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Rape

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Down through the ages, triumph over women by rape became a way to measure victory, part of a soldier's proof of masculinity and success, a tangible reward for services rendered...[and] an actual reward of war. ~ Susan Brownmiller

Rape is a criminal offence of sexual assault forcing another person into non-consensual intimate penetration or intercourse. The application of the term varies according to jurisdiction.


Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · See also · External links

A

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  • Perhaps it is the only crime in which the victim becomes the accused and, in reality, it is she who must prove her good reputation, her mental soundness, and her impeccable propriety.
    • Freda Adler, Sisters in Crime: The Rise of the New Female Criminal (1975), p. 215.
  • There was a young fellow named Scott
    Who took a girl out on his yacht,
      But too lazy to rape her
      He made darts of brown paper
    Which he languidly tossed at her twat.
    • Anonymous, from the revision of Lapses in Limerick (New York, 1941), printed in The Limerick, ed. G. Legman (1970), no. 1533
  • If an accused man believed the woman had consented, whether or not that belief was based on reasonable grounds, he could not be found guilty of rape.
    • Ruling of the British House of Lords (1975), quoted by Fenton S. Bresler, Sex and the Law (1988), p. 183

B

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  • Rapists often recall being intensely angry, depressed or feeling worthless for days or even months leading up to the rape. Very often the rapists say that the trigger for the rape was when a woman made them angry, usually by rebuffing a sexual overture. The men experienced the rebuff as an insult to their manhood that intensified their emotional misery.
  • Societies with a high incidence of rape ... tolerate violence and encourage men and boys to be tough, aggressive, and competitive. Men in such cultures generally have special, politically important gathering spots off limits to women, whether they be the Mundurucu men's club or the corner tavern. Women take little or no part in public decision making or religious rituals: men mock or scorn women's practical judgment. They also demean what they consider women's work and remain aloof from childbearing and rearing. These groups usually trace their beginnings to a male supreme being.
    • B. L. Benderly, 1982, "Rape free or rape prone", Science 82, vol. 3, no. 8. p.42-43; as quoted by Marlene Goldsmith, Chairman Legislative Council Standing Committee on Social Issues Parliament of New South Wales in, Sexual Offenders and Pornography: A Causal Connection?; study cited in Perspectives on Human Sexuality, by Anne Bolin and Patricia Whelehan, State University of New York Press Albany, (1999), p.36; in Human Stress and the Environment] by Allen H. Rose, Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, (1994), p.42; Theories of Rape: Inquiries Into the Causes of Sexual Aggression by Lee Ellis, Hemisphere Publishing, (1989), p. 7.
  • The way society trains its boys and girls to think about themselves and each other determines to a large extent how rape-prone or rape-free that society will be.
    • B. L. Benderly, 1982, "Rape free or rape prone", Science 82, vol. 3, no. 8. p.42-43; as quoted by Marlene Goldsmith, Chairman Legislative Council Standing Committee on Social Issues Parliament of New South Wales in, Sexual Offenders and Pornography: A Causal Connection?; study cited in Perspectives on Human Sexuality, by Anne Bolin and Patricia Whelehan, State University of New York Press Albany, (1999), p.36; in Human Stress and the Environment] by Allen H. Rose, Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, (1994), p.42; Theories of Rape: Inquiries Into the Causes of Sexual Aggression by Lee Ellis, Hemisphere Publishing, (1989), p. 7.
  • Rape is a culturally fostered means of suppressing women. Legally we say we deplore it, but mythically we romanticize and perpetuate it, and privately we excuse and overlook it (because we always find a way to blame the woman for letting it happen). In other words, rape is awful— except in war, where the enemy's women are part of the plunder; except in marriage, where a man is entitled by law to have sexual relations with his wife even if against her will; and except in extenuating circumstances where the mere presence of a wornan is cause for a man to rape her.
  • Man's discovery that his genitalia could serve as a weapon to generate fear must rank as one of the most important discoveries of prehistoric times, along with the use of fire and the first crude stone axe. From prehistoric times to the present, I believe, rape has played a critical function. It is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.
  • In medieval times, opportunities to rape and loot were among the few advantages open to...soldiers, who were paid with great irregularity by their leaders...When the city of Constantinople was sacked in 1204, rape and plunder went hand in hand, as in the sack of almost every ancient city....Down through the ages, triumph over women by rape became a way to measure victory, part of a soldier's proof of masculinity and success, a tangible reward for services rendered...[and] an actual reward of war.
  • [R]ape by a conqueror is compelling evidence of the conquered's status of masculine impotence. Defense of women has long been a hallmark of masculine success. Rape by a conquering soldier destroys all remaining illusions of power and property for men of the defeated side. The body of a raped woman becomes a ceremonial battlefield, a parade ground for the victor's trooping of the colors. The act that is played out upon her is a message passed between men - vivid proof of victory for one and loss and defeat for the other.
  • Þe fyfþe ys mochë for to drede,
    To rauysħ a womman here maydenhede,
    Þat ys to say, a-ȝens here wylle,
    But ȝyf she grauntë weyl þar-tylle;
    And, þogh she to hym consente,
    He ys holde to here auaunsement;
    For ȝyf she ȝyue here to folye,
    She kan nat leuë tyl she deye;
    And he þat brogħt here to þat bysmere,
    For here foly he shal answere.
  • Þe syxtë reyseþ gretë stryfe,
    To rauys anouþer mannys wyfe;
    For aȝens God hyt ys euyl dede,
    And to þe worlde also mochyl drede.
    Ȝyf hyt be aȝens here wyl,
    Þe more he douþ hym seluen yl.

