Discussion List for campus-based and allied personnel working to end gender-based violence on campus.

[Molly Dragiewicz <>]

Hi All,

I am not sure if I can successfully attach this or not but I just received 
an interesting article from David Lisak on the ways that we typify campus 
sexual assault. I think it may provoke some discussion. I know it made me 
think about the materials I produce and why.


I'll paste the text here. At the end is the text from 2 text boxes that 
were set off in the PDF version.

Predators: Uncomfortable Truths about Campus Rapists
DAVID LISAK
Connection: Journal of the New England Board of Higher Education, summer 
2004, pages 19-21

David Lisak is associate professor of psychology at the
University of Massachusetts Boston and founding editor
of the journal Psychology of Men and Masculinity.

A quarter century of research on rape victims
and the men who attack them has yielded
a few incontrovertible insights.
First, rape is ubiquitous. In 1987, Mary Koss,
a professor at the University of Arizona, published
research revealing that one in four college women
is a victim of rape or attempted rape by age 21.
The startling statistics have been corroborated over
and over by subsequent studies, the latest a megastudy
sponsored by the National Institute of Justice
and the Centers for Disease Control and published
in 2000.
Secondly, the vast majority of rapists don’t go to jail.
About 85 percent of rapes go unreported, and only a
tiny fraction of reported rapes result in prosecution.
A look at Massachusetts statistics for 1998 is eyeopening.
That year, 1,687 rapes were reported
statewide, resulting in 526 arrests, according to the
Massachusetts State Police. Applying what we know
about rape reporting, we can assume there were really
more than 20,000 rapes statewide.
Who are the rapists responsible for this scourge of
violence? They are rarely reported, almost never
prosecuted and they are responsible for the vast
majority of sexual violence on our campuses and in our
communities. They are successfully exploiting a wide
seam in the criminal justice system.
Surprisingly, they too have been the subject of social
science research for the past two decades. They tend to
be willing research subjects, because like many in our
society, they believe that a rapist wears a ski mask,
carries a knife and attacks strangers from dark corners
of the world. Since they don’t fit that profile, they don’t
see what they do as rape, and they don’t label
themselves as rapists. As a result, they can be easily
coaxed into talking about their sexual behaviors.
Here is what we know about them: They come from
all racial and ethnic groups; they are sophisticated
sexual predators who plan their attacks exhaustively
and with astonishing cunning. Most of them are serial
rapists and a significant percentage of them are violent
in multiple contexts. As a group, they are responsible
for a wildly disproportionate amount of the sexual
violence in their communities­whether college
campuses or otherwise.
All of this flies squarely in the face of what many
assume to be true about these men. These are the same
men who are often referred to as “date rapists.” Date
rapists are widely assumed to be basically good guys
who, because of a combination of too much alcohol and
too little clear communication, end up coercing sex
upon their partners. This image is widely promulgated,
but it is flatly contradicted by research.
In a New England study published in 2002 in the
journal Violence and Victims, 120 rapists were identified
in a sample of 1,882 college students. Of the 120, 76 were
serial rapists who had each, on average, left 14 victims in
their wake. Their collective, grim tally included the
following: 439 rapes and attempted rapes, 49 sexual
assaults, 277 acts of sexual abuse against children,
66 acts of physical abuse against children and 214 acts
of battery against intimate partners. These statistics
leave little room for perceiving these men as basically
good guys who fall victim to miscommunication and too
much alcohol. Their violence and predatory behavior
mirrors precisely that of the sexual predators who have
been incarcerated and studied, except that by targeting
non-strangers and by refraining from gratuitous violence,
they have escaped prosecution.
Talking about “sexual predators” and “college
campuses” in the same sentence gives most university
administrators heartburn. Nevertheless, “sexual predator”
aptly describes the men who are responsible for the vast
majority of sexual violence on our campuses, as well as
in our communities. And while the term might be
uncomfortable, it can also be instructive. For example,
what we have learned about these predators should
guide our prevention efforts. It used to be an axiom
of rape prevention programs­and the idea is still
prevalent­that “all men are potential rapists,” because
most men to some degree endorse attitudes and beliefs
that have been associated with sexually aggressive
behavior­so-called rape myths. Therefore, according to
this theory, all men are at some risk for acting on these
attitudes. Rape research has never supported this
axiom, and calling all men “potential rapists” is a
decidedly poor way of trying to reach men­both
literally and figuratively.
In contrast to this scolding approach, the research
on undetected rapists tells us that actually a very small
percentage of men­serial sexual predators­are
responsible for a vastly disproportionate amount of the
sexual violence in any community. These men cannot
be reached or educated. They must be identified and
removed from our communities. Our prevention and
education efforts must be focused on the vast majority
of men who will never themselves cross the line into
criminal behavior, but who by their participation in
peer groups and activities either actively or passively
provide support or camouflage for the sexual predators
in their midst. By laughing at their jokes, by listening
uncritically to their stories of “conquests” and “scores,”
men become facilitators or passive bystanders of
criminal behavior.
It is these facilitators and bystanders­men who
know who the rapists are in their communities­who
must be educated, challenged and coaxed back to a
firm stance on the right side of the line, the side where
we as a community plant ourselves in opposition to
those few who choose the criminal path.
Colleges and universities do more than provide young
people with the credentials to make their careers. They
also help to socialize young men and women and
prepare them for responsible citizenship in their
communities. What lessons do we teach these young
people when we allow sexual violence to flourish in the
college community? The predators graduate, taking
with them increased power and authority­the tools
they turn into weapons of violence­and find new
victims in the larger community beyond the ivied walls.
The bystanders graduate with lessons in passive
cooperation with criminal conduct, surely the opposite
of what we would have wished for.
Sexual violence remains as much a dirty secret on
our campuses as it is in the larger society. It flourishes
because to confront it, an institution must be willing to
shine a bright light on aspects of itself that are both ugly
and painful. One of the most important steps that must
be taken is a comprehensive, led-from-the-top campaign
to change the community climate such that victims of
sexual violence feel comfortable to report attacks to
authorities. Paradoxically then, the first indication that
an institution is courageously moving to end sexual
violence is almost inevitably an increase in the official
tally of that violence. This is not the kind of publicity
that most college administrators strive to create.
Yet some institutions have moved forward regardless.
The U.S. Air Force Academy, faced with a national
spotlight on its sexual assault problems, has moved
comprehensively to make fundamental changes in how
sexual violence is handled institutionally and to alter the
culture of the academy to make such violence less likely.
The academy has used mandatory, small group meetings
to educate the cadet corps as well as faculty and staff

