The term rape originates from the Latin rapere (supine stem raptum), "to snatch, to grab, to carry off". Since the 14th century, the term has come to mean "to seize and take away by force". In Roman law, the carrying off of a woman by force, with or without intercourse, constituted "raptus". In Medieval English law the same term could refer to either kidnapping or rape in the modern sense of "sexual violation". The original meaning of "carry off by force" is still found in some phrases, such as "rape and pillage", or in titles, such as the stories of the Rape of the Sabine Women and The Rape of Europa or the poem The Rape of the Lock, which is about the theft of a lock of hair.

General

Rape is defined in most jurisdictions as sexual intercourse, or other forms of sexual penetration, committed by a perpetrator against a victim without their consent. The definition of rape is inconsistent between governmental health organizations, law enforcement, health providers, and legal professions. It has varied historically and culturally. Originally, rape had no sexual connotation and is still used in other contexts in English. In Roman law, it or raptus was classified as a form of crimen vis, "crime of assault". Raptus described the abduction of a woman against the will of the man under whose authority she lived, and sexual intercourse was not a necessary element. Other definitions of rape have changed over time.

In the US, a husband could not be charged with raping his wife until 1979. In the 1950s, in some states in the US, a white woman having consensual sex with a black man was considered rape. Until 2012, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) considered rape a crime solely committed by men against women. In 2012, they changed their definition from "The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will" to "The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim." The previous definition, which had remained unchanged since 1927, was considered outdated and narrow. The updated definition includes recognizing any gender of victim and perpetrator and that rape with an object can be as traumatic as penile/vaginal rape. The bureau further describes instances when the victim is unable to give consent because of mental or physical incapacity. It recognizes that a victim can be incapacitated by drugs and alcohol and unable to give valid consent. The definition does not change federal or state criminal codes or impact charging and prosecution on the federal, state or local level; it rather means that rape will be more accurately reported nationwide.

Health organizations and agencies have also expanded rape beyond traditional definitions. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines rape as a form of sexual assault, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) includes rape in their definition of sexual assault; they term rape a form of sexual violence. The CDC lists other acts of coercive, non-consensual sexual activity that may or may not include rape, including drug-facilitated sexual assault, acts in which a victim is made to penetrate a perpetrator or someone else, intoxication where the victim is unable to consent (due to incapacitation or being unconscious), non-physically forced penetration which occurs after a person is pressured verbally (by intimidation or misuse of authority to force to consent), or completed or attempted forced penetration of a victim via unwanted physical force (including using a weapon or threatening to use a weapon).

Some countries or jurisdictions differentiate between rape and sexual assault by defining rape as involving penile penetration of the vagina, or solely penetration involving the penis, while other types of non-consensual sexual activity are called sexual assault. Scotland, for example, emphasizes penile penetration, requiring that the sexual assault must have been committed by use of a penis to qualify as rape. The 1998 International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda defines rape as "a physical invasion of a sexual nature committed on a person under circumstances which are coercive". In other cases, the term rape has been phased out of legal use in favor of terms such as sexual assault or criminal sexual conduct.

Scope

Victims of rape or sexual assault come from a wide range of genders, ages, sexual orientations, ethnicitities, geographical locations, cultures and degrees of impairment or disability. Incidences of rape are classified into a number of categories, and they may describe the relationship of the perpetrator to the victim and the context of the sexual assault. These include date rape, gang rape, marital rape, incestual rape, child sexual abuse, prison rape, acquaintance rape, war rape and statutory rape. Forced sexual activity can be committed over a long period of time with little to no physical injury.

Consent

Lack of consent is key to the definition of rape. Consent is affirmative "informed approval, indicating a freely given agreement" to sexual activity. It is not necessarily expressed verbally, and may instead be overtly implied from actions, but the absence of objection does not constitute consent. Lack of consent may result from either forcible compulsion by the perpetrator or an inability to consent on the part of the victim (such as people who are asleep, intoxicated or otherwise mentally compromised). Sexual intercourse with a person below the age of consent, i.e., the age at which legal competence is established, is referred to as statutory rape.

Duress is the situation when the person is threatened by force or violence, and may result in the absence of an objection to sexual activity. This can lead to the presumption of consent. Duress may be actual or threatened force or violence against the victim or someone close to the victim. Even blackmail may constitute duress. Abuse of power may constitute duress. For instance, in the Philippines, a man commits rape if he engages in sexual intercourse with a woman "By means of fraudulent machination or grave abuse of authority". The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in its landmark 1998 judgment used a definition of rape which did not use the word 'consent': "a physical invasion of a sexual nature committed on a person under circumstances which are coercive."

Marital rape, or spousal rape, is non-consensual sex in which the perpetrator is the victim's spouse. It is a form of partner rape, domestic violence, and sexual abuse. Once widely accepted or ignored by law, spousal rape is now denounced by international conventions and is increasingly criminalized. Still, in many countries, spousal rape either remains legal, or is illegal but widely tolerated and accepted as a husband's prerogative. In 2006, the UN Secretary-General's In-depth study on all forms of violence against women stated that (pg 113): "Marital rape may be prosecuted in at least 104 states. Of these, 32 have made marital rape a specific criminal offence, while the remaining 74 do not exempt marital rape from general rape provisions. Marital rape is not a prosecutable offense in at least 53 States. Four States criminalize marital rape only when the spouses are judicially separated. Four States are considering legislation that would allow marital rape to be prosecuted." Since 2006, several other states have outlawed marital rape (for example Thailand in 2007). In the US, the criminalization of marital rape started in the mid-1970s and in 1993 North Carolina became the last state to make marital rape illegal. In many countries, it is not clear if marital rape may or may not be prosecuted under ordinary rape laws. In the absence of a spousal rape law, it may be possible to bring prosecution for acts of forced sexual intercourse inside marriage by prosecuting, through the use of other criminal offenses (such as assault based offenses), the acts of violence or criminal threat that were used to obtain submission.

Consent may be complicated by law, language, context, culture and sexual orientation. Studies have shown that men consistently perceive women's actions as more sexual than they intend. In addition, verbalized 'no' to sex may be interpreted as 'keep trying', or even 'yes' by offenders. Some may believe that when injuries are not visible, the woman must have consented. If a man solicits sex from another man, the pursuer may be regarded as virile.

The WHO states that the principal factors that lead to the perpetration of sexual violence against women, including rape, are:

• beliefs in family honor and sexual purity;
• attitudes of male sexual entitlement;
• weak legal sanctions for sexual violence.

No single facet explains the motivation for rape; the underlying motives of rapists can be multi-faceted. Several factors have been proposed: anger, power, sadism, sexual gratification, or evolutionary proclivities. However, some factors have significant causal evidence supporting them. American clinical psychologist David Lisak, co-author of a 2002 study of undetected rapists, says that compared with non-rapists, both undetected and convicted rapists are measurably more angry at women and more motivated by a desire to dominate and control them, are more impulsive, disinhibited, anti-social, hypermasculine, and less empathic.

Sexual aggression is often considered a masculine identity characteristic of manhood in some male groups and is significantly correlated to the desire to be held higher in esteem among male peers. Sexually aggressive behavior among young men has been correlated with gang or group membership as well as having other delinquent peers. Gang rape is often perceived by male perpetrators as a justified method of discouraging or punishing what they consider as immoral behavior among women for example wearing short skirts or visiting bars. In some areas in Papua New Guinea, women can actually be punished by public gang rape usually through permission by elders.

One metric used by the WHO to determine the severity of global rates of coercive, forced sexual activity was the question "Have you ever been forced to have sexual intercourse against your will?" Asking this question produced higher positi