“Few other human transgressions elicit the level of anger, fear and distaste that many Americans feel in response to sexual crimes.”

—Erica Goode

In the last three decades of the twentieth century, rape, sexual assault, sexual abuse, and child molestation have increasingly become the focus of public concern. According to a 1993 National Crime Victimization Survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice, about 500,000 rapes or sexual assaults occur each year. Child protective services report approximately 200,000 substantiated cases of child sexual abuse annually. Moreover, the Department of Justice states that since 1985, “rape rates have risen nearly three times as fast as the total crime rate.” Although various other studies offer statistics that conflict with these numbers—for example, the National Women’s Study claims that about 683,000 rapes of adult women occur annually, while the Federal Bureau of Investigation reports 103,000 such rapes...