C

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[A] product of a living organism (the rapist) is used to attack a biological system (the reproductive system) in members of the enemy population. ... Sperm so used becomes a social and psychological toxin, poisoning the futures of victims and their communities by producing children who, if they survive, will remind whoever raised them of their traumatic origins in torture. ~ C. Card
  • When she tired, I loosened up a little, to let her blow. Yes, it was rape, but only technical, brother, only technical. Above the waist, maybe she was worried about the sacrilegio, but from the waist down she wanted me, bad. There couldn’t be any doubt about that.
  • [A] product of a living organism (the rapist) is used to attack a biological system (the reproductive system) in members of the enemy population. Although this attack need not produce illness, it is designed to produce social chaos … . Sperm so used becomes a social and psychological toxin, poisoning the futures of victims and their communities by producing children who, if they survive, will remind whoever raised them of their traumatic origins in torture. … Unlike bacteria and viruses, sperm is easily containable, storable, preservable, and deliverable by means of men's bodies.
    • C. Card, “Rape as a Terrorist Institution”, in Violence, Terrorism, and Justice, ed. R. Frey and C. Morris (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 187; as quoted in "Feminist Perspectives on Rape", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (May 13, 2009; revised June 21, 2017)
  • People will say "you can't joke about rape. Rape's not funny." I say "fuck you, I think it's hilarious! How do you like that? I can prove to you that rape is funny. Picture Porky Pig raping Elmer Fudd."
  • Rape is not a sexual crime. It is not sexual. Rape is a violent crime... it's a violent crime, where you cum at the end. It's no different than if you robbed a liquor store... and then came.
  • Rape is the forcible violation of the sexual intimacy of another person. It does injury to justice and charity. Rape deeply wounds the respect, freedom, and physical and moral integrity to which every person has a right. It causes grave damage that can mark the victim for life. It is always an intrinsically evil act. Graver still is the rape of children committed by parents (incest) or those responsible for the education of the children entrusted to them.
  • It’s in the Ten Commandments to not take the Lord’s name in vain. Rape isn’t up there, by the way. Rape is not a Ten Commandment. But don’t say the dude’s name with a shitty attitude.

