Janet Bode was a victim of a gang rape.

After offering a young man a ride to a nearby gas station, she was threatened with a knife and led to a wooded lot. In the next hour, three assailants raped and threatened to kill her.

In her book Fighting Back, Bode recounted the terror: "That night a part of me did die -- my faith, openness, trust."

Bode reported the incident to police, and eventually a trial was held for one of her assailants.

Under cross-examination, however, she faced absurdly irrelevant questions:

"Didn't you approach those three men, tell them you were separated from your husband and hadn't had intercourse for a long time?"

"In fact, you know you suggested going into the woods for some fun."

"If all you claim is true, why didn't you fight to save your honor? Where were your bruises of resistance?"

Rape is society's most widely misunderstood crime -- and unfortunately it is misunderstood by a majority, not merely a handful of people.

Rape is not the result of uncontrolled male sex drive. Rape is an act of violent assault.

The statistics and surveys of people who think otherwise appall me.

While it is estimated that one in four women will be a victim of rape in her lifetime and awareness of the issue supposedly has increased, recent surveys suggest that society still widely condones rape.

One researcher in a recent Ms. magazine study reported more than 50 percent of the male students he surveyed said they would "force a woman into having sex" if they knew they would not be caught.

In another recent survey of 1700 sixth to ninth graders in Rhode Island, nearly one-quarter of the boys and one-sixth of the girls said it was acceptable for a man to force a woman to have sex if he had spent money on her.

Unfortunately, these neanderthalian attitudes often carry over into the courtroom.

Rape is virtually alone among crimes in which society creates two guilty parties -- the rapist and the woman who is raped.

Our criminal justice system sometimes has shown an amazing lack of compassion and understanding in dealing with a rape victim who presses charges against her assailant.

Because rape is not always seen as a violent assault, and because of the prevalent myth that women are willing partners in rape, the sexual history of the victim prior to the rape is often called into question -- sometimes in explicit detail in a crowded courtroom.

A "second rape" occurs on the witness stand.

Not only is the question of prior sexual activity degrading to the victim, it is completely irrelevant to a rapist's trial.

Because of the fear women have about re-living the rape to a jury and the difficulties inherent in pressing charges against a rapist, most rapes go unreported.

The Ms. survey found that only 5 percent of rape victims report the incident to police.

But as Bode points out, "Assault or robbery victims do not have to prove they fought back, did not consent to the attack, or did not give their money away. The law presumes no one would willingly do that.

"But rape victims remain in a unique category. If they did not try to repel the assailant, it is assumed they agreed.

"When they are no longer virgins, many believe they willingly 'gave' themselves to the offender."

To think that women are "willing" partners in a rape is ludicrous. No one is "willing" to be physically and emotionally assaulted.

And women who are victims of rape are not "asking" for rape by their actions.

According to Marcia Molmen in Avoiding Rape, the F.B.I. researched the part of promiscuous behavior in rape. They defined "victim-provoked rape" as "any rape before which the victim has smiled at the rapist, talked to him, accepted a drink or a ride, dressed provocatively, or done anything at all which could conceivably have led the rapist to believe she was willing."

Despite this very broad definition of "victim-provoked" rape, the study found that only four percent of rapes were victim-provoked. Ninety-six percent were completely unprovoked assaults.

The idea that rape victims are promiscuous or at fault in most rapes is demonstrably false. It is most unfortunate that this myth continues to influence the attitudes of rape victims.

In their article "Coping With Unwanted Sexual Activity," Murnen, Perot and Byrne (1989) surveyed 130 female college students at SUNY-Albany. Seventy-two of the women had been the target of unwanted intimate activity, and 26 percent of these were raped. Of the 72 women, none felt they were blameless in the incident, and 11 percent thought they were "mostly to blame."

None of these incidents were reported to police. Moreover, one-half of the victims did not report the incident to anybody, not even a close friend.

It is societal attitudes that taunt women into accepting the blame for a personal violation they did not provoke. It is incomprehensible and unacceptable.

There is no place for many of society's attitudes toward rape, yet they continue to shape the number of rapes reported and prosecuted.

Under no circumstance is it acceptable to "force a woman to have sex," for by "definition" this is rape.

But suppose a survey posed the question this way:

"You are feeling frustrated and angry. Would you commit a violent physical assault against another if you thought you could get away with it?"

I would hope the affirmative answers would not total to 50 percent.