped physically resisting after many attempts. He further de-
scribed not realizing what she was feeling until he found her in
another room crying, “She told me she didn’t want to let me do
what I did, but that my repeated attempts to initiate made her feel
like she didn’t have a choice.” He goes on explaining confusion
over his culpability:
It was as much my responsibility to ensure good communication as it
was hers. Was it sexual assault though? If the phone hadn’t rung at
that moment, would it have been rape? She (albeit nonverbally)
implicitly consented to something she felt she had no choice but to
consent to. She was wrong and she did have a choice, but if she didn’t
realize that in the moment then what difference does it make? (Re-
spondent 29)
Respondents also blamed victims when the victim had flirted
with them or had sex with them previously. They blamed victims
when they had consensual sex with the victim at some point after
the assault occurred. Respondents frequently described the victim
as being overly sexual, suggesting that the victim’s overt sexuality
provided absolution from the assault they described perpetrating.
One respondent wrote at length about how overly sexual his victim
was: “[She] had always been quite flirty . . . rebellious . . . Always
freely talking about sexual desire and experiences. She just had
this unusual sexual way of carrying herself.” The respondent
described how sexual she was, including how she had gotten in
 JUSTIFYING SEXUAL ASSAULT
trouble for engaging in oral sex with another student at school. The
respondent describes these features in far greater detail than the
actual assault: “It was a lot of these unnecessarily sexual com-
ments/acts that really bother me now.” He describes being in a
darkroom with her at school:
Then I remember back to the boy she got in trouble with, I ask if she’d
want to blow me. She’s hesitant, but I lay out some smoother talking
. . . before I had finished, she starts saying she’d like to stop and that
she’s getting dizzy. Not thinking much of it, I jokingly reply with
‘You’d probably be less dizzy on your knees’ given that she had been
bending over until this point. (Respondent 9)
Hostility
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Forbes, Adams-Curtis, and White (2004) defined hostile sexism
as a specific indignation and disparagement directed toward
women. Respondents illustrated hostile sexism in a number of
contexts. Respondent 55 recounted raping an unconscious woman
so violently that she limped the next day. He also described his
anger at her vomiting after the assault: “She threw up in my bed.
I was pissed . . . so I literally tossed her aside. . . .” He demon-
strates further hostility describing the next morning when the
group went for breakfast:
The chick was being very distant . . . Almost like she ‘knew’ what
went down. She apologized for puking . . . [and told everyone] she
didn’t remember anything after the bar. The roommate pointed out
how weird she was acting and how uncomfortable she looked . . . I
think she knew exactly what had gone down. She kept it a secret from
our ‘group’ for whatever reason. Good on her. I would’ve flat out
denied it. Anytime we mentioned that night again I’d just be like ‘ugh,
fucking girl puked in my room.’ (Respondent 55)
Another respondent described how he enjoyed the first time he
anally raped his wife of 20 years and now repeats the act every
year. His hostility is illustrated not only in his description of the
pain he knows he inflicts on her annually, but also in the knowl-
edge that he treats her worse each year, and further by joking about
the event in spite of the love he says he feels for her.
She doesn’t mention it after, ever, even if I joke that I enjoyed raping
her. I like the experience so I repeat it every year. . . . Every year I
treat her worse and worse in between . . ., but I very much love her,
just doesn’t seem like the inner emotions match what I physically
want. (Respondent 54)
Biological Essentialism
Biological essentialism was a salient theme that emerged in
perpetrators’ justifications for their behavior. One Redditor encap-
sulated this theme with a brief phrase: “An erect dick has no
conscience” (Respondent 15). MacKinnon (2005) described essen-
tialist notions of sex as being biologically deterministic, meaning
that one’s physiology, such as their hormones, drives their actions,
thoughts, and feelings. Respondents who described biological es-
sentialism denied personal responsibility, placing it on their biol-
ogy—specifically their hormones. Statements such as, “I don’t
know what my motives were, I guess I was just really horny”
(Respondent 25) and “My hormones were going insane” (Respon-
dent 4) were embedded throughout perpetrators’ narratives. In the
excerpt below, the respondent describes how he will educate his
5
daughter, because she needs to understand the dangers of men’s
uncontrollable sexuality.
When my daughter is old enough, I’m going to have a very frank
conversation on male–female relations of the sort that I do not think
most girls get. Most girls do not really understand how horny guys
are, how much stronger guys are, how guys will rationalize what they
do. . . . (Respondent 15)
This biological essentialism and narratives suggesting that per-
petrators cannot help themselves because their hormones drive
their sexual behavior, consensual or not, often placed responsibil-
ity to prevent sexual assault on women. Respondent 15 (from
above) wrote of his own perpetration: “I was extremely horny . . .
so I ignored her and did it. She realized what was happening and
tried to clamp her legs shut, but it was too late and I was much
stronger than her. . . .” This respondent clearly described noncon-
sensual sex that he obtained through physical force, but finds some
solace planning to alert a future daughter to the perils of men’s
biology.
