Female Sexual Assailants

This blog is prompted by an incident that occurred in Saugus, Massachusetts (a town just a few miles away from where my Krav Maga school is located), where two men (one underage), and a female sexually assaulted a 16 year old girl. Whilst the majority of sexual assaults and rapes are conducted by men, there are women who engage is such crimes, against both sexes (male and female), as well as against adolescents and children. In many cases the media and the legal system, as well as society, has a bias in not treating sexual assaults by women, as seriously as they do those committed by men e.g. a female teacher who sleeps with underage male students, is not looked on or judged as a sexual predator in the same way that a male teacher who has sex with underage girls is etc.

This blog touches on some of the ways, and the roles that women play in sexual assaults both against adults as well as minors.

Women may be accomplices to male sexual assaults for a number of reasons. They may be equal perpetrators or even the primary assailant/motivator, using a male friend or accomplice to assist them in the assault. There are female sadists, as well as male sadists, who get sexual excitement from the pain of others – either male or female. Just as certain male rapists, derive motivation for their assaults due to having been emasculated by a dominant female in their past (they see the assault on unknown victims, as a means of gaining back the power and control – dominance – that was denied to them in the past), there are women who have a similar level of anger towards women in general and are motivated in the same way; they want to exert control and dominance over other women. If they can team up with either an easily lead male, or a male who shares a similar desire to sexually dominate other women, then they will have an accomplice who can help them in their assaults. They may also be aware that even if they are the primary motivator of the assault, the legal system is more likely to judge their male counterpart to be the instigator and primary assailant, rather than them.

Women may become accomplices to gain attention, power and status, either from an individual or from a group. In many gangs, where girls are routinely, sexually abused by male gang members (gangbangs, trains etc.), a female member can sometimes gain status and exemptions if she orchestrates and sets up the assaults – this may be a way to avoid becoming a victim herself, using the sexual management of the other female members as a way to give herself a different type of value to the gang.

Some women will reluctantly acquiesce to the sexual demands of an individual or partner who they may be scared of, or want to please, and end up becoming an accomplice to their sexual assaults of women and even children, even though this wasn’t really there intent. Sometimes this “learnt” behavior becomes their default sexual motivator e.g. they now get a sexual thrill from assaulting other women and/or children.      

Pedophiles by and large are male, however there are female child molesters. One of the ways female pedophiles tend to differ from their male counterparts, is that they have a tendency to focus on individual victims, rather than build up large networks of victims – though in cases of incest a father may focus just on their own children. Whilst sadistic females, who sexually abuse children do exist, many female pedophiles developed their sexual deviance, whilst engaging in acts of pedophilia with a male counterpart; that which they may have first been reluctant to engage in and do, now becomes their sexual norm/default. People are able to change and modify their sexual desires, which is often witnessed in male prisoners who have been incarcerated for sexual crimes, where over the course of time, the demographic that they used to prey upon changes e.g. they may have originally been attracted to women aged 18-22, but over a period of time, the age reduces till they become attracted to girls aged 8-12, and over a further period of time, their attraction changes to boys in this age group. This is not true of all rapists and sexual offenders, however it does demonstrate that sexual desire can be subject to change, and whilst there are women who did not start out with an “inherent” desire to sexually abuse children, through being exposed to such acts, may start to develop a sexual attraction for minors.

There are of course cases of women sexually assaulting other women, independently without a male accomplice; there are lesbian rapists, who for a variety of motives choose to assault other women and there are also women, who sexually assault men – while some might argue that such assaults are not possible, because for male sexual arousal to occur the individual has to be “willing”, it is worth pointing out that pedophiles are able to get their male victims to respond physically, even if they are emotionally and sexually unwilling to engage in the acts demanded of them. It is also worth noting that for a sexual assault to occur, there doesn’t even have to be arousal – the assault just has to be sexual in nature.

Whilst male sexual assailants by far make up the larger group and number, it would be wrong to think that there aren’t female sexual predators as well, along with women who will act as accomplices for a variety of reasons – fear, status, attention etc. It is not clear in the case of the Saugus Assault (mentioned at the start of this article), what role the female assailant played, and what her motivations were, however it is worth accepting that she could have been played an equal part in the assault as the man and the boy who were there.