Using nonconsensual sexual intercourse as the definition of rape, researchers have discovered that rape, especially acquaintance rape, is a widespread phenomenon. The percentage of women who have experienced rape
ranges between 12.7 and 25% or higher, depending upon how rape is measured (Aizenman & Kelley, 1988; Kahn, Andreoli Mathie, &. Torgler, 1994; Koss, 1985, 1988, 1993; Miller & Marshall, 1987; Ward, Chapman, Cohn, White, & Williams, 1991).
Do victims of nonconsensual intercourse consistently acknowledge their experience as rape? Does the junior high student whose boyfriend doesn’t stop when she says no consider herself to be a rape survivor? Does the high school student who gets drunk at a party and is unable to resist the advances of a boy believe she has been sexually assaulted? Does the college student who wakes up naked in a bed at a fraternity house consider herself to have been raped? Recent research suggests a great many of these women do not acknowledge these experiences as rape.