Hello and thank you for downloading Witness on the BBC World Service with me Claire Bowes.

Today we're going back to America in 1991 when the term date rape was first used in the mainstream media. One woman decided to go public

with the disturbing story of her own rape and on June the third she found herself

on the front cover of Time magazine.

So my name is Katie Kuesner and I grew up in the United States.

I had a younger sister and a mom and a dad.

My dad's an FBI agent, so he was was Mr Undercover, heavily armed dad and I swam every day.

I really love being outside. I loved playing the piano and books.

Katie Kessner had had a fairly sheltered upbringing by many standards,

but by the time she left for college in September 1990,

she thought she knew all about the danger of rape and how to protect herself.

At that exact moment at age 18, no one had yet talked about the fact that you could be raped by someone you knew. People talked about it,

that you could be raped by someone off the street or parked where it's well lit, don't walk alone.

I knew all those things. My dad gave me Mace when I left for college.

At college she studied chemical engineering and Japanese.

Soon she met someone she really liked and after a few weeks he asked her out on a dinner date.

And it was so elegant. I mean there were candles and people play music and

waiters who spoke in French and my date ordered in French and I just couldn't believe my good fortune to go out with this guy and meet him.

I felt like I had met the best guy of the whole campus in my little world.

Then after dinner, I didn't want to go back to his room for whatever reason I just thought like I don't know if his roommate's going to be around or if he has alcohol in there I didn't want to drink and I didn't want to go to a bar.

So I invited him to hang out with me in my room.

And I never, never, Claire, I thought that there was anything weird about having some guy come in your room and thinking that it could just be as simple as that.

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