Dahmer Rape

Dahmer himself mentioned that his murders were not meant to be discriminatory in any way (Worthington 2). This claim becomes less and less believable when looking back into Dahmer’s life before his arrest. It was already clear that Dahmer was uncomfortable with his own homosexuality, so it is not surprising that he found other gay men repulsive as well. When he was in the army, his bunkmates recalled him getting drunk often and going on homophobic, racist rants for hours (Lippit 8). He mentioned explicitly to preacher John Paul Ranieri how he hated “faggots” and especially “black queens” (8). Dahmer’s hatred for flamboyant black men in this statement is truly telling; 10 out of his 17 victims were gay, African American males (Worthington 1). However, his thoughts on his
More likely than not, this anti-racist, anti-homophobic attitude that Dahmer held only after he was arrested is just his attempt at minimizing the impact of his crimes. Dahmer persists over and over again that he committed his atrocities purely out of fear that the men he brought back to his apartment would eventually leave him (Lippit 7). His father also felt the need to mention that the only reason why Dahmer drugged, strangled, and mutilated his victims was because he wanted them to never leave, to “be part of him” (7). In his book “A Father’s Story”, Dahmer’s father goes on for uncomfortably long paragraphs proving this point, vehemently denying that homophobia had anything to do with it- perhaps fearfully realizing that his own views are part of why his son turned into a murderer (8). There is no solid explanation for Dahmer’s racism or where it came from, but his deeply internalized homophobia, which was stronger and more of the reason why he felt the urge to kill, was almost certainly formed by the intolerant environment around him throughout his whole