D

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  • Look you, gentlemen, 'tis Grillon, the fierce colonel; he that devours our wives, and ravishes our children.
  • Against her will fair Julia to possess,
    Is not to enjoy, but ravish happiness:
    Yet women pardon force, because they find
    The violence of love is still most kind:
    Just like the plots of well built comedies,
    Which then please most, when most they do surprise:
    But yet constraint love's noblest end destroys,
    Whose highest joy is in another's joys:
    Where passion rules, how weak does reason prove!
    I yield my cause, but cannot yield my love.
  • Love never fails to master what he finds,
    But works a different way in different minds,
    The fool enlightens, and the wise he blinds.
    This youth, proposing to possess and 'scape,
    Began in murder, to conclude in rape.
  • I want to see this men's movement make a commitment to ending rape because that is the only meaningful commitment to equality. It is astonishing that in all our worlds of feminism and antisexism we never talk seriously about ending rape. Ending it. Stopping it. No more. No more rape. In the back of our minds, are we holding on to its inevitability as the last preserve of the biological? Do we think that it is always going to exist no matter what we do? All of our political actions are lies if we don't make a commitment to ending the practice of rape. This commitment has to be political. It has to be serious. It has to be systematic. It has to be public. It can't be self-indulgent.
  • I don’t believe rape is inevitable or natural. If I did, I would have no reason to be here. If I did, my political practice would be different than it is. Have you ever wondered why we women are not just in armed combat against you? It’s not because there’s a shortage of kitchen knives in this country. It is because we believe in your humanity, against all the evidence.

E

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F

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  • Whatever they may be in public life, whatever their relations with men, in their relations with women, all men are rapists, and that's all that they are. They rape us with their eyes, their laws, and their codes.
  • It is not rape if she consents even if her will is weakened, unless fraud or threats are used to that end. Seduction is not rape.
    • M. D. A. Freeman, The Law and Sexual Deviation (1964)

G

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  • The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. “My lords,” he said, please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.” “No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.” But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.” Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”
  • Should he have treated our sister like a prostitute?
  • Most rapes don't involve any injury whatsoever. We are told that it is a sexually violent crime... [that] it is one of the most violent crimes in the world.
    Most rape is just lazy, just careless, insensitive. Every time a man rolls over on his exhausted wife and insists on enjoying his conjugal rights he is raping her. It will never end up in a court of law.
    Instead of thinking of rape as a spectacularly violent crime, and some rapes are, think about it as non-consensual - that is, bad sex. Sex where there is no communication, no tenderness, no mention of love.
    If we are going to say 'trust us, believe us', if we do say that our accusation should stand as evidence, then we do have to reduce the tariff for rape.
  • In no state can a man be accused of raping his wife. How can any man steal what already belongs to him? It is in the sense of rape as theft of another man's property that Kate Millett writes, "Traditionally rape has been viewed as an offense one male commits against another — a matter of abusing his woman."
  • Women shall be especially protected against any attack on their honour, in particular against rape, enforced prostitution, or any form of indecent assault.
    • Fourth Geneva convention (1949) as quoted by Stemple, Lara (February 2009). "Male Rape and Human Rights" ,(PDF). Hastings Law Journal. 60(3): p.642. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 June 2010. Retrieved 2011-07-17.

H

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  • The husband cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife, for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind unto her husband, which she cannot retract.
    • Sir Matthew Hale, quoted by R. H. Small in History of the Pleas of the Crown (1736)
  • Why it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue, sensitive as gossamer, and practically blank as snow as yet, there should have been traced such a coarse pattern as it was doomed to receive; why so often the coarse appropriates the finer thus, the wrong man the woman, the wrong woman the man, many thousand years of analytical philosophy have failed to explain to our sense of order. One may, indeed, admit the possibility of a retribution lurking in the present catastrophe. Doubtless some of Tess d’Urberville’s mailed ancestors rollicking home from a fray had dealt the same measure even more ruthlessly towards peasant girls of their time. But though to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children may be a morality good enough for divinities, it is scorned by average human nature; and it therefore does not mend the matter.
  • Women quickly learn that rape is a crime only in theory; in practice the standard for what constitutes rape is set not at the level of women's experience of violation but just above the level of coercion acceptable to men.
  • History, sacred and profane, and the common experience of mankind teach that women of the character shown in this case are prone to make false accusations both of rape and of insult upon the slightest provocation for ulterior purposes.

I

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J

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  • Nay, my brethren, nay, I pray you, do not so wickedly; seeing that this man is come into mine house, do not this folly. Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a thing.

