The Misleading Video Interview With a Rapist at the Heart of the Campus Sexual Assault Freakout
How influential sexual assault expert David Lisak used a misleadingly edited video to sell his serial predator theory of campus rape.
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In Motives and Psychodynamics of Self-Reported, Unincarcerated Rapists, Lisak and his co-author Susan Roth reported on 15 college students at a "major southeastern university" classified, via a survey, as having engaged in rape or attempted rape and, for purposes of comparison on various psychological measures, 15 control subjects, also students at the same university, who had not engaged in sexual violence. The final pool of offenders was 12; three dropped out before the study was completed.
The primary question addressed by that paper was whether research others had done on convicted rapists had applicability to college men who had engaged in sexual violence but remained "undetected." Through a battery of psychological inventories, projective tests, and interviews, Lisak concluded that the men in his case studies were similar to the convicted rapists in terms of attitudes toward women but that family dynamics played a greater role for his own subjects’ behavior.
The paper included summaries of two of his 12 "undetected rapist" case studies. Given the complexity of the research reported in that paper, and its proximity to the year Lisak completed his PhD—at a "major southeastern university," Duke—I wondered if the full research was contained in his dissertation. That instinct proved to be correct.
The two case studies reported in Motives and Psychodynamics of Self-Reported, Unincarcerated Rapists made their first appearance in Lisak’s doctoral dissertation at Duke. This is not unusual; many newly minted PhDs turn their dissertations into a first publication. Lisak’s dissertation was submitted to the Department of Psychology at Duke University in 1988, which would put the bulk of the research for it—including interviews with his "undetected" subjects—conservatively between 1986 and 1987. This is the material from which Lisak has created "Frank."
Even if the mindset presented in the Frank video was typical of some college men at that time—the results of the psychological tests for the 12 subjects aggregated to create him suggest instead particularly troubled young men—presenting perspectives on any of a number of issues from the 1980s as though they were current is deceptive. Worse is the intrusion of that mindset into federal policy, victim advocate guidelines, or campus programming based on attitudes that might once have been ascribed to a small group of men three decades ago.
Cutting and Editing to Bolster a Theory
That Lisak presents the "Frank" video as typical and current when its content is nearly 30 years old is not the only cause for concern here. As described in material from the National Judicial Education Program— where Lisak is a long-time faculty member and from whom the video is officially supplied—the video "is a reenactment of part of an interview conducted by Dr. David Lisak." But as it turns out, even though it is presented here and elsewhere as an interview with a single subject, read verbatim by an actor, "Frank" is not one student.
Rather, he is an aggregation of several interviews from Lisak’s dissertation research, which raises the level of concern by an order of magnitude. Material cut-and-pasted is material at risk of serving an agenda. Had Lisak described the video as intentionally designed to make a point, it might—might—even be an understandable agenda were it not for the two problems already noted: It is based on material decades out of date, and it is edited to make a point about serial predators not backed by research.
Lisak himself has never bothered to clarify either the source or the timeframe for the interview. Whether discussing his theory on NPR, making presentations to the U.S. Army, talking to reporters, vilifying the fraternity system, or as an invited speaker on college campuses, he allows its misrepresentation.
A passage from Jon Krakauer’s Missoula, a book published this year in which Lisak figures prominently as Krakauer reports on sexual assault at the University of Montana, is an excellent illustration, first, of the way research Lisak did not conduct is linked to interviews he never did:
Lisak devised a study that would provide insights into offenders who’d managed to avoid both punishment and scrutiny—a population that accounted for the overwhelming majority of rapists. Specifically, he designed his study to reveal whether these "undetected rapists," like their incarcerated counterparts, showed a propensity to rape more than once and whether they were likely to commit other types of interpersonal violence. The study, titled "Repeat Rape and Multiple Offending Among Undetected Rapists," co-authored by Paul M. Miller and published in 2002, added significantly to the understanding of men who rape.
Any participant who answered "yes" to one of the questions on the questionnaire was subsequently interviewed and asked follow-up questions. When interviewing his subjects, Lisak said, "I made sure I didn’t in any way suggest that I was judging them or that I was horrified by what they were telling me."
Krakauer then discusses "Frank," unknowingly but neatly wrapping up the conflation of unrelated and duplicitous information in service of Lisak’s agenda:
To illustrate a rapist’s worldview, Lisak opened his laptop and played a video he’d christened The Frank Tape. It’s a harrowing reenactment of an unedited, five-minute segment of an interview he did with a student rapist, performed by an actor who has precisely mimicked the rapist’s delivery and callous self-regard.
