THIS week two young men were jailed in York for seven and six years respectively for rape.

Last month, two other young men from Thirsk received nine-year sentences for rape, and a fifth young man, the former Welsh international footballer Ched Evans, is finding doors are closed after being released part-way through his five-year sentence for rape.

Every night, there are other young men out in York city centre who could find themselves in a similar situation.

All five regarded themselves as decent, respectable people right up to the moment a jury convicted them, and they probably still do. All five would deny that they should be put in the same category as rapists who force themselves on women after jumping on them in the street.

What all five did was to have sex with a woman too drunk to know what she was doing.

In other words, just like rapists who grab someone in the street, they had no thought of her as a person with her own wishes. They took advantage of a woman in a situation where any decent, respectable person would have tried to help her.

I have sat through many a rape trial where a man has been accused of having non-consensual sex with a woman he met for the first time in a bar or city-centre street at night.

Sometimes he will say something along the lines of, "well, I'm ashamed of it now, but she was coming onto me".

The impression they create is that when a man sees a woman he thinks is being sexy, he can't stop himself.

They also, if the woman has never seen them before, seem to think they are so irresistibly handsome a female just has to see them to want to jump into bed with them. Somehow that makes sense to them.

Sex for a woman is a very intimate and invasive form of physical contact. Any man who respects women would want to be absolutely sure she is happy to undergo such an experience before having sex with her. 

Men are not animals and can control themselves. If a man is kissed by his mother or sister when she has been drinking, or is hugged by a drunken man, he doesn't assume it means "Let's have sex".

But if the kissing or hugging is done by any woman not his relative, some men do assume it means "let's have sex", or rather their sex drive does.

What such men on a night out need to learn is how to say NO to their sex drive.

The key question for a man who thinks a woman in drink is "coming onto him" is: Am I absolutely sure she will have sex with me when she is cold sober in 12 hours' time?

If the answer is "maybe not" or "no" then he should forget all about sex. Because if he doesn't, then he risks facing that gut-wrenching moment the morning after the night before when a policeman knocks on his door and arrests him for rape.