THE LUST FOR RAPE

The lust for rape does not mean the lust for deflowering virgins. That lust is the rape of virginities, but not of virgins, so long as it takes place with their consent. The lust for rape meant here recoils from consent and is exacerbated by its absence. It is an ardent desire to rape women of any sort who are utterly unwilling and reject their advances, whether they are virgins, widows or wives. These men are like brigands or pirates who take delight in their seizures and plunder, but not in what is given them or is fairly acquired. They are like criminals who are agog for what is unlawful and forbidden, and spurn what is lawful and permitted.

These rapists completely turn their backs on consent and are fired by resistance. If they do not observe any inward resistance, the ardour of their lust is at once quenched, like a fire dowsed with water. It is well known that wives do not of their own accord submit to their husbands' wishes as regards the outermost expressions of love, and their prudence makes them offer resistance, as if to rape, to take away from their husbands the coldness which arises from constant permission and also from having wanton thoughts about these matters. Although resistance of this kind inflames their husbands, it is not the reason, but only the beginning of their lust. The reason is that, once conjugial love and also scortatory love have faded as the result of being exercised, to be revived they need to be inflamed by complete resistance.

The lust so begun goes on to grow, and as it grows, it despises and breaks through all the restrictions on sexual love, so banishing itself, and from a wanton bodily and fleshly love it becomes one of cartilage and bone, and then as the result of the regions near the bone which have acute sensitivity, it becomes acute. However, this lust is still rare, because it is only possible with those who have entered upon marriage and then so much indulged in affairs, that these have become unattractive. In addition to the natural reason for this lust, there also exists a spiritual reason, about which something will be said in what follows.