The Feed has partnered with The Festival of Dangerous Ideas to produce this story on female sexual predators which will air tonight at 7:30pm on SBS 2.

WHEN Stephanie visited New York, she expected the trip of a lifetime.

Instead her dream holiday turned into a nightmare when she was raped by another woman.

The 29-year-old had just arrived in New York with a male friend when she alleges she was sexually assaulted by the host she was staying with.

She said the assault caught her completely off-guard and is something she still hasn’t completely dealt with.

Stephanie and her friend had just settled in to enjoy a wine with their host after a 25-hour journey when the attack occurred.

She said her host barely spoke to her at first and it wasn’t until her friend went to bed that her attacker pounced.

“By this stage we had let loose and she began to talk to me,” she told news.com.au

“She asked me to change the music on the iPod and after I got up she put her hands around my waist and started to touch me.

“I was so shocked I said ‘my boyfriend wouldn't be cool with this’ and told her I wasn’t gay and wasn’t comfortable with this. She said she wasn’t gay but that she was just attracted to me.”

Still too shocked to take it in and process what happened, her host suggested to Stephanie that they forget about it and relax while watching some TV.

Stephanie soon fell asleep and when she woke up, her shorts and underwear had been removed and her host was allegedly assaulting her.

“I had no idea how long it had been going on,” she said.

“All I could think about was getting my shorts back on and running from the room.”

Stephanie said she told her friend what had happened the next day and as they had already paid for their accommodation, they took the decision to stay while Stephanie desperately tried to forget about what happened.

She said her host carried on like nothing had happened, even buying her little gifts.

Stephanie said she never reported it and didn’t tell anyone else about it because she simply felt she couldn’t.

Her story appears on The Feed tonight on SBS 2.

“I do feel like there is this sort of unspoken agreement that girls look out for other girls,” Stephanie tells The Feed.

“And not that you expect a guy to violate you, and I don’t walk down the street expecting to be raped by a man, but you really don’t expect it from a woman because they’re meant to be on your side.”

Stephanie told news.com.au she hasn’t had counselling yet but urges anyone who has been assaulted to talk about it.

“I couldn’t deal with it (reporting the attack),” she said.

“I didn’t ever want any contact or anything to do with her again and victims don’t ever want to see their attackers again.”

The program also tells the story of Tim Rose who said he was raped by his female boss when he was a teeenager.

Tim tells reporter Andy Park how he was just 16 when the incident occurred and while he reported it later to police, no charges were laid.

“She was my boss, and I was 16. There was penetration,” he said.

Park told news.com.au exact statistics on female-led sexual assault were difficult to determine with many victims too embarrassed and traumatised to report the assaults.

But he said it was clear it wasn’t just men committing sexual assault.

“Rape isn’t about gender, sexual assault is all about power,” he said.

Park said no matter whether the perpetrator was male or female, there was a deep sense of shame felt by victims.

According to an Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault research paper, female sex offenders make up just under 5 per cent of all offences.

However, the real figure could be much higher with researchers revealing that the abuse usually goes unreported.

The report also found half of convicted female sex offenders offenders had co-offended with a man.

Queensland-based clinical, health and forensic psychologist Dr Bob Montgomery agreed the numbers could be much higher with male victims in particular reluctant to report it.

Dr Montgomery said men in particular would feel they should be able to protect themselves and said many cases probably went unreported.

He said while female sex attackers were rare it still shocked society as these women went against society’s expectation of women and the notion that they were not as sexual as men.

“Female sexual assault contradicts society's idea that men take the lead in sex and relationships,” he said.

Dr Montgomery said men who were raped by women could still get aroused despite the traumatic experience and that a heightened sense of anxiety could add to that.

He added motives for women weren’t always clear but sexual offenders generally followed the same patterns of fantasy before leading up to acting those out.

These can start as relatively harmless thoughts, but lead to innapropriate touching or more violent sexual behaviour.

“As each stage loses its stimulation (sense of excitement) the offender feels the need for that next step up.”

To hear more of Stephanie and Tim’s stories, tune into The Feed tonight on SBS 2.

Continue the conversation at @newscomauHQ | @TheFeed | @andy—park