Comments on: Raper’s Delight, Part 3

By: agasaya

agasaya — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 03:37:06 +0000

I quite agree regarding the importance of research. None of the literature I read about this (before commenting)equates it with sleepwalking or highly complex behaviors. In fact, it wasn’t a single disorder and the sufferers appeared to have different expressions of, well, this form of self ‘expression’. Treatable apparently but definitely measurable with REM activity and seizure-like readings in EEGs.

I don’t recall this very important criteria being mentioned in the news articles which would have been a rather justifying bit of important detail. So, if it is still ongoing with the regular partner, the guy ain’t fixed and shouldn’t be allowed to go anywhere at night without an ankle bracelet/monitor. Or does this happen during daytime naps too?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11914450?dopt=Abstract

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15129047?dopt=Abstract

While his ‘partner’ may allow it, the violence of the assault described upon someone who wasn’t his partner sounded atypical of the disorder in the small amount of literature on the subject (much of which was accumulated through internet sampling, highly unreliable as an investigatory method of research). Since it remains a ‘disorder’ which has NOT been added formally to the DSM, apparently the shrinks have a problem with decriminalizing it or considering the actual phenomenon as a ‘recipe’ for the behavior of some nocturnal Julia Child.

Frankly, the implication that someone who rapes in their sleep is less dangerous than someone who can kill in their sleep is more than a bit offensive. Comparison to someone who cooks in their sleep is just, shall we say, wrong? I can’t see even a defense attorney saying, “Get over it; the guy was asleep!”So, unless this guy has a soufflé to show for his talents at the end of the night, I’d like to at least see him under life long medical supervision.

But I haven’t read the Canadian study written about this particular case. Wasn’t available on the web.

Nice to meet you research! Too bad we can’t come to similar conclusions at the end of the study session.

By: Jill

Jill — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:42:21 +0000

“Otherwise, you look, you know. Ignorant.”

Zing!

By: Sigh

Sigh — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:40:17 +0000

He has a sleep disorder that results in his engaging in involuntary sexual intercourse but he retained the presence of mind AND coordination to put on a condom first? This must have been an installment of some tv show about a law firm that always gets its clients ‘off’. In this case, literally AND figuratively.

Hi, Ignorance! I’m Research.

We can be friends.

Sleepwalkers are known to do MANY complex behaviors while sleeping. Muscle memory. Your body does things familiar to it. Sleepwalkers have been known to go to the kitchen, get food, and COOK IT.

While asleep. There have been reports and stories on people who get behind the wheel and attempt to drive while asleep.

Considering that it takes a lot of fine movements to get your keys, leave the house, unlock the car, put keys in ignition, start car, and attempt to drive it… condoms aren’t too far-fetched.

If you’re going to scream and yell, at least do so with actual facts to back you up. Otherwise, you look, you know. Ignorant.

By: Julia

Julia — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:24:10 +0000

@Kelsey B.: You’re right. It seems an unlikely story, which even makes it all the more outrageous that the only verdicts available to the jury are not guilty of murder due to insanity or simply not guilty. If found insane, the jury should instruct the killsomniac to be admitted to a mental hospital, an event that is unlikely to happen as the psychiatrist for the prosecution(!) claims the husband doesn’t belong in a mental hospital, even though he was temporarily insane at the time he murdered his wife. If the husband isn’t hauled off in chains, women all around the world should draw the appropriate conclusion and stop sleeping with their oppressors.

By: Jill

Jill — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:37:57 +0000

1. A person’s “sense of morality” isn’t fixed, like eye color, or part of a person’s fundamental essence, like DNA. It’s actually — and I’m basing this on highly scientific evidence, since as you know this is a science blog — a figment, and a pretty fluid one at that. It morphs hither and yon to suit context, circumstance, fashion, appetite, alcohol consumption, delusion, and peer pressure (e.g. Lynndie England, Nazi collaborators, the 9/11 bombers). This fluidity, I postulate, is because morality as a concept hinges on insubstantial religion fluff: rules of conduct derived from the godbaggy good-vs-evil binary. Many see good and evil as absolutes, but they’re really just arbitrary judgments imposed by theists on an indifferent cosmos, often to facilitate oppression. In fact, a “sense of morality” appears to be nothing more than the degree to which a person has assimilated the social-behavioral customs of her community, and the degree to which she is willing to enforce’em in everybody else.

2. This isn’t an argument in favor of leniency toward rapesomniacs (if they even exist). I’m saying that a person’s sense of morality is an unreliable indicator of future behavior, since it can be turned on and off at will. What can’t be turned on and off at will is predatory behavior. I say one strike, they’re out; haul those fuckers off in chains.

3. Sexsomnia sure isn’t Latin!

By: Amos

Amos — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:58:22 +0000

Sexsomnia is just the label for sleepwalkers who also happen to be rapists. Is there a fancy Latin name for brushing your teeth in your sleep?

I think that intent should be important to the justice system. But sleepwalkers clearly have intentions; they are not all just stumbling around like zombies. Anyway, during REM or LSD, I have seen some strange laws of physics, but I don’t remember it ever changing my sense of morality.

By: Jill

Jill — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:32:14 +0000

“The point isn’t that sexsomnia is or is not verifiable by medical science or whatever – the point is that the victim has still been raped [...]“

Another example of the complete irrelevance, from the point of view of the oppressed party. of “intent.”

By: Kelsey B.

Kelsey B. — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:00:11 +0000

@Julia: I just came over here to post about that! Personally, I don’t buy it. Hitting someone in the throes of a nightmare seems plausible, I guess, but strangling someone with your bare hands? I understand that this man had been prone to sleepwalking in the past, but it still seems like a stretch.

By: Julia

Julia — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:55:14 +0000

Here is a case of killsomnia:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/nov/17/husband-strangled-wife-during-nightmare

By: Jezebella

Jezebella — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:24:30 +0000

The point isn’t that sexsomnia is or is not verifiable by medical science or whatever – the point is that the victim has still been raped, and furthermore, someone who rapes in his sleep needs to be LOCKED THE FUCK UP so he doesn’t do it again, not patted on the head and told it’s not his fault.