Jim Swill, about "The Absent Rapist"

The Absent Rapist was created in reaction to my own personal pornographic dependency and the addiction as a widespread phenomenon that goes fairly unspoken to this day. Many relationships, families, and marriages encounter this particular problem: boyfriends and husbands becoming addicted to pornography, losing emotional interest in the very family they brought into existence, as well as losing sexual interest in their girlfriends and wives, due to the symbolic representation of promiscuity and sexual power. Though not directly about rape “Absent Rapist” is more about a psychic vampire mentality, about the images and the person living vicariously through one another, about a set of domination and submission mind states that usurp a person's ability to function in a regular situation due to the over-saturation in a nonexistent sexual reality.

“You used to just take minutes, but now it's taking hours.”

Overtime as most people who’ve ever encountered a problem with porn would know, XXX media is very similar to drug abuse. You start with just small increments that rapidly turn into vast extensions, the amount of pornography seen with the amount of time invested. What was once 10 minutes quickly escalates into hours of searching without even masturbating, simply collecting the data, harvesting in a sense. The once tender area becoming a callous, and therefore not only the amount of material but the content gets upgraded as well. Especially for a lonely person there is not only sexual tension but resentment and anger as well. The porn industry knows this and it simply provides a harder drug to fulfill the high, the material becoming increasingly more violent, cruel, and degrading.

“You’re a faceless phantom far away their absent rapist.”

Pornography can take hold of carnal desire and bring some of the vilest human attributes to the surface. What makes it especially dark is the ability to become simply a spectator of violence and cruelty, satiating a perverse desire instead of overcoming it. This is by far the worst attribute of the pornographic addiction, hence it being addressed in the chorus. By providing relief instead overcoming our shortcomings, we are living lives like a bottle of cold medicine, simply relieving but lacking the ability to cure, making the sickness stronger and more resilient.

“Alone and feeling nothing but the joy of empty ends, all those girls to give you what you want, every night it never ends. You gave up hope to ever find a bonded, decent lover. Now you’d only want a girl if you could stand above her.”

Engaging in pornography especially whilst in a relationship is without a doubt a form of legal adultery. Our culture encourages it; hyper sexual stimulation to the point where no real healthy relationship could fill the hole dug out by XXX media. It’s become a common problem across America for men being unable to perform in bed simply because of pornography and real sexuality not being as stimulating. It also would go hand in hand to say that even an interest in romance has waned, as we are overloaded with the fantasy of promiscuity on a massive scale as if it were a measure of manhood. Though I would agree it seems probable that the condition of an animal nature may enable the thoughts of wanting to impregnate as many living creatures in an instinctual ceremony of survival, I believe this to be a malleable part of being a human being. The idea of promiscuity is not entirely built on that premise of seed spreading, but more a worship of the individual and erasing what was once a family unit. By saying the person in the song feels “the joy of empty ends” I am saying they are satiating their desire for uncommitted sexual relationships, by creating the symbolism of promiscuity. The rest of the lyrics in that bar are a reiteration of the idea that as the content progressively becomes more hardcore, eventually the person’s idea of a relationship would degrade in a domination role.

“Your wife, your mother, neighbor, and even your own daughter all make you sick to look at because you only see in vulgar…”

These lines are more focused on the delusional reality induced by pornography. A man who can’t even look at his own children without a sexual flash. One of the most sinister aims of mainstream pornography is the strive to be pedophilic on a subversive level. So many sources make attempts to lie about the models' ages and whereabouts as if to say the girls are from high school, or live with their parents, fulfilling even more crude and disturbing desires built out of the inability to maintain the same mental high with more modest material.

“It’s only a matter of time before it becomes your normality your absent rapist mind state transfers into your reality.”

So in turn the character in the song is now plagued with sexual saturation, knowing instinctually that the thoughts are perverse and unnatural. I am also making a statement considered strong by some sexual liberation advocates to say that the pornography’s drug like hypnotism would only satisfy for so long, and eventually a person may venture out into the physical world in order to satisfy their addiction; leading to things such as adultery, divorce, solicitation of prostitutes, pedophilia, sexual harassment, sexual abuse, sexual assault, and possibly molestation and/or rape. That is why the title is “Absent Rapist”, for when engaged in the fictional reality they have the opportunity to be an observer, far away, detached from the act yet fulfilling the desire to do such a thing. An absentee participant.