Alcohol is Drug of Choice for Campus Rapists

Many of us have heard of the “date rape” drug but we often forget that the most common one is legal: Alcohol.

Psychologist David Lasik who spoke to NPR from the University of Massachusetts asked 2,000 men over a 20 year period questions like this: "Have you ever had sexual intercourse with someone, even though they did not want to, because they were too intoxicated [on alcohol or drugs] to resist your sexual advances?"

He also asked: "Have you ever had sexual intercourse with an adult when they didn't want to because you used physical force [twisting their arm, holding them down, etc.] if they didn't cooperate?"

About 1 in 16 men answered "yes" to these or similar questions. None of these men had ever been to jail or formally accused of rape.

What Lisak found was that students who commit rape on a college campus are pretty much like those rapists in prison. In both groups, many are serial rapists. On college campuses, repeat predators account for 9 out of every 10 rapes.

And these offenders on campuses — just like men in prison for rape — look for the most vulnerable women. Lisak says that on a college campus, the women most likely to be sexually assaulted are freshmen.

Lisak says "The basic weapon is alcohol/ If you can get a victim intoxicated to the point where she's coming in and out of consciousness, or she's unconscious — and that is a very, very common scenario — then why would you need a weapon? Why would you need a knife or a gun?"

For more information go to NPR’s story http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124272157&sc=nl&cc=hh-20100315