The word rape itself originates from the Latin verb rapere:
to seize or take by force.
From the classical antiquity of Greece and Rome into the Colonial period, rape along with arson, treason and murder was a capital offense. “Those committing rape were subject to a wide range of capital punishments that were seemingly brutal, frequently bloody, and at times spectacular.”
In ancient history, rape was viewed less as a type of assault on the female, than a serious property crime against the man to whom she belonged, typically the father or husband.
The loss of virginity was an especially serious matter. The damage due to loss of virginity was reflected in her reduced prospects in finding a husband and in her bride price.
This was especially true in the case of betrothed virgins, as the loss of chastity was perceived as severely depreciating her value to a prospective husband. In such cases, the law would void the betrothal and demand financial compensation from the rapist, payable to the woman’s household, whose “goods” were “damaged”.
Under biblical law, the rapist might be compelled to marry the unmarried woman instead of receiving the civil penalty if her father agreed.
This was especially prevalent in laws where the crime of rape did not include, as a necessary element, the violation of the woman’s body, thus dividing the crime in the current meaning of rape and a means for a man and woman to force their families to permit marriage…
English common law defined rape as “the carnal knowledge of a woman forcibly and against her will.”
“In England in the early fourteenth century, a victim of rape might be expected to gouge out the eyes and/or sever the offender’s testicles herself.”
Rape - sex crime
Rape, sometimes called sexual assault, is an assault by a person
involving sexual intercourse with or sexual penetration of
another person without that person’s consent.
Rape is generally considered a serious sex crime,
as well as a civil assault.
This article classifies types of rape by sex for both the rapist and his or her victim. While gender preferences do play a role in rape, the types of rape listed here are primarily classified by sex rather than by gender.
Female-female rape is just beginning to be researched by psychologists.
Non statutory female on male rape
Non statutory female on male rape is widely, but incorrectly, considered impossible because male erectile response is seen as voluntary, when, in fact, it is involuntary.
Women also can commit an act of rape with force or deception to make a man (or adolescent male) engage in a non-consensual penetrative sexual act. According to Court TV’s Crime Library, women commit about 10% of all sexual offenses and their abuse often involves their own child or children, which is incest. Several widely publicized cases of female-male statutory rape in the United States involved school teachers raping their teenage male students under their consent.
Male on male rape is common in incestuous rape When a male is raped (by a male or female) the involuntary physiological response of erection or orgasm cannot be taken to imply that the act was welcomed by the victim.
Male-on-male rape does not imply homosexuality in the case of either party. Even if the victim shows signs of sexual stimulation during the experience, this has nothing to do with his established sex preference, any more than a female victim can be said to subconsciously enjoy her position if she orgasms. It only indicates a positive response to touching of sexual areas, much as can happen with non-autosexual masturbation performed without imagination or visual assistance. A response to touching is unconscious, and not necessarily reflective of one’s mental, emotional, or visual attractions, which many people hold strong attachments to, the violations of which are traumatizing.
Acquaintance (”date”) rape
These are non-domestic rapes committed by someone who knows the victim. They include rapes of co-workers, schoolmates, friends, and other acquaintances, including “date rapes.”
The term “acquaintance rape” or “date rape” refers to rape or non-consensual sexual activity between people who are already acquainted, or who know each other socially as friends, acquaintances, people on a date, or even people in an existing romantic relationship—where consent for sexual activity is not given, or is given under duress. The vast majority of rapes are committed by people who already know the victim.:
Various drugs are used by rapists to render their victims unconscious, some also cause memory loss.
Blitz rape
Rape by a stranger in which the rapist assaults the victim on the street with no prior contact
Also known as spouse, marital rape, wife rape, husband rape, partner rape or intimate partner sexual assault (IPSA), is rape between a married or de facto couple.
It is often assumed that spousal rape is less traumatic than that from a stranger. Research reveals that victims of marital/partner rape suffer longer lasting trauma than victims of stranger rape, possibly because of a lack of social validation that prevents a victim from getting access to support; a problem that domestic violence services combat.
Different countries have different rape laws. Many countries do not consider sexual assault of a spouse a crime.
Even more so, if two people are regularly sexually intimate, in many countries it is not a crime for one partner to have sex with their sleeping or drunk partner even though that partner did not give express consent.
College campus rape
Some studies indicate a particular problem with rape on college campuses. The subject attracts attention because of the presence of many young men and women, often experiencing their first years away from home together, in an environment where prior controls, supervision and discipline are to a great extent removed, and where youths are in a position to engage in adult behavior with some anticipating new activities and freedoms, whilst others are left more vulnerable and less supervised.
In the United States, students are allegedly most vulnerable to rape during the initial weeks of the first two years. According to the U.S. Justice Department, 3.8% of college women and 1.9% of college men were victims of completed rape within a six month period, and in 90% of the cases the attacker was known to the victim with the pepetratror being male or female. In a typical college career, one-fifth to one-fourth were victims of attempted or completed rape. According to one 1992 study, one out of twelve college aged men and women committed rape.