Repeating Lisak’s assertion that Frank is a typical example of Lisak’s campus predators, Krakauer says that "it’s crucial for police officers, prosecutors, and campus administrators to regard them as such."
The Dissertation Interviews
The evidence that Lisak has, in fact, curated segments of multiple interviews to make a point not found in any of them is found in his own dissertation.
A word, first, about the availability of doctoral dissertations. Most doctoral dissertations are contained in an electronic database to which a large number of academic libraries subscribe. Lisak’s dissertation is not. That makes it unavailable to most people and an exceedingly unlikely source for anyone to check. It is, however, housed in one of the libraries at Duke and so available, via interlibrary loan agreements, with other academic libraries. It was thus that I was able to read David Lisak’s 345-page tome.
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He's an amalgamation of multiple rapists. That's fine.
It's like Obama's autobiography.
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Or that guy Lena Dunham raped. (Let's be honest, that's the moer likely scenario)
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Some believe certain social goals are important enough to justify a lie. A problem with that tactic arises if/when the lie is uncovered, b/c the opposition gets powerful ammo.
In Maryland, i think, some activists, hoping to prevent the spread of AIDS and other STDS, gave free condoms to poor people . sounds like a good idea to me. I bet it had a small positive effect. Later the activists published a totally fake (made up) study saying their program had been wildly successful and that disease transmission declined dramatically. When the fraud came to light, conservative politicians used it as a club to reduce funding for several (IMO) beneficial, compassionate programs.
Perhaps Lisak feels his, ahem, less-than-totally-forthright tactics are justified ("anything to reduce campus rape!!") but i wonder if he may become the ally of his gravediggers.
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I get your larger point. But I would imagine that the majority of conservative pols (are there any in MD?) were against taxpayers footing the bill.
If activitists want to pass out condoms, more power to them. Even homeless folks like sex. (Can you imagine the smell??) But -
I get your point, Bear. I think of it like this: Assuming we’re forced to fund their health care, if free condoms = much less much AIDS (as the activists claimed), it makes sense to fund free condoms.
At that point, th3 pure-blood libertarian screams: “We should NEVER
be forced to pay for their health care!!”I know, ok? But since I AM paying for it, I’d prefer to pay slightly less. just my .02
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Perhaps. Anyone with an interest in doing so could contact the organizers anywhere he's scheduled to speak and email this and other articles. Academic organizations are eventually loathe to do business with so obvious a fraud, if only for fear the tarnish transfers.
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So....it's really Haven Monahan?
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Hahahahaha !
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Lisak's career seems very similar to the disgraced Mississippi coroner who lied in court for decades before being uncovered. They were both successful because they delivered what institutional powers wanted, and they were so useful these institutions refused to stop using them even after their duplicity was proven to all reasonable people.
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Lisak's career seems very similar to the disgraced Mississippi coroner who lied in court for decades before being uncovered.
I am pretty sure Lisak and Michael Bellesiles share the same tailor.
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Thankfully this behavior does not occur among climate changy researchers.
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you see it with some of the global warming alarmists, who'll admit (in private), "I dislike exaggerating the risk, but it's the only way to motivate uneducated masses to act."
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Which is funny, because it ultimately has the exact opposite effect: If the scientific literature in general suggests an average of x bad things occur per unit time (degrees increase in temperature, rapes per year, whatever), with x being the mean of all estimates ranging from x/5 to 5x, when an activist say "oh, I'll just take the highest estimate, and say 'look, there's 5x bad stuff happening per unit time! We must act!", then, inevitably, people are going to notice when that prediction turns out to be false; when the temperature increases by only x; or when reality confirms that only x rapes happen per year (because usually the estimates closer to the mean are more accurate and have higher sample sizes). And when that happens, people stop trusting the 'experts' and 'activists' in general.
The media is the biggest culprit here. They propagate sensationalist high estimates of everything from rape to global warming to whatever, invoking the name of 'science' or 'experts' in the process, and when their numbers turn out to be over-estimates or outright fabrications (as extreme estimates tend to do rather often), even the credibility of honest and accurate experts is now tarnished. And the people bitching about 'denialism' largely have themselves to blame.
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Don't let the facts stand in the way of a good story.
Same thing is happening with all of the 'racism' and other 'problems' on college campuses.
Plato wept.