K

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  • The difference between a ‘good time’ and a ‘rape’ may hinge on whether the girl’s parents were awake when she finally arrived home.
    • Alfred Kinsey, quoted by Paul Gebhard, John H. Gagnon, W. B. Pomeroy, and Cornelia V. Christenson, Sex Offenders: An Analysis of Types (1965)

L

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  • They ravished the women in Zion, and the maids in the cities of Judah.

M

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Surely, the last people to suggest that rape was worse than murder were the sensitively reared classes of the Victorian era. ~ Alan Moore
  • Rape is loss. Like death, it is best treated with a period of mourning and grief. We should develop social ceremonies for rape, rituals, that, like funerals and wakes, would allow the mourners to recover the spirits that the rapist, like death, steals. The social community is the appropriate center for the restoration of spirit, but the rape victim is usually shamed into silence or self-imposed isolation.
    • D. Metzger, "It is always the woman who is raped", American Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 133, no. 4 (1976), pp. 405-408
  • Witness the Streets of Sodom, and that night
    In Gibeah, when the hospitable door
    Exposed a matron, to avoid worse rape.
    • John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I
      Witness the Streets of Sodom, and that night
      In Gibeah, when hospitable doors
      Yielded their matrons to prevent worse rape.
  • Why should murder be so over-represented in our popular fiction, and crimes of a sexual nature so under-represented? Surely it cannot be because rape is worse than murder, and is thus deserving of a special unmentionable status. Surely, the last people to suggest that rape was worse than murder were the sensitively reared classes of the Victorian era … And yet, while it is perfectly acceptable (not to say almost mandatory) to depict violent and lethal incidents in lurid and gloating high-definition detail, this is somehow regarded as healthy and perfectly normal, and it is the considered depiction of sexual crimes that will inevitably attract uproars of the current variety.
  • Pornography is the theory, and rape is the practice. And what a practice. The violation of an individual woman is the metaphor for man's forcing himself on whole nations [...], on nonhuman creatures [...], and on the planet itself [...].
    • Robin Morgan, "Theory and Practice: Pornography and Rape", 1974 in Going Too Far: The Personal Chronicle of a Feminist (1977).
  • Go into court on a rape — it's like stepping into a refrigerator with the light off. All the men are thinking of their daughters; all the women are sitting with their knees jammed together!
  • A victim of rape every minute somewhere in the world. Why? No one to blame but herself. She displayed her beauty to the entire world, strapless, backless, sleeveless, nothing but satanic skirts, slit skirts, translucent blouses, miniskirts, tight jeans: all this to tease man and appeal to his carnal nature. Would you put this sheep that you adore in the middle of hungry wolves? No... It would be devoured. It's the same situation here. You're putting this precious girl in front of lustful, satanic eyes of hungry wolves. What is the consequence? Catastrophic devastation, sexual harassment, perversion, promiscuity.
    • Fiez Muhammad, qtd. Miranda Devine, "Liverpool Muslim Cleric Hate", The Sun-Herald. (2005 April 24).
  • Rape isn’t an isolated brief act. It damages flesh and reverberates in memory. It can have life changing, unchosen results – a pregnancy or a transmitted disease”, Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka stressed, adding that consequences of a one-time act can sprawl into damaging long-term effects.

N

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O

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It is vital... to establish facilities for providing sexual comfort to the soldiers as soon as possible. ~ Okabe Naosaburo
The message to people raped by intimate partners or raped while unconscious is clear: don’t report; don’t prosecute. Even if you’re demonstrably telling the truth, we still won’t offer appropriate punishment. Unless you were raped by a violent stranger down a dark alley, with the bruises to show for it, your rape doesn’t count. (And, even then, what were you doing in the alley?) ~ Emer O'Toole
  • It is vital... to establish facilities for providing sexual comfort to the soldiers as soon as possible.
    • Okabe Naosaburo, military orders qtd. by Karen Parker & Jennifer F. Chew, "Compensation for Japan's World War II War-Rape Victims", Hastings Int’l & Comp. L Rev., vol. 17, no. 3 (Spring 1994), p. 503, note 28

P

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  • Men rightly observe that a conjugal act imposed on one's partner without regard to his or her condition or personal and reasonable wishes in the matter, is no true act of love, and therefore offends the moral order in its particular application to the intimate relationship of husband and wife.