Respondent 4 described an encounter with a good friend that
started consensually before the friend began to have flashbacks to
previously being raped:
She was having a flashback from her father raping her. I remember
pulling off her and she kept crying. I then do remember doing
something I’m probably most ashamed of is asking her to finish me
off, more begging for it. My hormones were going insane, I didn’t
have any empathy in my heart at that moment just my own
concerns. . . . (Respondent 4)
One respondent who described several instances of assaulting
women from his teen years into his mid-twenties stated, “I felt I
just had to touch her . . .” and “I just needed to touch her and see
her tits out. . . .” He described feeling out of control with “I have
no idea what was going through my head. Just images and urges”
and “I was really drunk and horny.” He described wishing some-
one would have stopped him yet also stated, “I looked at her and
just saw something I would regret not trying for . . . I told my dad.
He was not of any help, just told me not to tell my mom or my
sisters because they wouldn’t understand” (Respondent 12). This
respondent illustrates how men are socialized to perceive that their
hormones control their behavior, and that this is a uniquely gen-
dered experience that a woman would not understand.
Objectification
Theorists describe sexual objectification as the process of sep-
arating some aspect of a woman (e.g., parts of her body) from
herself, reducing those aspects to objects or functions that are
capable of representing her as a person. Furthermore, her value or
desirability becomes attached to this symbolism or function, which
exists for the pleasure of men (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). She
is no longer an entire person unto herself; for Respondent 9, she
becomes a number that he assigns to her, symbolizing her worth
via her physical desirability: “The thing was she was quite attrac-
tive as well, short, blonde, well endowed, pretty eyes. Not neces-
sarily a perfect 10, but very good looking.” Others objectified their
victims by reducing them to things. For some respondents, the
things these women represented were simply sexual objects, “my
personal fuck-box” for Respondent 55 and for Responded 53, all of
 6 HIPP ET AL.
his sexual partners merely represented sex toys to him: “[I used]
what I knew about them to trust me then used them as my sex
toys.” Respondent 3 depersonalized his victim, turning her from a
whole person into a mere tool: “She wasn’t a person anymore just
a path, a tool, a means to an end.”
Sociosexuality
In addition to perpetrators describing their victims as objects,
depersonalizing or dehumanizing them, they also described what
some have referred to as unrestricted sociosexuality (Mousilo &
Calhoun, 2011), which is conceptually similar to the construct of
impersonal sex (e.g., Malamuth et al., 1995). This construct rep-
resents the desire for multiple sex partners, sex outside of the
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context of a relationship, or sex for personal physical gratification
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
rather than intimacy. In Respondent 55’s post, he describes raping
a roommate’s colleague while she was unconscious, obviously
demonstrating no desire for a personal connection. “Roommate’s
coworker passed out . . . she was completely unresponsive. I . . .
climbed into bed . . . I started rubbing her and touching her . . . I
laid her on her back and took off her pants . . . She was still out of
it. . . .”
His sole focus was personal physical gratification, which was
apparent in his detailed explanation of the various ways he as-
saulted her:
I basically used her as my personal fuck-box . . . she was just dead
weight. Basically I tried to throatfuck her . . . She resisted by just
tilting her head out of the way . . . She could barely open her eyes.
Then she threw up . . . and fell into a fetal position . . . I just wanted
to finish so I started jackhammering. (Respondent 55)
Another user also described sociosexuality in his desire for a
particular type of sex with a number of different women.
Being a moderately good looking guy with a ton of Charisma I never
had an issue getting what I wanted from women. It became boring to
me. Both in the sense of how easy it was and vanilla sex just was not
cutting it.
He went on to describe how the particular sex acts he desired
could be most easily obtained from women who had previously
been raped:
Through a bit of trial and error I found that girls who were raped were
far more likely to do them . . . required some manipulation of their
insecurities from their rape. One by one I went down the list, sleeping
with them using what I knew about them to get them to trust me then
using them as my sex toys. I did this to almost 3 dozen girls before it
became boring and I moved on to other stuff. (Respondent 53)
Relationships Among Themes
Sexual scripts emerged as a superordinate theme, framing many
of the narratives. The relationships among these themes are illus-
trated in numerous accounts above, for example, Respondent 21,
who is quoted under the thematic heading sexual scripts, illustrated
the relationship among sexual scripts and biological essentialism
within his account: “I had this impression that girls didn’t want to
be seen as sluts or whores so they would pretend that they didn’t
want to have sex when really they did . . . my motivations were the
fact that I was horny and I misjudged the girl completely, thought
she was just being reserved.”
