And the assumption embedded in this movement is our grandmother's assumption: men want sex, women don't. In emphasizing this struggle, him pushing, her resisting, the movement against date rape recycles and promotes an old model of sexuality.

One book, "Avoiding Rape On and Off Campus," by Carol Pritchard, warns young women to "think carefully before you go to a male friend's apartment or dorm . . . . Do not expose yourself to any unnecessary risk." When did the possibility of sex become an "unnecessary risk"? Are we really such fragile creatures that we need such an extreme definition of safety? Should we really subject our male friends to scrutiny because after all men want one thing and one thing only?

The definition of date rape stretches beyond acts of physical force. According to pamphlets widely distributed on college campuses, even "verbal coercion" constitutes "date rape." With this expansive version of rape, then, these feminists invent a kinder, gentler sexuality. These pamphlets are clearly intended to protect innocent college women from the insatiable force of male desire. We have been hearing about this for centuries. He is still nearly uncontrollable; she is still the one drawing lines. This so-called feminist movement peddles an image of gender relations that denies female desire and infantilizes women. Once again, our bodies seem to be sacred vessels. We've come a long way, and now it seems, we are going back.

The date rape pamphlets begin to sound like Victorian guides to conduct. The most common date rape guide, published by the American College Health Association, advises its delicate readers to "communicate your limits clearly. If someone starts to offend you, tell them firmly and early."

Sharing these assumptions about female sensibilities, a manners guide from 1853 advises young women, "Do not suffer your hand to be held or squeezed without showing that it displeases you by instantly withdrawing it . . . . These and many other little points of refinement will operate as an almost invisible though a very impenetrable fence, keeping off vulgar familiarity, and that desecration of the person which has so often led to vice." And so ideals of female virtue and repression resonate through time.