Why women need to understand sex offenders
Don Howell is currently assigned to the Orange County Homicide Task Force - a cold case unit. He is the author of "Sex Crime Interviews Simplified" and "Beyond Stranger Danger: Smart Parents Raising Safe Kids," and is an editorial advisor for the Department of Culture and Policy for Cancer Incytes magazine. He has three children and five grandchildren.
Howell was the lead investigator in the December 1990 kidnapping and sexual assault of "Victoria," a survivor who told her story on Saturday's episode of "48 Hours." He now teaches women how to defend themselves against sexual predators. Howell's opinions do not necessarily reflect those of "48 Hours" or "CBS News."
My name is Don Howell and I have been in law enforcement for 42 years, with over 25 of those years as a detective investigating sexually motivated crimes. One of the most violent sex crimes I've investigated involved a woman we'll call Victoria, who was kidnapped, repeatedly raped, and tortured by two men -- one a dominate-anger rapist and the other his subordinate-follower. It took almost 20 years, advancements in DNA technology and an understanding of offender behavior to solve.
WATCH: "48 Hours" Live to Tell: My Name is Victoria
Along the way I came to know Victoria, an amazing woman, who, when attacked at 19, never gave up and in the end - won. I also began to realize that the first step in defending against sex offenders is an understanding of how they behave.
Skills such as understanding, knowledge, and awareness can allow women to take charge, decide and act in the event of an attack. It's time to reverse the stereotypical idea of a woman, frozen with fear, cowering in the corner, unable to act as the scary offender approaches. Sex offenders are only scary because we don't understand them. Recognizing the offender's behavior takes away the mystery. From there it's a tiny step to learning how to use the offender's behavior against him.
Remember, self-defense is the art of creating an opportunity to escape. If caught in a violent attack like Victoria was, you don't want to fight, you want to end the fight and escape.
Emotional Imbalance:
During an assault, the offender is in a state of emotional imbalance; the emotional balance beam inside his head is tilting, much like a seesaw, with only one person sitting on it. He needs to level the beam. One of the ways he does this is to fantasize about sexually assaulting someone. If the balance beam is slightly out of balance, this fantasy is usually enough to re-balance the scale in his head.
The more the beam is tilted, the more likely the offender is to act out on the fantasy; this means that your attacker may only be at a 20 percent tilt or, 20 percent committed to the assault. If this is the case, putting your hands out in front of you, palms forward, followed with a firm "Stop!", or "No!" may be enough to stop him in his tracks.
As the balance beam tilts to 30 percent, 40 percent and more, the offender becomes more determined to put the fantasy into play. This means your self-defense response will have to increase as well.
As the imbalance increases, the offender becomes more focused; this translates into verbal threats and demands, intimidating body language or physical force. This added focus can be overwhelming. Let me be very clear: the more out of balance the offender is, the more danger a victim is in. The question becomes, "How can I use his behavior against him?"
As the offender becomes more focused or out of balance, he slips deeper into what I call "anti-logic."
"Anti-logic"
Think of the sexual assault as occurring inside of a sphere or ball, like something you might see in a sci-fi movie. Inside the sphere is the world of "anti-logic," a space in which acting out his fantasy is the only thing the offender can "see." It's similar to extreme tunnel vision. The fantasy needs to be acted out, from beginning to end; anything that interrupts the fantasy is a speed bump or roadblock to his thinking. Victims need to create that speed bump.
To overcome this obstacle, the offender needs to use some degree of logic, which is difficult when he's inside the "anti-logic" sphere. This creates a hesitation or stumble in the attack - which is a perfect opportunity to escape.
"Psychological capture"
The sex offender is depending on the intended victim becoming "psychologically captured" when he first approaches her; the cowering in the corner effect. His experience as a sex offender has taught him that if he can overwhelm the victim with threats and fear, she will submit to the attack. During this "psychological capture," the victim decides to comply with the attacker in order to survive. Once this shift in thinking takes place, any thought of escaping is lost. Recently there has been some neurobiological research that identifies this "capture" as a neurological storm that overwhelms a part of the brain.
"Rape fantasy"
The final element in understanding the offender and developing a self-defense strategy is "rape fantasy." There are several variations of it, but the common underlying theme goes something like this:
To the offender, rape doesn't hurt anyone. In the moment, they believe that women actually want to be raped and need to be raped to experience a truly pleasurable sexual experience. The theory is that because the idea/fear of consenting to sex, especially with a stranger, inhibits women from having a wonderful time. Therefore, the offender is doing the woman a favor by assaulting her. He sees this as freeing her from the social stigma of consent, so force becomes a form of consent.
Self-defense
How do you use all of this information to outsmart the offender and escape? Remember that the offender wants to act out his fantasy and he believes that women want to be attacked. He's in a state of emotional imbalance, he cannot think logically and he needs to psychologically capture his intended victim.
You know that interrupting his fantasy will give you an opportunity to escape, and that psychological capture is not an option. From here, the options are limitless.
Putting your hands out and yelling "Stop!" may be enough to stop him. You may be able to maneuver your way to the door. You may have to poke him in the eye, or stomp on his toes, or just push him backwards. He may run away or you may be in for the fight of your life. Escape may happen within a few seconds or minutes. The key is to keep thinking and look for an opening - that hesitation you can create by throwing out one road block after another.
Victoria was physically overwhelmed by two men who were 100 percent committed to the assault. Even so, she was never "psychologically captured." She never gave up; never turned control of her life over to the bad guys. This allowed her to keep thinking about escaping. She lied to them, she delayed them, she fought them and ultimately the seesaw inside their heads started to level out. It took some time, but as their need to kill her subsided, she was able to escape. She won!
A final thought. Self-defense does not start when the sex offender is standing in front of you. It starts today. It starts with an understanding of the enemy.