R

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  • Wer’t possible that my ambitious sin,
    Durst commit rapes upon a Cherubin,
    I might have lustfull thoughts to her, of all
    Earths heav’nly Quire the most Angelicall.
    • Thomas Randolph, "An Elegie", in Poems, &c. (Oxford: L. Lichfield for F. Bowman, 1638)

S

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  • Howbeit he would not hearken unto her voice: but, being stronger than she, forced her, and lay with her.
  • A mutual and satisfied sexual act is of great benefit to the average woman, the magnetism of it is health giving. When it is not desired on the part of the woman and she has no response, it should not take place. This is an act of prostitution and is degrading to the woman’s finer sensibility, all the marriage certificates on earth to the contrary notwithstanding.
  • We need more rape jokes. We really do. I love that some people applauded that. Needless to say, rape, the most heinous crime imaginable. Seems it’s a comic’s dream, though. Because it seems that when you do rape jokes that like the material is so dangerous and edgy. But the truth is it’s like the safest area to talk about in comedy. Cause who’s going to complain about a rape joke? Rape victims? They don’t even report rape. I mean, they’re traditionally not complainers. Like the worst maybe thing that could happen, and I would feel terrible, is like after a show maybe somebody comes up to you and is like, “Look I’m a victim of rape, and as a victim of rape I just want to say I thought that joke was inappropriate and insensitive and totally my fault and I am so sorry.”
  • Does Djilas, who is himself a writer, not know what human suffering and the human heart are? Can't he understand it if a soldier who has crossed thousands of kilometers through blood and fire and death has fun with a wench or takes some trifle?
  • So now how am I going to live with him? As what? Is this still a husband? Is it a wife? If he can be raped, who is protecting me?
    • Will Storr, quoting the general opinion of poor African wives who discover their husbands have been raped and decide to leave them. "The rape of men", The Guardian (17 July 2011)
  • We do not discount the seriousness of rape as a crime. It is highly reprehensible, both in a moral sense and in its almost total contempt for the personal integrity and autonomy of the female victim and for the latter's privilege of choosing those with whom intimate relationships are to be established. Short of homicide, it is the "ultimate violation of self." It is also a violent crime because it normally involves force, or the threat of force or intimidation, to overcome the will and the capacity of the victim to resist. Rape is very often accompanied by physical injury to the female and can also inflict mental and psychological damage. Because it undermines the community's sense of security, there is public injury as well.
  • Rape, call you it, my lord, to seize my own,
    My truth-betrothèd love and now my wife?
    But let the laws of Rome determine all;
    Meanwhile I am possess'd of that is mine.
  • You are both decipher'd
    For villains mark'd with rape.
  • What is’t to me, when you yourselves are cause,
    If your pure maidens fall into the hand
    Of hot and forcing violation?
    What rein can hold licentious wickedness
    When down the hill he holds his fierce career?
  • Take pity of your town and of your people,
    Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command; ...
    If not, why, in a moment look to see
    The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand
    Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters.
  • What win I if I gain the thing I seek?
    A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy.
    Who buys a minute’s mirth to wail a week?
    Or sells eternity to get a toy?
  • No man inveigh against the wither'd flower,
    But chide rough winter that the flower hath kill'd.
    Not that devour'd, but that which doth devour,
    Is worthy blame.

T

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  • Any lawyer who says there's no such thing as rape should be hauled out to a public place by three large perverts and buggered at high noon, with all of his clients watching.
  • Women are terrified of being raped, but somewhere in the back of every womb there is one rebellious nerve end that tingles with curiosity whenever the word is mentioned... Raped women have been divorced by their husbands — who couldn’t bear to live with the awful knowledge, the visions, the possibility that it wasn’t really rape.

U

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W

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  • Thou hast a daughter, thou hast a wife too;
    So most of you have, soldiers; why might not this
    Have happen'd you? Which of you all, dear friends,
    But now, even now, may have your wives deflower'd,
    Your daughters slav'd, and made a lictor's prey?
    Think them not safe in Rome, for mine liv'd there.
  • Rape is like bad weather: if it's inevitable, you might as well relax and enjoy it.

See also

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