about sexual assault and sexual harassment. It has
established new policies regarding sexual assault
complaints and investigations and improved services to
victims. If a military academy imbued with a traditional,
masculine culture can take such far-reaching steps,
surely the rest of our institutions of higher learning
can do the same. It’s a question of motivation.

The Mickey Culture
• If someone offers you a drink from the bar at a club
or party, accompany the person to the bar to order
your drink, watch the drink being poured and carry
the drink yourself.
• Do not leave your drink unattended especially when
talking, dancing, using the rest room or making a
phone call.
• Do not drink anything that has an unusual taste
or appearance like a salty taste, or unexplained
residue.
­From a Boston College Police Department notice
warning that potential rapists may lace drinks with
“roofies” and other so-called “date rape drugs” that take
away the ability to fight back.

Social Sensitivity
I’ve run into a couple of situations where, when I’ve asked
the women outright ‘well, did you indicate that this was not
all right with you?’ they’ve stammered and said ‘No, not
exactly, but he should have been able to tell.’ And
probably he should have, but we all arrive at Yale with
different levels of social sensitivity.
­Laura King, dean of Yale’s Trumbull College, as
quoted by Kristen Thompson in an October 2003 article
in The Yale Herald student newspaper exploring the
“rape culture” at the university.



Molly Dragiewicz
Director
Women's Resource Center
Bucknell University

(570) 577 1375