A comparison of these environments with more rape-prone settings demonstrates that peaceable sexual cultures are embedded in different social patterns. Rape free environments are characterized by greater respect for women and a marked social emphasis on civility and concern for the common good. On rape-free U.S. campuses the social factors promoting male insensitivity are either muted or absent. For example, all-male groups such as fraternities or athletic teams do not dominate the social scene. The student culture does not tolerate homophobic, racist, and sexist attitudes.
Women play visible roles in student government.
If a sexual assault occurs, administrators act quickly and decisively. Rape-prone environments, on the other hand, emphasize the solitary high of individual pleasure irrespective of a partner's desire or lack of it. Drinking and hypermasculine behavior, research demonstrates, are frequently associated with sexually aggressive behavior often involving men who affiliate with all-male groups. I begin this book with an incident in which a group of lacrosse players living in a common house and attending St. John's University, a commuter school in Queens, New York, used alcohol to facilitate what they claimed was an act of seduction. By the time the case reached a Queens courtroom in l991, this incident had become known as the St. John's Lacrosse Team sex assault case.