A worrying study into male university students' attitude to rape

One in three men of university age would consider raping a woman if they could get away with it, but only if it wasn't called 'rape'.

A very small study conducted by researchers in the US found that 31.7 per cent of participants would act on "intentions to force a woman to sexual intercourse" if there were no repercussions for them.

But the figure shrank to 13.6 per cent when the men were asked if they would act on "intentions to rape a woman", again if there were no consequences for them.

The University of Dakota sought responses from just 86 men, and only 73 were usable, and researchers now plan on trying to replicate the study on a much larger scale.

Sarah R Edwards, assistant professor of counselling psychology at the university and lead researcher on the study, told Newsweek: "The number one point is there are people that will say they would force a woman to have sex but would deny they would rape a woman."

Source: [Violence and Gender journal]2

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