In 2015, a study was conducted by academics at the University of North Dakota and the North Dakota State University. Its sample size was 86 students. Roughly one third of male university students who took part in the study admitted that they would rape a woman if there were no consequences.

The study, published in the scientific journal Violence and Gender, presented mostly white male American participants a questionnaire on how they would act in certain sexual situations. One question asked how the participants would act in a situation where they could have sexual intercourse with a woman against her will “if nobody would ever know and there wouldn’t be any consequences.”