According to Thomas MacAulay Millar of Yes Means Yes!, via the Washington City Paper's Sexist blog, researchers David Lesak and Paul M. Miller asked 1882 college students the following questions:

1) Have you ever attempted unsuccessfully to have intercourse with an adult by force or threat of force?
2) Have you ever had sexual intercourse with someone who did not want you to because they were too intoxicated to resist?
3) Have you ever had intercourse with someone by force or threat of force?
4) Have you ever had oral intercourse with someone by force or threat of force?

As the Sexist's Amanda Hess points out, you'd think no guy would admit to any of these acts. But 120 respondents, or 6% of the sample (which, by the way, was ethnically diverse, and included older students, up to the age of 71), answered yes to at least one of the questions. 76 of those men had committed more than one rape or attempted rape — these recidivists averaged 5.8 offenses. That is, writes Millar, "just 4% of the men surveyed committed over 400 attempted or completed rapes."

The study had two important implications. One is that rapists aren't really all that secretive about their activities — as long as you don't come right out and call it "rape." The other is that one common assumption about date rape or "gray rape" — that it's usually the result of miscommunication and happens when good guys get the wrong idea — appears to be wrong. As Hess says, we hear a lot about "the acquaintance who 'misreads' the situation and 'goes too far'" and "the longtime friend who genuinely thought you had consented, and is shocked when you tell him that, no, it was rape." When we conceive of acquaintance-rapists this way, solutions tend to be woman-focused — women need to say 'no' louder, to avoid sending mixed signals, or, most upsettingly, to accept that the vagaries of sex are such that occasionally someone will just "accidentally" rape them. This thinking also trivializes date-rape and rape involving alcohol, leading to scenes like the one in Observe and Report (pictured above) in which sex with an unconscious woman is played for laughs. But Lisak and Miller's research shows that many acquaintance-rapists aren't just nice guys who screwed up once — they have a history of repeated assault. Rape isn't just an unfortunate feature of everyday male-female relations — it's a crime committed disproportionately by a few. And yet rather than being ostracized, these few are frequently protected by those who say, in Hess's words, "He's my friend, so he can't be a rapist." Hess continues, "We need to reverse that equation-'He's a rapist, so he can't be my friend.'"

Rapists Who Don't Think They're Rapists [Washinton City Paper]
Meet The Predators [Yes Means Yes!]

Yeah, that's right: RAPE! An endlessly thrilling topic, whatever the social context! Especially at the beach, I can totally see this playing out so well:

DUDE: Hey, hotness. The keg may be tapped, but I can show you a clothes dryer where a quarter-bottle of Malibu has our names engraved on them…

'COSMO' READER: Um, cool! So like, did you know, that if you slip something in my drink, I can totally find out if you had sex with my unconscious body the next day without having to drag the police into it?

Seriously though, rape should get talked about more, but it's odd to see Cosmo suggesting it's as simple and no-big-thang as, say, sticking a finger in his ass while you're in reverse cowgirl. But hey! Maybe I'm just old and rape is now so just so common it's lost its stigma as a discussion topic. How awesome would that be?

Cosmo

She's been trying to take her boyfriend's brother to court, and there is some ambiguity in the Massachusetts law that keeps this sort of thing from being an actual crime. Smart rape technique, eh? Anyway it happens a lot with drunk girls at frat parties too. So they're trying to, you know, criminalize it.

If Your Neighbor Poses As Your Husband, Is It Rape? [NPR]
Husband Remains In Dark About Wife's Nighttime Visitor [Detroit News]

Earlier: Dear Abby Strongly Doubts Your Wife's Rape Story

So, how has date rape become such everyday dudehavior? You can probably blame a religious fetishization of virginity for the fact that a lot of girls say "no" to sex they actually want. Perhaps this is a source of some disappointment to dudes who try to fuck Christian girls. (Dudes, come on, stop trying to fuck Christian girls.) So...they date rape them? So they can leave them filled with a nagging sense of lifelong shame? That will fuck up their sex lives, much worse than the religion ever did, for years and years to come? Jesus Christ. Okay, and then there is the chance that she just doesn't want to have sex with you. Maybe she's flirting with you for affirmation, maybe she's heard you're shitty in the sack, maybe she's hung up on someone else, maybe she heard about your folliculitis of the balls. Whatever. So you stick it in anyway and achieve the worst sex of your life and leave her wondering for years and years and years, "Why the fuck did he do that to me?"

One time when this happened to me, I actually asked, and he said, "You just didn't seem to be the kind of girl who thought sex was that big a deal." How perceptive! So why the fuck would you commit a felony to stick it in a girl so deeply uninterested in having sex with you she bothered to say "no" for once in her entire sex-positive life?

I still don't know. But hey! Apparently the shirt's been pulled. Go Feministing Bonerkiller Squad!

Hilarious Rape Shirt Pulled [Feministing]

• Three cheers for 76-year old Ora Doris Anderson; the senior was thought to be dead after she went missing in the Oregonian mountains for two weeks but rescuers found her alive yesterday. Way to go, Grandma! [CNN]
  
• A Daily Mail writer has her panties in a wad over usually demure women being fond of topless sunbathing. We were laying out topless yesterday not because it was a way of letting out our inner whore but because white boobs look stupid. Besides, Sienna Miller does it and she's a trendsetter. [Daily Mail]
  
• Is breast-feeding the word of the day? Lactivists (heh) took their "nurse-out" national as protesters demonstrated at Applebee's restaurants in 30 states. It would be so much easier to just refuse to eat at Applebee's from here on out — their food is nasty anyway. [Kentucky.com]

• The UN has been meeting with women's rights activists from Iran. Um, they give us oil right? Okay, who gives a shit then. [Ms.]
• This news story is all in French but a reader translated it for us — seven French riot police are accused of raping prostitutes, blackmailing them into having sex for free. But seriously, they were just kidding! It was all a joke! That really is what one of the officers is using as his excuse. [France2.fr]
• A British police chief says the legal drinking age should be raised to 21 because of the rising booze-fueled rape occurences. Um, yeah, it's really worked for us here in the States. Now, where did we put our pepper spray? [Daily Mail]
• Side effects like muscle aches and hot flashes are causing women to stop taking cancer pills that prevent the disease from returning. Unfortunately, the possibility of death increases if the women don't take the pills for the recommended five years. [MSNBC]
• The Senate voted to lift restrictions on family planning aid to overseas organizations that performs abortions (Bush is expected to veto it anyway). Will the FBI come running into our home office if we dare say we wish he had been an abortion? [Let's find out! - Ed.] [LA Times]