Rape

Sexual assault, including rape, is a sort of sexual assault that involves sexual contact or other types of sexual penetration that is carried out against a person without the permission of that person. Physical force, coercion, or abuse of power may be used to carry out the act against a person who is incapable of providing valid permission, such as a person who is asleep, incompetent, has an intellectual handicap, or is under the legal age of consent. The terms rape and sexual assault are occasionally used interchangeably in the same sentence.

The rate at which rape is reported, prosecuted, and convicted varies from one country to the next. Internationally, the incidence of rapes documented by police during 2008 varied from 0.2 per 100,000 people in Azerbaijan to 92.9 per 100,000 people in Botswana, with 6.3 per 100,000 people in Lithuania serving as the median. Males are the primary perpetrators of sexual violence, including rape, against women around the world. Strangers raping persons the victim knows is less prevalent than the victim raping strangers, while male-on-male and female-on-female prison rapes are widespread and may be the least reported types of rape, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

During times of international warfare, widespread and systematic rape (for example, war rape) and sexual enslavement are possible. Those who engage in these actions are committing crimes against humanity and war crimes. Rape is also regarded as an aspect of the crime of genocide when it is perpetrated with the aim to eliminate, in whole or in part, an ethnic group that has been singled out for destruction.

When a person has been raped, he or she may experience trauma and develop post-traumatic stress disorder. Serious injuries, as well as the possibility of pregnancy and the transmission of sexually transmitted illnesses, may follow. A person may be subjected to violence or threats from the rapist, as well as from the victim's family and relatives in certain instances.

It is thought that the word rape derives from the Latin rapere (supine stem raptum), which means "to snatch, to grasp, to carry away." According to Roman law, "raptus" was defined as the forcible removal of a woman from her home, with or without sexual relations. It was possible for the same phrase to apply to either abduction or rape in the contemporary meaning of "sexual violation" under Medieval English law. "Carry off by force" retains its original meaning in some phrases, such as "rape and pillage," as well as in titles for stories and poems about theft, such as The Rape of the Sabine Women and The Rape of Europa, and the poem The Rape of the Lock, which tells the storey of the stealing of a lock of hair.