Epic WTF

I still think it's not a helpful term. It doesn't mean anything. How can you tell when someone is a harmless perv, and when they would rape given the opportunity? You can't: it's just thought-crime. Basically you cannot identify a proto-rapist until they actually become a rapist and give you the benefit of hindsight.
I think it's more productive to call out the not-respecting-personal-space behaviour and nip it in the bud at that point.
We are all, given sufficient motive and opportunity, 'proto-criminals' to some extent, but until such time as we actually commit a crime, what we actually are is innocent. Believing oneself capable of committing a crime, or thinking about it, are not and should not be objectionable actions.

As I understand it the term was being used in relation to those people, like in the american survey for example, who would answer 'no' to 'would you rape someone' and 'yes' to 'would you have sex with someone without their consent' Therefore these people are potential/proto rapists because they aren't thinking 'Yeah I know it's a crime but I'll do it anyway' but aren't even aware they're acting criminally