But precisely what it is that distinguishes a rapist who forces sexual intercourse on a woman without her freely given consent, is a mystery. The rapist doesn't understand himself any better than we do. In fact, a rapist may not even be conscious he's doing anything wrong. According to a recent study in Denver, Colorado, "most rapists can neither admit nor express the fact that they are a men-ace to society.

"I couldn't believe it was happening and that I could be so completely trapped. He was so much stronger that I was. When he was finished, I threw up and he got mad at me for messing up the interior of his car. I begged him to let me go. He said he couldn't because I would have to hitchhike home and suppose somebody picked me up and raped me. I thought, 'oh my God, he's insane'."

But, in all probability, he is not clinically insane. According to the Philadelphia criminologist, Menachim Amir, "studies indicate that sex offenders do not constitute a unique or psychopathological type; nor are they as a group invariably more disturbed than the control groups to which they are compared." Most of us share the popular misconception that all rapists are "sexual psychopaths". And the average rapist shares this misconception with us. Since he knows he isn't a Jack the Ripper lurking in dark corners ready to pounce on an unsuspecting female and drag her away, he doesn't think of himself as a rapist. He sees rape committed by others in the same way we do, as the behavior of perverted, sick individuals and not something that he, a normal, virile and assertive male does when he "makes love" to the protesting and revolted body of his victim.

He wouldn't, then, recognize himself in most of the psychological accounts of a rapist's motivations: incestuous desires,- "symbolic matricide," "latent homosexuality," "castration anxieties." etc. Even if he did, the information would not be very useful to him or to us: rape is an act, not a state of mind. The rapist has imposed his sexuality and his fantasies on someone who doesn't want to participate. He has violated another human being's right to self determination and he has terrorized her through a show of power. For him to see this as lovemaking is the real sickness. And yet the rapist does operate within the spectrum of normal masculinity and male sexuality. Within that spectrum he is the extremist.

Amir's study (the only comprehensive one to date in North America) showed that the majority of rapists are between 15 and 24 years of age- the period of a man's life when he is most anxiously flexing his muscles in the new role of adult masculinity. Since the social messages he receives about manhood celebrate the mystique of aggressiveness and toughness, a young man who rapes may be covering up for his feelings of weakness, sexual inadequacy and dependence-feelings which he, as a man, is not supposed to have- and taking them out on a handy victim.

Almost half of the rapists Amir studied had a previous criminal record and more than half were either unskilled laborers or unemployed. Debra Lewis, University of Toronto criminology student, points out that if you are angry, frustrated, humiliated and a man. you can often deflect your misery safely onto a woman. She's less likely to fight back than a man.