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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

"Women can rape too"

31 replies

CeeBeeBee · 13/07/2017 07:30

I was told yesterday when we were having a conversation about why I think it's problematic to allow trans women in women safe spaces.

As you can imagine, it got very heated when I mentioned that only men can rape by the legal definition. I am prepared to be corrected on this.
I am not denying that sexual violence committed by women, against men, doesn't exist, but should we ever discuss this topic again, then I would like to be armed with the facts. Does anyone here know a good article or report about this subject? Where could I find data comparing sexes of the perpetrator of sexual violence and are there any well known cases where women have been charged and convicted of rape?

Thanks in advance.

OP posts:
Datun · 13/07/2017 08:23

This graph is quite effective. 98% all sexual crime is committed by men. As the law will allow anyone access, trans or otherwise. You wouldn't know if they were trans or not. As they can dress just like a man. And being trans has no definition other than saying you are.

"Women can rape too"
deydododatdodontdeydo · 13/07/2017 08:22

If I recall, women can be prosecuted for rape in Sweden.
Rape includes coercion by threats, including non-physical ("I'll leave if you don't", etc) so it makes sense to me that women can.
Maybe it should be written into law, I'm sure the numbers would be heavily tilted in favour of male rape, though.

M0stlyBowlingHedgehog · 13/07/2017 08:21

Women occasionally get tried under "common purpose" - e.g. if they held the victim down while the male accomplice penetrated her. It's incredibly rare. Then we have (thanks to the clusterfuck that is current hard-of-thinking on "gender") the fact that rapes (penetration by the penis) carried out by men who claim to be transwomen are now reported as being perpetrated by women. (For example, Davina Ayrton, that bloke in Glasgow who anally raped another man, the guy in Sheffield who went on the run and the newspaper reports covered it as "woman, who may be dressed as a man" - translation: "cross dresser who has temporarily taken off women's clothes in order to evade capture).

The prison services stats are worth looking up - 90% of those incarcerated for violent crime are male, 98% of those incarcerated for sexual offences are male. There's really no getting away from numbers like those.

CeeBeeBee · 13/07/2017 08:12

Quite Quentin, he couldn't understand why I thought it was a bad idea to allow a trans woman into a women's only prison and when I tried to explain, he went off to say how there has been 2 cases where women went to court for rape. In the first case, the male victim was laughed out of court and the second was taken seriously but the female perpetrator had a lenient sentence.

OP posts:
QuentinSummers · 13/07/2017 08:05

In the UK rape requires a penis. Women can be convicted if they are also involved e.g. they hold the victim down.
In the conversation you were having ceebeebee it's a red herring and a way to derail your argument. It's quite common for people to imply there are hordes of predatory lesbians in women only areas so we are being precious thinking men are a risk.

Datun · 13/07/2017 07:55

Wikipedia has some interesting statistics. Female on male rape is nowhere near as prevalent as the other way round. Although probably more prevalent than we think given the under reporting. It cites a couple of cases.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_by_gender

I always assumed that rape required a penis. But this wiki definition seems to be a bit confused. As it says any person, but then refers to a penis and using an object is called sexual assault, not rape.

Rape is a statutory offence in England and Wales. According to the law, rape can be committed by any person, involving any type of non- consensual penetration. If a victim is forcefully penetrated with an object, this is classed as "Sexual Assault by Penetration".

1-(1) A person (A) commits an offence if—
(a) they intentionally penetrate the vagina, anus or mouth of another person (B) with his penis

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_English_law