This book combines Foucauldian discourse analysis with empirical social psychology research to examine the ways in which Western cultural assumptions about heterosexual relationships create a "cultural scaffolding of rape." Gavey does not argue that all sex is rape*. Rather, she argues that many underlying assumptions about heterosexual sex--from female passivity and insatiable male sex drives to the the coital imperative--create gray areas of sexual coercion that are not quite rape but clearly also not "just sex." In order to adequately prevent rape, we need to re-conceptualize "normal" sexual relations between men and women.

Because Gavey is interested in cultural assumptions regarding heterosex, she does not discuss rape of men by men or women by women. She does acknowledge that such rapes occur, however. She also engages with research of women as perpetrators of sexual violence against men, but finds the existing literature inadequate. Gavey argues strongly against equivalence arguments that analyze rape of men by women through gender reversal metaphors (i.e. when this happens to a woman we understand it this way, so when it happens to men we must understand it the same way.) Rather she believes that rape of men must be theorized for its particularity.

*nor do other radical feminists who are often accused of holding that position. Both Andrea Dworkin and Catherine Mackinnon have refuted interpretations of their work that lead to the conclusion "all sex is rape." ( )