"Gray Rape" (from NY Times)

[Charles Doyle]

A feature article on date rape in the student newspaper a few days ago discussed, as a kind of DATE RAPE, the surreptitious drugging and abducting of a stranger or slight acquaintance--for instance, at a bar or a party. Is that a common use or understanding of the term? Doesn't a date rape have to involve a "date"--therefore, possibly, a "grayer" area of conduct?

Maybe there has been a sort of cognitive back-formation of the informal term "date-rape drug": any rape involving the use of such a drug becomes a date rape.

--Charlie
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 00:11:00 -0400
>From: Barry Popik <bapopik at GMAIL.COM>
>Subject: "Gray Rape" (from NY Times)
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU

>...
>http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/gray-rape-a-new-form-of-date-rape/
>October 15, 2007,  4:00 pm
>'Gray Rape': A New Form of Date Rape?
>By Sewell Chan
>
>When Robert D. Laurino, chief assistant prosecutor for Essex County in New Jersey, told a friend that he was speaking on a panel about the topic of "gray rape," the friend was confused. "Are you talking about
>the rape of the elderly?" the friend asked.
>
>
>An article in the September issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, "A New Kind of Date Rape," defined "gray rape" as "sex that falls somewhere between consent and denial and is even more confusing than date rape because often both parties are unsure of who wanted what."
>
>A standing-room-only audience packed the lobby of the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice this morning to listen to a vigorous panel discussion on the idea of "gray rape" — and whether the term is even meaningful, helpful or harmful. Not too many events in the intellectual life of New York City bring together Jeremy Travis, the legal expert and former city police official who is the president of John Jay, and Kate White, editor in chief ofCosmopolitan, which sponsored the event.
>
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