Biological essentialism was often described in narratives that
also included objectification and victim blame. Respondent 4
illustrated the relationship between biological essentialism and
objectification when he described how his “hormones were going
insane” and therefore, even though his sex partner was having
traumatic flashbacks from a previous rape, he coerced her into
continuing. She was no longer human to him: “She wasn’t a person
anymore just a path, a tool, a means to an end.”
Respondent 15, the same respondent who described how he
would educate his daughter on the dangers of men, because “An
erect dick has no conscience,” illustrated the relationship between
biological essentialism and victim blame. He described being
“extremely horny” but ignoring her verbal and physical resistance,
even when she “tried to clamp her legs shut.” He goes on to
describe later accounts with the same victim where “she didn’t say
no, but she seemed uncomfortable.” He emphasizes that “Most
girls don’t really understand how horny guys are . . .” and de-
scribes the importance of what women need to know and do to
avoid rape.
Respondent 55 depicted hostility toward the colleague he bru-
tally raped while she was passed out, having no interest in anything
but his personal desire, treating her as an object or tool to be used
for his physical pleasure. In his singular account he illustrates the
relationships among objectification, sociosexuality, and hostility.
Lastly, Respondent 46 depicted the relationship between hostility
and victim blame in his account of raping a woman he had picked
up in a bar:
Yes, I’ve done it and I do not regret it. She led me on all night, and
then told me to stop at the point of no return. Picked her up at a bar,
bought her drinks, took her home with me. We do some foreplay and
then she tells me that she should really get going because she made a
huge mistake. Well too fucking bad. I wasted the last 5 hours baiting
this fish, and now it wants to escape. Nope. Lol.
Discussion
This study provides insights into perpetrators’ justifications for
sexual assault by examining their first-person narratives posted
anonymously online. Using qualitative analysis, we examined the
ways respondents described their experiences and their motiva-
tions, allowing themes to emerge naturally and unprompted. Re-
spondents justified their actions by citing sexual scripts (e.g., men
are supposed to push for sex, women are supposed to resist) and
blaming their victims (e.g., “she led me on all night”). Respon-
dents described being motivated by their hostility toward women,
their uncontrollable hormones (biological essentialism), and an
unrestricted desire for casual sex (sociosexuality). These justifica-
tions and motivations that emerged from the narratives were in-
terrelated, with sexual scripts encompassing many of the other
themes. The results illustrate perpetrators’ reliance on sexual
scripts that contribute to victim blaming, objectification of women,
and hostility toward women—all components of what some de-
scribe as rape culture (Buchwald et al., 2005; Herman, 1988).
These accounts also illustrate the impersonal sex and hostility
implicated in causal models of sexual aggression (Malamuth et al.,
1995; Malamuth, Heavey, & Linz, 1996) and described in other
qualitative research (Beech et al., 2006; Scully & Marolla, 1984,
1985). Although some of this work is two or three decades old,
respondents at the time of the thread described their desire to
 JUSTIFYING SEXUAL ASSAULT
control the sexual encounter and by extension, their victims, de-
scribing their assault in terms of power and control and their
victims as objects for sex rather than human beings. Some of the
respondents reduced those they assaulted to an object— his “own
personal fuckbox” and a “sex toy,” “using” and “tossing aside”
their victims. Respondents’ hostility is apparent in descriptions,
such as one respondent’s account of how yearly, on the same day,
he torments his wife by ignoring her protests as he anally rapes her
and later jokes about his enjoyment.
Currently, researchers are seeking to understand the heteroge-
neity of perpetrators and more advocates are conceptualizing sex-
ual assault perpetration as due in part to inadequate conversations
around consent. However, there are still deeply troubling under-
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lying cultural norms and values that perpetuate violence against
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
women that will need to be addressed. Perpetrators in this sample
blame their biology, suggesting that their hormones control their
behavior. They blame their victims, pointing to their sexual be-
havior or saying “no” but meaning “yes”, to absolve them of
responsibility. Yet they also still describe objectification and hos-
tility toward women, consistent with the confluence model of
sexual assault perpetration. The hostile masculinity personality
profile described by the confluence model (Malamuth et al., 1991)
describes sexual assault perpetration as the result of a hostile,
dehumanizing attitude toward women provoking the use of coer-
cive tactics to obtain sexual conquest. The anger, hostility, and
defensiveness depicted in our dataset certainly demonstrate a neg-
ative attitude toward women, including the denigration of all
women and the minimization of the feelings and experiences of
individual women.
