A young woman nervously waits by the door. As each minute passes the butterflies in her stomach begin to flutter echoing the passion of her growing heartbeat. It was hard for her to believe her dream was finally going to come true. Everything was perfect; he was on time; the flowers were beautiful; he opened doors and pushed in chairs. He was the perfect gentleman. However, by the end of the night her perfect gentlemen transformed from Dr. Jeckle into Mr. Hyde. And her dream-date quickly became her worst nightmare and life long struggle. It was the ultimate violation. He took every shred of respect she possessed and selfishly discarded it. Giving no thought to her emotions, purity, or tears. Date rape is a virus that has infected society for decades, however the magnitude of the problem is often ambiguous. The FBI reports a woman is raped every six minutes. Date rape accounts for approximately 80% of all rapes on college campuses; in every college classroom with 50 female students, 6 to 7 women have been victims of date rape within the past year (Guernsey 6). Susan Mufson and Rachel Kranz, authors of Straight Talk About Date Rape, use a chilling statistic to illustrate the alarming rate of date rape in society. "It [date rape] is more common than left handedness, alcoholism, and heart attacks (10)." Investigating the social psychology of date rape provides useful explanations for the cause of sexual violence, researching the significance of motive, gender, and culture provides clarification to the occurrence of this crime. .
For years, scientists have tried to pinpoint the forces that motivate man to rape. However, they have found it very difficult to establish a collective explanation for rape. .
Motivations for rape are diverse and are clearly circumstantial however scientists have developed prototypes of motivation through research. Some rape specialists conclude rape as having little or nothing to do with sex or sexual pleasure.
