New research suggests that the rapist can make use of women’s bodies in a new way by exploiting her sleep and other physical attributes to carry out sexual assaults.
The study is the first to show that a woman can be raped in this way without using any physical attack, the researchers said.
The findings suggest that women’s physical attributes can be used to carry a rapist’s weapon.
“The key here is to look at the person, and what the person’s posture, their body language, their facial expressions, the way they look at each other and the way that they communicate, the ways they engage in a conversation, all those things all contribute to the ability to make a person receptive to violence,” said Dr. David Kowalski, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of California, Berkeley, and the lead author of the study.
“If you’re just looking at one person, you don’t get that ability to create violence with physical attacks.”
The researchers conducted a series of experiments that focused on two types of women: women who had been raped but were not incapacitated and women who were incapacitated but who were raped.
In the first type of study, women who’d been raped while incapacitated were also recruited and tested in a laboratory setting.
In this group, women were not allowed to speak to their attackers.
The researchers found that the perpetrators could use the woman’s body to create the illusion of consent, and that they could use this body to make use the victim’s unconscious state.
In addition, the study showed that women who said that they were raped while intoxicated had higher rates of self-reported and physical assault.
This finding is consistent with previous research showing that women with higher levels of intoxication tend to be more likely to report sexual assault.
Women in this study were recruited in a rape crisis center and tested on a number of sexual assault indicators, including whether they had a history of sexual abuse, if they had been sexually assaulted by a stranger, if the perpetrator was intoxicated and if they were incapacitating.
“There’s no question that women are vulnerable to being sexually assaulted, but it’s been really hard to see how this could happen,” said lead author Dr. Laura P. Kowalczyk, a professor of psychology at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Education.
“It’s really surprising that women have been able to be assaulted in this manner.”
The second type of rape study was conducted at the Kinsey Institute in San Francisco.
Participants were asked to wear a face mask while undergoing a battery of tests, including body language and whether they were conscious.
Researchers also conducted a battery on how the researchers perceived the women’s emotions.
They also asked whether the women understood the situation and how they reacted.
In each case, the women were asked whether they’d used force in the assault, whether they could have resisted, and whether the victim felt pain.
When the researchers measured the levels of arousal, which was measured with a visual analogue scale, the participants’ responses indicated that they understood the context in which the assault occurred and had the capacity to stop.
The authors said that this study is not meant to suggest that any woman’s ability to be raped was entirely dependent on her sexual status.
“In this study, it seems that the ability of women to resist physical assault and the capacity of women in general to use their bodies to resist a sexual assault are connected,” Kowaloski said.
However, he said that the results are also important to the research community.
“These findings could be useful in understanding how to identify, treat, and prevent sexual assault,” he said.
“We need to continue to look for ways to use women’s body and how to create an environment where they’re not afraid of assault.”
The research was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and the Kinseys Institute.
The article appears in the April 20, 2019, issue of The Journal of Sex Research.