Limitations
Because of the anonymous online nature of these data, we
cannot describe our sample characteristics and therefore cannot
speak to the transferability of these findings (Miles, Huberman, &
Saldaña, 2014). The online nature of these data may also call into
question the transferability of these findings, begging the question
of whether or not posting such accounts anonymously online could
encourage sensationalizing the events or otherwise stretching the
truth. Although this could be a limitation, we suspect that ano-
nymity allowed for more candid responses from a potentially more
heterogeneous group of perpetrators, offering unique insights into
the topic. Rather than “showing off,” many respondents seemed to
be disclosing something that they felt remorse or confusion over—
described further in the Research Implications section below. Such
comments lend further validity to the suspicion that users may
have felt freer to disclose their perpetration account online (and
anonymously) than in other ways.
We had no control over the prompt that began the Reddit thread,
no opportunity to probe for clarification to posts, and no option to
conduct follow-up interviews. For feasibility, we only analyzed
initial responses to the thread. Comments, or the branches that
resulted from these initial responses, were not analyzed here.
There are likely many important narratives embedded in comments
and discussions stemming from first-generation responses, which
is an exciting future step in the life of this project. Narratives
varied in length, with some providing extensive context regarding
an event and some succinctly, yet clearly, describing an instance of
sexual assault.
7
Research Implications
Additional research is needed to corroborate the ways these
perpetrators justified and made meaning of their sexually violent
behavior. Specifically, research is needed to investigate perpetra-
tors’ belief in biological essentialism and objectification as justi-
fications for sexual assault. These are theories not commonly seen
in contemporary discourse on sexual violence, but are potentially
important as we move forward in prevention efforts.
It was not our aim to investigate respondents’ motivations for
posting their accounts of perpetration to the website, yet many
users described wanting to “get this off my chest,” asked for
others’ perceptions of whether their story constituted assault,
hoped that their story would help someone else, or acknowledged
feeling better having disclosed what they had done. If perpetrators
feel less constricted by desirability characteristics through provid-
ing anonymous, online accounts of their behavior, researchers may
uncover a different landscape worthy of exploration. Authentic
accounts of sexual assault perpetrators are essential to ensure that
the variables we study are indeed key elements of perpetrators
experiences and justifications for their actions. Furthermore, mo-
tivations for disclosing this type of information, and whether such
motivation differs in an online versus traditional research setting,
may also be an important avenue for future inquiry. We anticipate
that this form of data collection offers novel opportunity to explore
difficult-to-study topics and will become more common among
researchers in the future.
Clinical and Policy Implications
As practitioners continue to enhance sexual assault prevention
curriculum with robust and ongoing conversations of consent, they
must relentlessly criticize and challenge sexist and misogynistic
messages embedded within our culture that objectify, devalue, and
dehumanize women. The hostility toward women described by the
confluence model is the result of an insecure form of masculinity,
so interventions designed to prevent sexual assault could focus on
masculine gender socialization that leads to insecurity and the
denigration of women, because these two factors predict the use of
coercive strategies to obtain sex (Malamuth et al., 1991). Sexual
violence prevention curricula may also need to include compo-
nents of media literacy and critical consciousness raising that
challenges individuals to identify everyday sexism, objectification,
and victim blame. Institutions of higher learning could devise ways
of integrating sexual assault education into their curriculum, to
have prolonged educational intervention with young men and
women.
Some perpetrators of sexual violence may protect themselves
from shame or negative self-evaluation following an assault with
cognitive distortions, such as blaming the victim or minimizing the
harm done to the victim, which in turn reduces the likelihood of
modifying their behavior (Marshall, Marshall, Serran, & O’Brien,
2009; Wolf, 1989). Therefore, the interpretive frame used by
perpetrators to justify their actions is an important area for clinical
intervention to reduce the likelihood of repeat offenses. That is,
clinical interventions for perpetrators could facilitate a process of
meaning-making in a way in which the perpetrator assumes re-
sponsibility and takes steps toward change, rather than justifying
their behavior and placing the impetus for change on the victim.
Nevertheless, our findings suggest that perpetrator justifications
 8 HIPP ET AL.
vary, and interventions should be tailored according to the char-
acteristics of each case, including whether or not they are hostile
toward women.
Conclusion
Perpetrators of sexual violence, posting anonymously and on-
line, justified their sexually violent behavior via sexual scripts
(including biological essentialism) and victim blaming, describing
their negative attitudes toward women and their desire for physical
gratification outside of the context of a relationship. The narratives
support much of the current literature on perpetrators’ self-
justifications and point to persistent themes that feminist theorists
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have argued are critical to understand sexual violence within
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
society, such as objectification and biological essentialism. As we
continue to discover perpetrators’ motivations and justifications
for sexual violence, we must also consider the ways that society
legitimates these behaviors. Our findings point to the need for a
multilevel response. Direct intervention with individual perpetra-
tors remains a priority, but we must also address the harmful
sexual scripts and general tendencies toward victim blaming that
are embedded within societal structures to ultimately prevent sex-
ual violence.
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Received July 23, 2014
Revision received October 26, 2015
Accepted November 9, 2015 䡲