When I received a RAG Blind Date form describing the sender’s intention to rape me the following evening, I had no doubt that it was a poor excuse for a joke, rather than a threat. Below are the finer details of the form and the date that I did indeed go on, with which you can decide how funny it turned out to be.

Ninety per cent of the RAG forms are jokes – the general rule is take your friend’s form, make them out to be promiscuous, disease-ridden, socially inept, in possession of a fetish, and don’t forget to add an explicit drawing. Hand the form in then proudly tell your friend what a horrific a job you’ve done. And actually, it’s very funny, and useful. So many people are repressed when it comes to sex and romance – these fun creative flourishes allow people the pretence that they have no need to acquire intimacy this way or another – RAG is just a good laugh in the name of charity. I indulged. The forms were collected and exchanged.

When I first glanced at the form I had been given, and saw the drawing of a blind-folded woman tied to a bed with her legs apart, I thought “I’ve got a got a joke one. Never mind.” Then I read one comment that spilt onto the picture “Prefer to:...Go out...ON THE RAPE” and thought “So I’ve got a tasteless joke one, well hopefully the guy will be funnier than the friends who filled it out for him.” I looked at it properly when I got back to my room.

“Me in five words: I DICK ON JOSEF FRITZEL”

“My ideal date in five words: BOUND, GAGGED YET STILL HOPEFUL”

“SCREAMING IS IMPORTANT – GOOD VOCAL RANGE REQUIRED”

“Song to set the mood: RAPE ME, NIRVANA”

“My room: Messy – LAST TIME SHE STRUGGLED”

“Drink of choice: TEQUILA BUT ROHPYNOL FOR YOU”

“We would travel by:...limo – GURNEY FOR YOU” (a gurney is a stretcher)

“It takes...10minutes...to get me into bed – NEED TIME FOR THE DRUGS TO WORK / TO TIE YOU UP”

There were about twice as many as this – the sheer extent of the comments and details, combined with the direct addresses to ‘you’ (being his imagined receiver) then made that drawing of the naked woman, tied up with her arms and legs spread open, so different. Regardless of the lack of genuine threat, I was having my own rape described to me as a joke. And in fact it was so funny that the neighbour who found me had to keep reminding me to breathe – I had a panic attack.

When people heard of the form, the most common response was: “But he probably didn’t write the form himself.” As long as all concrete figures are blameless then the offence dissolves; distance is key. There was debate on whether the form should not have been delivered, or whether it was right to give freedom of choice to the receiver. My problem with it being delivered – to anybody – is that no person in ‘the system’ has turned around and said “We – I – don’t accept this. And by the way, it isn’t funny.” I know that the form was read, because on the night of my having received the form, somebody stood outside my room calling my full name familiarly – I opened the door to a drunken stranger smiling at me “I know your blind date. What did you think of the form?” Turned out he was a RAG rep from the other College: the system was stood right in front of me.

So the following evening I met my blind date. Despite believing that he had no intention of hurting me in any way, I was still aware that this person (or at least his friends) gave no thought to boundaries, or consequences, and that this was a person with whom I intended to initiate a confrontation.

So I had my male best friend follow behind, as I made polite conversation and led us to a pub. I asked my date if he had seen the form – he told me he had seen it, he had written the whole thing himself with just a little help from one friend. Despite my slightly awkward, slightly nervous questioning, he resisted any admittance of a faux pas, just asserting that he hoped the RAG reps would have found him somebody with a suitably black sense of humour.

I hadn’t mentioned which pub I was walking us to, and as we turned onto a road that was more than 10 metres away from market square, he looked a little nervous. “Where are we going by the way?” – “Oh, sorry” – “No that’s okay, I just don’t want to be raped, ha.” I laughed back politely, though his laugh was forced too; he didn’t like not feeling in control. “There’s a good pub just at the end of this road.”

When we got to the bar I told him I’d rather get the drinks, so after he had told me what he’d like I turned to my friend, who was now stood right next to us, and asked what he was having, then turned back to my date, “I hope you understand why I wouldn’t come alone after the form I received.” He was somehow perfectly understanding while at the same time perfectly shocked, and uttered his first “of course” of the evening.

It’s amazing what the presence of somebody physically larger does to a person – it might be worth remembering in future that only one per cent of women are as strong as the average male. Faced with my friend, my date was afraid. His hands shook. There were apologies. And then a few questions, and a few answers, which I sat quietly and listened to.

“Do you know anyone who’s been raped?” – “Of course not, if I did I wouldn’t have written that form.” – “Then you and your friends and family are very lucky; it destroys a person, and the people that love them.” My date offered the information that on his friend’s form they had made his friend out to be a raging alcoholic (a supposedly comparative joke, I think) “Was your friend’s form violent then?” – “Of course not, no.” Was that obvious?

“So is rape something that you and your friends often joke about?” – “Of course not.” Was that also obvious? And was it the likely truth? He then added “We abhor it.”

Most people’s idea of rape is this really rare occurrence in which a woman is attacked by a stranger on her way home from work and then we hear about it on the news. In fact the ‘stories’ – the cases – that make the news are only those in which the rape victim has been murdered afterwards. One in four women have experienced rape or attempted rape, and the most common perpetrators of rape are husbands and partners, with close relatives not far behind. If you think that you don’t know ANYBODY who has been raped, you’re wrong. Bear in mind that unlike horrific blind date stories, rape is not the sort of thing a person puts on their Facebook status.

I am making an example of this man, whom I have forgiven, because this incident is at the extreme end of a scale that the majority of young people are now falling onto. Feeling uncomfortable with the real issue of rape, people make light of it through comedy, and their ability to do so supposedly demonstrates that “of course” they are in fact decent, harmless people, with good senses of humour. Struggle as I must, I fail to see the joke.

For more statistics and information go to http://www.rapecrisis.org.uk/