Many people think that attractions have a lot to do with rape. For example, many people label a man who is attracted to boys as a threat to boys. He may even be banned from being around boys at all simply because his secret got out. Yet, were the man to be attracted to women instead, he would not be deemed a potential rapist simply because of his attractions (even if he happens to like small, young looking women with boyish features).

I had a dream once, although nightmare seems a better word. It was the first and last dream of its kind. I dreamed that I was raping a teenage girl. We weren't having sex. I was raping her. Naturally, the dream upset me greatly. I told it to Joey and he was very understanding. You see, whereas I am rather repulsed by the female body, he happens to be attracted to teenage girls. And, yes, it was a teenage girl that I dreamed I was raping. Attractions aren't the basis of rape. Violence, hate, rage, and all that is the basis behind rape. Sure, sexual lust may get out of control, but the moment it crosses the line into forced sex, it becomes an act of violence. You can care about someone and want to have sex with them, but you can't care about someone and want to rape them. In my case, it was jealousy. I was an awful nightmare, but I value the understanding that it brought. You can't stop bad dreams any more than you can stop bad things from happening. You can only hope to learn from the experience. The mistake would be to take the dream and say, "look, I'm straight now." I'm not a rapist, but I do know that rapists don't always act out of attraction to the victim. They get a power trip out of it. It's human nature to dominate over others, whether a bigger boy over a smaller one or whether a stronger man over a weaker woman. You'll find that the cereal rapists of women hate women. They dominate over the women the same way they would over children or anyone smaller and weaker. It comes from hate, often its base form: self hatred.

Of course, Joey says that most cases of rape are spontanious. He says guys are just trying to get girls into bed. The reason this idea scares me so much is the thought that a high sex drive could make someone rape someone else. Sure, I'm not attracted to famales, so it's hard for me to relate and my sex drive is not exactly high, but can a hormone remove self control? Even if it can't, I still think I could be quite happy without a sex drive. It's not that I think I would rape someone, but that I'm not an animal and a sex drive seems a bit unnecessary.

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