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1200 Loyola University Chicago Law Journal [Vol. 45
places on college campuses.
Additionally, many social gatherings
involve alcohol or other substances that can lead to incapacitation.
Furthermore, being a freshman or sophomore in college puts a woman
at greater risk of sexual assault than older students.
Finally, there are
a disproportionate number of rapes reported when the perpetrators are
athletes
and a disproportionate number of gang rapes reported when
the perpetrators are fraternity members.
At universities and colleges, acquaintance rape accounts for 90% of
victimizations.
Acquaintance rape, in which the victim knows the
attacker, differs from stranger rape, in which the victim does not know
the attacker.
However, society, as well as colleges and universities,
treats acquaintance rape less seriously than stranger rape, in part
because it is understood incorrectly.
For instance, acquaintance rape
. FISHER ET AL., supra note 1, at 1; see SAMPSON, supra note 1, at 8 (discussing aspects of
college social interactions that can contribute to high rape rates).
. FISHER ET AL., supra note 1, at 23; KREBS ET AL., supra note 1, at xviii; SAMPSON, supra
note 1, at 14, 16 (discussing the role of alcohol in acquaintance rape); see KILPATRICK ET AL.,
supra note 1, at 28 (finding that in the general population, elements of force are involved in 90%
of the victimizations and more than one in five involved alcohol or drug facilitation or
incapacitation, but that in the college population, only 72% of cases involved elements of force
and over half involved drug or alcohol facilitation or incapacitation).
. KREBS ET AL., supra note 1, at xviii; SAMPSON, supra note 1, at 12.
. See CAROL BOHMER & ALICE PARROT, SEXUAL ASSAULT ON CAMPUS: THE PROBLEM
AND THE SOLUTION 21 (1993) (stating an FBI survey found that basketball and football players
from NCAA colleges “were reported to police for sexual assault thirty-eight percent more often
than the average for males on college campuses”); SAMPSON, supra note 1, at 17 (recognizing
this could be because athletes feel privileged or immune to campus rules or because victims are
“angered by athletes’ esteemed and privileged status”). Bohmer and Parrot also theorize that
athletes in aggressive sports are more likely to rape due in part to the culture surrounding college
athletics, such as drinking alcohol to celebrate after wins or drown sorrows after losses. BOHMER
& PARROT, supra, at 22.
. See SAMPSON, supra note 1, at 17 (theorizing fraternities’ unique place on campus, in
private residences which are often the location of unsupervised parties, as well as their group
mentality and emphasis on loyalty could lead to a greater risk of rape); see also BOHMER &
PARROT, supra note 26, at 21–23 (finding that the process of joining a fraternity often
desensitizes men to behaviors that objectify women).
. See, e.g., FISHER ET AL., supra note 1, at 17 (reporting that most people know the person
who sexually victimizes them); SAMPSON, supra note 1, at 9 (finding the most common offenders
are “classmate[s], friend[s], boyfriend[s], ex-boyfriend[s], or other acquaintance[s] (in that
order)”).
. See SAMPSON, supra note 1, at 13 (laying out characteristics of both stranger rape and
acquaintance rape); see also Nancy Chi Cantalupo, Burying Our Heads in the Sand: Lack of
Knowledge, Knowledge Avoidance, and the Persistent Problem of Campus Peer Sexual Violence,
43 LOY. U. CHI. L.J. 205, 220 (2011) (describing public perceptions that rapists must be strangers
to the victim and cannot be someone the victim knows, such as an acquaintance).
. See SAMPSON, supra note 1, at 13 (discussing the myth that stranger rape is “real rape”
and acquaintance rape is less serious and less harmful); see also Cantalupo, supra note 29, at 220