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Rape is a crime of engaging another person into sexual activity without consent of the person. It is regarded by many as one of the most grievous crimes, surpassed only by murder and treason. The dictionary definition of the word rape includes any serious and destructive assault against a person or people, but in contemporary English the term is overwhelmingly associated with sexual assault.
The original definition of rape was not necessarily sexual. Before it was considered a sexual act it was "An act or instance of robbing or despoiling or carrying away a person by force," as in Vikings of old would rape and pillage towns and villages by taking some of the women and children away with their treasure. This is the sense in which the word is used in, for instance, Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock; however, this sense is archaic and in modern speech the word is understood to denote sexual violation.
At common law in the United States, rape was defined as the felony of sexual intercourse with a woman by a man who was not her husband, without the woman's consent. Today, criminal law often recognizes the offense may include acts other than intercourse, and the marriage exception no longer applies. Some jurisdictions no longer use the term "rape", employing broader categories of sexual assault or sexual battery. Some define rape as sexual assault with penetration. Rape can also refer to sexual acts with a consenting person that the law defines as incapable of rendering effective consent, including those under an specified ageIn criminal law, the age of consent is the age at which a person is considered to be capable of legally giving informed consent to sexual acts with another person. Thus somebody engaging in sex with someone below the age of consent commits a crime, called; this is often called statutory rape.
Colloquially, the term date rape or acquaintance rape refers to rape that occurs between individuals who are dating or are acquaintances. Hypnotic (sleep-inducing) so-called date rape drugs such as flunitrazepamRohypnol is a sedative that was made in the early 1970's by Roche and was used in hospitals only for deep sedation. It was first released on the market in 1975 in tablet form in Europe. The tablet was then released in the early 1980's to other countries. or GHB have also been used by rapists to render their victims unconscious before raping them. In the United States, the Uniform Crime ReportsThe Uniform Crime Reports UCR are crime indexes, published annually by the FBI, which summarize the incidence and rate of reported crimes within the US. The report is used by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. History of the UCR In 1930, Congress authorize use forcible rape to refer only to rapes against females, by males; however other jurisdictions can define rape to include sexual assaults on, and by, members of either sex. Laws can vary greatly by jurisdictions. Distinctions include age of consent, extent of sexual conduct required, when consent is effective and when it may be revoked, and whether evidence of a victim's sexual proclivity may be admitted at trial.
Despite these differences, the law regards rape as one of the most heinous of crimes. As one Supreme Court opinion described it,
The Supreme Court of California had this to say on a case involving a woman who was raped by a police officer:
International laws vary as well. Under the British Sexual Offences Act 2003The Sexual Offences Act 2003 is an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom, passed in 2003. It entered into force on May 1, 2004. It replaces other sexual offences laws with more specific ones, with more specific and explicit wording. It creates several n, which came into force in April 2004, rape was redefined from non-consensual vaginal or anal intercourse and is now defined as non-consensual penile penetration of the vagina, anus or mouth of another person. The changes also made rape punishable by a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Although a woman who forces a man to have sex cannot be prosecuted for rape under British law, she can be prosecuted for causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent, a crime which also carries a maximum life sentence if it involves penetration of a mouth, anus or vagina. The statute also includes a new sexual crime called "assault by penetration" which also has the same punishment as rape and is committed when someone sexually pentrates the anus or vagina with a part of his or her body, or anything else, without that person's consent.
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