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To quote Rahm Emmanuel: "Never let a crisis go to waste."
Especially if it's made up.
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I don't know. The only reason any academic would ever make shit up is if the oil companies are paying them, and I don't see what the Koch Bros have to gain here. /progressives
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They are not "progressive" they are regressive. They are also not "liberal", they do not believe in liberty, especially yours. Stop helping them hide behind words that mean the opposite of what they are. That is what PC is all about - hiding the truth. Don't help them.
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I'll tell you what. We libertarians will hold down the fort with quality comedy and clever sarcasm, and you yokels just continue to get your plus-sized asses out to the voting booths and pulling the right levers. This way everybody's happy and no one has to think too hard or figure out jokes that are way above their pay grade. Deal?
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He shoulda interviewed Crystal Magnum. He could have gotten a REAL good story from her.
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It's pretty disgusting that a man has used crimes against women to build up his own career and prestige in a way that discredits real victims of sexual assault. It's a lot like all these "women" committing rapes, murders - or this week taking over and shooting from the roof of a downtown DC office building - thus driving up crime statistics for women. However, in fact it is fully intact transgender males committing these crimes. Let's see some Reason analysis of that phenomena. Thanks.
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I'm pretty certain "disgusting" is part of the definition of "Leftist", along with "communist", "socialist", "fascist", "totalitarian", "racist", "misogynistic", "hyporitical", "low IQ", "gruber" and "lying" among other descriptors.
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wmds, wmds, wmds...
I'm still waiting for the US left (as awful as feminists are) to come up with anything close.
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How influential sexual assault
expertfraud David Lisak used a misleadingly edited video to sell his serial predator theory of campus rape.Fixed.
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Maybe these people can next re-enact Kinsey sexual exploitation of children:
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Kinsey solicited and encouraged pedophiles, at home and abroad, to sexually violate from 317 to 2,035 infants and children for his alleged data on normal “child sexuality.” Many of the crimes against children (oral and anal sodomy, genital intercourse and manual abuse) committed for Kinsey’s research are quantified in his own graphs and charts.For example, “Table 34” on page 180 of Kinsey’s “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male” claims to be a “scientific” record of “multiple orgasm in pre-adolescent males.” Here, infants as young as five months were timed with a stopwatch for “orgasm” by Kinsey’s “technically trained” aides, with one four-year-old tested 24 consecutive hours for an alleged 26 “orgasms.” Sex educators, pedophiles and their advocates commonly quote these child “data” to prove children’s need for homosexual, heterosexual and bisexual satisfaction via “safe-sex” education. These data are also regularly used to “prove” children are sexual from birth.
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From Sex, Lies and Kinsey by Dr. Judith Reisman -
I am seriously calling bullshit on this one. There are some issues with his methodology (particularly selection bias), and he did interview admitted child molesters in preparing his data. But I have NEVER heard this nonsense before. Either you are making this shit up, or this Reisman broad is.
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I just did some research and apparently Dr Reisman has after the Kinsey Institute for years. However I partially retract my statement. I will look into this. At first I thought she was just a FRC or other socon prude, but apparently there is some serious shit with young children.
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becuz war on wombunz.
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I don't see why this should be surprising to anybody. The philosophy underlying progressive and Democratic social justice ideas is critical theory. Critical theory roughly says that all social and economic "facts" are just myths and stories. According to critical theory, what matters is whether people believe these stories to be true; there is no objective truth beyond that according to them.
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Does anyone find it odd that people who have committed serious crimes would reveal this to anyone, especially when they could be traced. One possibility is that the researches made up or exaggerated the data. Another is that the people interviewed made up or exaggerated the data. How do you know the people telling you these remarkable things are actually telling the truth? Personally, it doesn't pass the smell test.
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Reason has to win every fucking award for exposing this lying cunt. Jay oh bee well dee oh en ee.
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Yeah. This is one of the reasons I donate.
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Great piece. Thanks for valuing truth more than avoiding the risk of being labeled as a rapist enabler.
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Do society a service - help keep the Lisak entry factual.
(Someone keeps tring to edit out the facts. Imagine that.) -
Superbly done, Linda. Many thanks.
Is anyone really surprised that rape crisis feminism's go-to doc for their serial predatory theory (which takes a great deal of responsibility out of women's hands) is a fraud? Wouldn't he have to be, given how their ideology entire sits on a foundation of lies such as "1 in 4"?
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The article seemed weird to me, but when you mentioned this research was proved by few doctoral students...
