Abstract

This article analyzes data available in published studies of rapists’ self-reports and argues that according to their own accounts, many men developed inaccurate impressions of women’s desires through a confident form of role-taking. While rapists’ inaccuracies have been previously described as instances of “miscommunication”or lapsed role-taking, they do not always indicate lack of emotional or intellectual depth to role-taking. The article adds to the profeminist, symbolic interactionist literature on role-taking by arguingthat relations of disavowedmale-male desire andthe exchange of women make the possibility of men’s sensitive knowledge of women’s sexual desires problematic. Some of these forms of knowledge are outlined, and an approach to rape prevention is briefly suggested.