The Department of Justice study also found that in “about half of the incidents categorized as completed rapes, the women or men did not consider the incident to be a rape.” According to the Journal of Counseling and Development, women aged 16–24 are at the highest risk of sexual assault. One study has concluded that as many as one in four college aged females and one in ten college aged males has been a victim of either rape or attempted rape.
Gang rape
Gang rape, or mass rape, occurs when a group of people participate in the rape of a single victim. Rape involving at least two or more perpetrators is widely reported to occur in many parts of the world. Systematic information on the extent of the problem, however, is scant.
One study showed that offenders and victims in gang rape incidents were younger with a higher possibility of being unemployed. Gang rapes involved more alcohol and drug involvement, night attacks and severe sexual assault outcomes and less victim resistance and fewer weapons than individual rapes. Another study found that group sexual assaults were more violent and had greater resistance from the victim than individual sexual assaults and that victims of group sexual assaults were more likely to seek crisis and police services, to contemplate suicide and seek therapy than those involved in individual assaults. The two groups were about the same in the amount of drug use and drinking during the assault.
In Johannesburg, South Africa, surveillance studies of women attending medico-legal clinics following a rape found that one-third of the cases had been gang rapes National data on rape and sexual assault in the United States reveal that about 1 out of 10 sexual assaults involve multiple perpetrators. Most of these assaults are committed by people unknown to their victims. This pattern, though, differs from that in South Africa where boyfriends are often involved in gang rapes.
The word tournante is a French adjective meaning “turning” and is used as a slang term to mean a gang rape. According to the testimony of numerous victims, young Muslim women who stray from traditional conduct in the immigrant neighborhoods, such as behaving and dressing like a westerner, or wanting to live as Europeans or refusing to wear the traditional clothing, have been targeted for tournantes According to Samira Bellil in a CNN interview, there was a trial in Lille regarding a 13-year-old girl who had allegedly been gang-raped by 80 men. Gang rape may also occur in armed conflict , or War rape:
This type of rape is also known as ‘war rape.’ During war, rape is often used as means of psychological warfare in order to humiliate the enemy and undermine their morale. Rapes in war are often systematic and thorough, and military leaders may actually encourage their soldiers to rape civilians.
Rape of children by parents, elder relatives,
and other responsible elders..
This form of rape is incest when committed by the child’s parents or close relatives such as grandparents, aunts and uncles. It is considered incestuous in nature but not in form when committed by other elders, such as religious authorities, school teachers, or therapists, to name a few, on whom the child is dependent. Psychologists estimate that 40 million adults, 15 million of those being men (Adams 1991), in the United States were sexually abused in childhood often by parents, close relatives and other elders—of both genders—on whom they were dependent.
Children, including but not limited to adolescents, raped by their parents and other close elders are often called ’secret survivors’ by psychologists, as they often are unable or unwilling to tell anyone about these rapes due to implicit or explicit threats by the adult rapist, fear of abandonment by the rapist, and/or overwhelming shame. Since the signs of these rapes are usually invisible except to trained professionals, these children often suffer ongoing offenses in silence until independence from the adult rapist is attained. By that time, the statute of limitations is often long-expired, the adult victim’s repressed memories are often considered inadmissible as evidence and the child-rapist is able to avoid punishment.
More than 67,000 cases of rape and sexual assaults against children were reported in 2000 in South Africa. Child welfare groups believe that the number of unreported incidents could be up to 10 times that number. A belief common to South Africa holds that sexual intercourse with a virgin will cure a man of HIV or AIDS. South Africa has the highest number of HIV-positive citizens in the world. According to official figures, one in eight South Africans is infected with the virus. Edith Kriel, a social worker who helps child victims in the Eastern Cape, said: “Child abusers are often relatives of their victims – even their fathers and providers.”
According to University of Durban-Westville anthropology lecturer and researcher Suzanne Leclerc-Madlala, the myth that sex with a virgin is a cure for AIDS is not confined to South Africa. “Fellow AIDS researchers in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Nigeria have told me that the myth also exists in these countries and that it is being blamed for the high rate of sexual abuse against young children.”
Statutory rape
National and/or regional governments, citing an interest in protecting “young people” (variously defined but sometimes synonymous with minors), treat any sexual contact with such a person as an offense (not always categorised as “rape”), even if he or she agrees to the sexual activity. The offense is often based on a presumption that people under a certain age do not have the capacity to give informed consent. The age at which individuals are considered competent to give consent is called the age of consent. This varies in different countries and regions, and in the US ranges from 14 to 18. Sex which violates age-of-consent law, but is neither violent nor physically coerced, is sometimes described as “statutory rape,” a legally-recognized category in the United States.
Prison rape
Many rapes happen in prison. These rapes are virtually always homosexual in nature (since prisons are separated by sex), but do not imply homosexual orientation in either party. The attacker is most commonly another inmate, but prison guards may also be involved, primarily in female prisons.
Third-party rape
These rapes occur when one person forces other people to have sex without actually sexually engaging either person. This has been used against prisoners of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, during the Nanking Massacre, as well as in Iraq and Tibet
