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Published in Cosmopolitan, May 2011. Copyright Rachel Hills 2011.

A shocking new study has revealed that sexual predators are more likely to be the “nice guy” who’s the life of the party – not the creepy guy in the corner.

Erica* was just 18 when she first experienced sexual assault at the hands of a colleague. She had just started working as a journalist and an older man writing in the same field invited her over to his house for drinks with a bunch of other colleagues. “It wasn’t a date,” she recalls. “It was, ‘Oh come round, there’ll be lots of us.’”

Erica’s colleague was charming and attentive during the party. “He would get you a drink and was hospitable to all the guests,” she remembers. However, as the night wore on, she started to feel woozy. He suggested she lie down and took her to his bedroom, where she eventually passed out. After the other guests had left the party and gone home, he raped her.

At first Erica blamed herself for the events that unfolded that night. “It was all my fault, in my head. I had not been ‘raped’ – I had been stupid and suffered a consequence,” she says. It was only later that she realised she had been “deliberately drugged, deliberately set up and deliberately assaulted”.

Overturning stereotypes

Much of the time, when we talk about rape, we draw upon one of a couple of familiar stories. There’s stranger rape, committed by anonymous criminals in alleyways. Then there are alleged “misunderstandings”, in which one person – usually a man – has sex with another thinking that they consent.

However, a new study by the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) has shown that most sexual assaults don’t fit either of these narratives. For one, the vast majority of assaults are committed by someone known to the victim – a friend, work colleague, family member or even a boyfriend. Nor are perpetrators easily identifiable creeps or misfits: the women interviewed for the AIFS study described their rapists variously as charming, talkative and engaging.

These findings may be surprising, but they shouldn’t be, says Nina Funnell, a board member of the NSW Rape Crisis Centre. “One of the myths about rapists is that they all look like bogeymen. So often we hear guys in particular defending [people accused of sexual assault], saying, ‘He couldn’t be a rapist because he’s such a nice guy.’” But, says Funnell, “Women do not accept drinks from guys who look like bogeymen. They don’t accept rides from guys who look like monsters. They don’t let their guards down around them.” And, according to the AIFS study, building up enough trust to get their victims to let their guards down is one of the most common strategies employed by offenders.

Planned attacks

Nor does sexual assault happen by accident. According to Dr Antonia Quadara, who co-authored the AIFS study with Haley Clark, rapists draw upon a variety of “resources” to deliberately target their victims and facilitate their assaults. These could include gendered expectations of how men and women relate to one another, surprise, control, alcohol and trust.

“The first thing the offenders in our study did was try to isolate their victim, whether that was socially or physically,” explains Quadara. “They might lie, or say something like, ‘Oh no, there are no spare beds.’ Then they would try to impose their own desires and perspectives on victims.”

As Erica reflects, “The fact that he used drugs to make me unconscious meant that he knew very well what he was doing and what he intended to do.”

In many cases, offenders will also try to reframe the assault after it happens. Jenny was brutally attacked by a man she met on New Year’s Eve. She and a friend had decided to celebrate by going away, and shared drinks with two men at their motel. “We started chatting to them and we ended up spending most of the night with them,” she remembers. “One of them was buying me lots of drinks. I had all intentions of going home with him, absolutely.”

At the end of the night, Jenny took him back to her room to have sex, but once they got there, he turned on her. “I had no way to react … because he was so quick. The moment I opened the door … he pulled my clothes off and sort of went … straight away with the anal sex,” she says. “He was really rough. I don’t know how long it went on for.” After the assault was over, Jenny’s attacker took a shower, returned to the bedroom, sat on the bed and asked her, “So I’ll see you?”

“I just looked at him and said no,” Jenny recalls. “When he went, I found out that I had actually bled some time during the night.”

He said, she said

This kind of behaviour is not uncommon, says Quadara. “Some men would send follow-up text messages asking their victim out again. In other instances, particularly drink-spiking or drugging, the perpetrator told them that they were wild, that they were up for it. They imposed their version of events on the victim/survivor.” And, often, it works. Just as it took Erica some time to register what had happened to her as rape, Jenny was scared to report her attack. “Because I was taking him back to the room, I didn’t feel like I could report it. So, I never reported it,” says Jenny.

“Survivors sometimes think, ‘Am I confused here?’” says Quadara. “Maybe he has absolutely no idea. In many instances, they give their attackers the benefit of the doubt until they’re in serious emotional or physical distress.”

However, while a flirty phone call or text message could be interpreted to suggest a genuine misunderstanding, Quadara says this is not the case. “When you get into the detail of these stories, how they progressed from one step to the next, you see a very deliberate unfolding of behaviour designed to get someone into a vulnerable position,” she says.

“He was an average guy,” remembers Jenny. “It was a normal conversation. No alarm bells rang. I thought he was nice.”

Trust yourself

So, how can we protect ourselves? Quadara says there’s no way to identify a rapist. Just as perpetrators aren’t all creeps, so too are they not universally charismatic charmers. “Perpetrators try to make something look as ordinary as possible. The point is not that every guy you meet is a predator, but that being predatory and ordinary are not mutually exclusive,” says Quadara. “Most men are not sexual-assault perpetrators, but there’s a minority who have behaviours that meet the legal definition of sexual assault.”

Funnell says the important thing is to get educated on how sexual assaults really happen. “A study like this empowers women who’ve been assaulted to name that experience for what it was,” she says, adding that you’re not responding in the “wrong” way if it takes you a while to recognise it.

“It can be difficult to recognise, particularly when it occurs within what was assumed to be a trusting friendship or professional relationship,” says Quadara. “Delaying disclosure is normal. If you’re reflecting on something and it didn’t feel right, you should trust that.”

Road to recovery

● If you believe you have been sexually assaulted, and want to talk to someone about it, call the National Sexual Assault, Family & Domestic Violence Counselling Line on 1800 737 732.

● If you would like to report a sexual assault, phone your local police department and ask to meet with a detective with specialised training in dealing with victims of sexual assault. “These people understand the complex and wide range of ways in which sexual assaults play out,” says Funnell. You can bring a friend or support person with you when you report. You’ll also be entitled to free counselling.