ABSTRACT
To begin to understand the denial of women as potential sexual aggressors, it is necessary to place it within a broader social context. In this chapter I provide a framework for understanding the emergence and maintenance of denial using two social processes - a transformation process and a dialectical process. The transformation process helps to understand how denial emerges. I argue that in order to allay the discomfort of a 'deviant' reality - a reality that challenges the set of fundamental beliefs held by society, institutions and individuals -the deviant reality is realigned with more 'acceptable' cultural beliefs and is ultimately transformed. This transformation process leads to the denial of the deviant reality.
