@LRAPE IS SOMETHING MORE THAN REGRETS THE MORNING AFTER[F/L] (For
use by NYTimes News Service clients)[E/P]
     [E/P]
     @BBy LINDA SEEBACH[F/C]
@Lc.1993 Los Angeles Daily News[F/C]
^LOS ANGELES [-]I am more comfortable defining rape in the
traditionally  narrow way: sex obtained by force or the credible
threat of force. That makes  it clear that rape is a crime of
violence properly classed with murder among  the most deplorable of
human actions.[E/P]
     Broadening the definition to include almost any sexual
relationship that  someone later regrets is an insult to the
victims of violent rape. It runs a  very definite risk of making
the injury done to them seem somehow less  important. And, with the
criminal justice system overloaded and the prisons  jammed, should
prosecuting successful seductions be an important social 
priority?[E/P]
     Rape by a spouse, or a date, or an acquaintance, can be just
as brutal as an  attack by a stranger. I wouldn't want the law to
return to the belief that it  is impossible, as a matter of logic,
for a husband to rape his wife.[E/P]    But the social consequences
of stranger rape are more powerful, and more  devastating. Like
most women I know, I am anxious when I have to return to my  car at
night. I've chosen apartments with a careful eye to how much street 
traffic there will be at the times I'll be returning home.[E/P]
     The possibility of acquaintance rape does not circumscribe my
life in the  same way. With men I know, I have a measure of control
that I don't have with  strangers. After all, I know where to find
them, so I have a credible threat  to counter any threat of force
(not that I have ever needed one).[E/P]      I am free to take
responsibility for my own decisions, and that is something  I
greatly prize.[E/P]
     The expansive definition of rape can deprive women of that
sense of  responsibility and control. If a ladylike unwillingness
to hurt a man's  feelings by telling him ``no'' is as involuntary
as submitting to a maniac  with a knife, and they're both rape,
then the most casual and innocent of  social occasions is
potentially terrifying.[E/P]
     These attitudes are especially prevalent on college campuses.
Even measures  to make women feel safer can have the opposite
effect. When I go to the  campus library at California State
University, Northridge, I can scarcely  step out of my car before
a polite young man driving an electric cart is  offering to escort
me across campus. He reports his position and his  destination
constantly on a walkie-talkie, and assures me that I should call 
the escort service as soon as I am ready to leave.[E/P]
     This does not make me feel better. Instead, it makes me wonder
how bad  things must be that the university feels it must take such
elaborate  precautions. Living in a climate of such constant
apprehension, students  readily come to believe the frightening
statistic that one in four college  women is the victim of rape or
attempted rape, which comes from a study  published in Ms. magazine
in 1985.[E/P]
     In her recent book, ``The Morning After: Sex, Fear, and
Feminism on  Campus,'' Katie Roiphe talks about date rape.[E/P]
     ``People have asked me if I have ever been date-raped. And
thinking back on  complicated nights, on too many glasses of wine,
on strange and familiar  beds, I would have to say yes,'' Roiphe
writes. ``With such a sweeping  definition of rape, I wonder how
many people there are, male or female, who  haven't been date-raped
at one point or another.''[E/P]
     Roiphe believes that the current view of women as the helpless
and fragile  victims of powerful men is an abandonment of the
demand for equality.[E/P]     ``Imagine men sitting around in a
circle talking about how she called him  impotent and how she
manipulated him into sex, how violated and dirty he felt 
afterward, how coercive she was, how she got him drunk first, how
he hated  his body and couldn't eat for three weeks afterward,''
Roiphe writes.[E/P]      Not that it can't happen, but it's not
rape.[E/P]
     The campus definition of date rape often stretches to
emotional manipulation  and verbal coercion, with ``verbal
coercion'' explained as ``a woman's  consenting to unwanted sexual
activity because of a man's verbal  arguments.''[E/P]
     That makes sense only to people who believe that adult females
are incapable  of distinguishing ``I won't love you if you don't''
from ``I will kill you if  you don't.''[E/P]
     And if a woman who is persuaded by verbal arguments to consent
to sex has  been raped, whether she thinks so or not, then it's
consistent to argue that  even an unsuccessful attempt at
persuasion constitutes attempted rape.[E/P]  The Ms. study,
directed by Mary Koss of the University of Arizona, uses  similar
definitions to arrive at its shocking one-in-four figure. When the 
supposed victims were asked directly, 73 percent did not think
their  experience was a rape, and nearly half later had sex with
the same man.[E/P]  Neil Gilbert, a professor of social welfare at
the University of California,  Berkeley, points out the discrepancy
between Koss's figures and reported  rapes. Berkeley has 14,000
female students, but in 1990 two rapes were  reported to police,
and 40 to 80 students went to the campus rape-counseling 
service.[E/P]
     I understand that rape, even more than most other crimes, is
frequently  unreported. But not that frequently.[E/P]
     Women who believe there are 10 rapes a day on campus are
likely to end up  cowering in their dorm rooms. Those who believe
there is one every six months  will enjoy nearly the same freedom
of movement and association as their male  peers. That's the cost
of teaching competent, strong women that they ought to  be passive
and fearful.[E/P]
     Men pay a cost, too. Here's a cautionary tale [-] a real
story, but I'll  tell it as a parable because it hasn't gone to
trial yet. Adam and Eve, both  19, are fellow students. They've had
sex once before, several months ago, and  since then he has
repeatedly invited her back to his apartment for an  encore.[F/L]
     One summer night, Eve did go back to Adam's apartment and fell
asleep.[F/L] She woke up to find her host (she says) trying to have
sex with her. He was  only (he says) fondling her.[E/P]
     But they both say she pushed him off and he stopped.[E/P]   So
now he is going to be tried for forcible rape and if he's convicted
he  could go to jail for eight years.[E/P]
     Now wait a minute. The whole point of the date-rape crusade,
the snide  question, ``What part of `No' don't you understand?'' is
that the woman has  an absolute right to say no at any point, no
matter how injudicious her  behavior, and expect to have her wishes
respected. But apparently they  were.[E/P]
     Adam may have misunderstood her intentions, but you can see
why, given the  circumstances.[E/P]
     I don't need or want the law to protect me from the Adams of
the world. I  can do that perfectly well myself. I want to be
protected from people like  Richard Allan Davis, the paroled
kidnapper and rapist who led police to the  body of 12-year-old
Polly Klaas.[E/P]
     But somewhere Eve got the idea that she can't deal with Adam
alone. If she  learned it at college, she needs a new
curriculum.[E/P]