The book is largely based on a nationwide study in the United States, the Ms. Magazine Campus Project on Sexual Assault.

The title references the finding in the study that 73% of women whose sexual assault met the definition of rape did not identify their experience as such.

[1] The study of acquaintance rape on college campuses funded by the National Institute for Mental Health formed the basis for Warshaw's book, which is subtitled The Ms. Report on Recognizing, Fighting, and Surviving Date and Acquaintance Rape.

[3] In a review in Feminist Teacher, Ann Goetting found the book to be "a thorough, practical, and highly effective presentation of the social dynamics and consequences of acquaintance-rape among college students.

"[1] Katie Roiphe, in her 1993 book The Morning After, questioned whether one in four women are victims of rape, writing "If I were really standing in the middle of an epidemic, a crisis, if 25 percent of my female friends were being raped, wouldn't I know it?