Why can't women be charged with rape?

[Ourlovelyson]

My son attempted to take his life last year. Turns out his partner has been abusive and she was drugging him with Viagra being him aroused and sitting on top of him he kept telling her no but she did what she wanted to do. But rape is defined by the penetrating male, my son is not the person he once was.
I have been on Google for weeks and I can't find anything to help him. He obviously isn't the only one.
Why is this?

In the case of a woman, she wouldn't be using an intimate part of her body to penetrate them.
A man would, if he were forced to. So it wouldn't be an equivalent comparison exactly.

Are you implying non-penetrative SA is less serious/upsetting?

That's not necessarily true emotionally. If it's about pregnancy, then why do we still count a man penetrating a man as rape?

Nor can male rapists who attack men.

But they have the same sentencing structure so OP’s quibble is about a word.

If it's just about pregnancy risk, why are anal rapes counted as rape, of either women or men? That can't be the main legal reason

STD risk sounds more likely.

I’m saying rape with a penis carries more risks and consequences

This is very eloquently put and I agree.

In general I don’t like the idea that we must expand the definition of things to include more similar incidences and I think it dilutes statistical analysis and you end up with idiots say ‘everything is X these days’.

However I can absolutely get on board with defining things further. So ‘rape’ keeps its definition of penetration with a penis without consent. At the same time let’s also come up with a term defined as ‘the forcing of penetration by an individual to which that individual does not consent’ - this would cover both men and women forcing penetration without the other consent. Both of these acts would fall under the umbrella of forced sex, which in turn falls under the wider umbrella of sexual assault.

I think this is a much better solution than widening the definition of rape. It gives victims of both distinct crimes the terminology with which to determine exactly what happened to them, whilst placing no comparison on which is worse than the other. Distinct but equally horrific.

What risks and consequences? Trauma I can understand why it might be greater often.

But pregnancy? - that would only be one type, forced PIV

STDs- increased risk for forced vaginal or anal sex, not for forced oral sex though

But we aren't talking about the reduction of language.

The UK's legal definition of rape is narrower than the dictionary definition. Under the Oxford, Collins, Cambridge, Merriman Webster, or any other dictionary definition I can find, the OP's son was raped.

As has been pointed out, if the incident had taken place in numerous other countries, he would legally have been the victim of rape, too.

Changing (widening) the parameters offence in the UK would bring it more in line with the actual meaning of the word.

It is, but words can matter to victims (and in this case, their loved ones).

It obviously matters, one way or another, to a lot of posters in here, too, due to the (widely perceived) weight the word carries.

If anything, I'd say that the aligned sentencing structures reinforces that the word itself is considered of particular importance in the UK law (and in a way that actually differs from the everyday meaning).

I think you’re focusing on the wrong thing here

rape needs a penis by the wording in law, so women can’t commit rape

women can commit sexual assault including by penetration which would get the same sentence as rape

so realistically women aren’t in a better position as the law can and does acknowledge the crime and give an appropriate sentence. You’re just seeing it as lesser than in your head.

It really doesn’t matter, an investigation being worded “rape” in itself doesn’t always lead to active intervention or high sentences. Rape convictions in practice are underutilised and hard to prove. You act as if changing the wording from sexual assault to rape is going to magically help justice be served, as if rape report handling is even serving justice at the moment.

You act as if changing the wording from sexual assault to rape is going to magically help justice be served
No idea where you're getting that from, or anything in your post tbh.

Pregnancy and greater risk of STDs, obviously.
Pregnancy may only be “one type” (not sure what that has to do with anything, also it’s the most common “type”)but a pregnancy from rape can be life changing and catastrophic

Again it’s very depressing to see people desperately trying to downgrade rape. Why? Why are you so against rape being with a penis when 98% of sexual crime is committed by men?

We are, though.

Under the common law in England rape has meant forced penis in vagina sex since at least the 1400s. The 2003 Act expanded that category to include forced penis in anus or mouth too, so already when we are talking about 'rape' we are having to use many words to explain exactly what we mean and what happened whereas previously that one word would have done so.

Also since 2003, when comparing 'rape' statistics across time we are now therefore comparing apples and pears. Deliberately expanding it out even further to mean not only being penetrated with anything other than a penis and/or causing oneself to be penetrated with any object by a second person against their will is going to mean we're comparing apples and hockeysticks and further lessen our ability to track and address trends in these sorts of crimes.

Crucially, we will have absolutely no ability to properly track how often incidents like those the poor OP's son has suffered are taking place, and whether there is an uptick that needs to be specfically addressed. That particular crime will, in your new hugely expanded lumpen category containing all manner of diverse crimes, get hidden in amongst general male-to-female rape data which is unfortunately likely to continue to be far more common.

I do appreciate that your impulse is likely to be that you feel that 'rape' as a word has more gravitas that you want to lend to other victims to make them feel seen and taken seriously - I understand and sympathise if so and am all in favour of new words with specfic meanings being imbued with the same seriousness - but in my opinion it's actually actively doing victims a disservice in terms of allowing us to identify and address the issues as they develop.

Op I’m supporting my daughter who has reported someone for crimes against her. The rape thing is well covered here but can I just say you have a far bigger battle ahead of you than the semantics of the language. You’re probably deflecting onto this because you know it’s a long road ahead but this is going to take years and it’s going to take twists and turns around charges and pleas etc. For your own sake, refocus and get ready for what’s to come. You’re going to need more resilience than this to deal with disappointment and challenges around him being heard.
Best wishes to your son, I hope getting it off his chest is the start of recovery. Try not to let the criminal process take over your life, it’ll be there in the background but he needs to focus on rebuilding or it’ll swallow him up. Take care, both of you

The law sees is as worse and that is why the sentence for SA is lighter and sentencing for SA by pen is on average, half as long.

Yes that happens in sentencing. That is why some people get 4 years and some people get life. The specific circumstances of the people involved and the crime itself influences how long you get in jail

People are trying to upgrade SA, not downgrade rape.

I’ve asked you to show me where someone has had a sentenced reduced because their victim was infertile or they had a clean STF record. You haven’t shown me. This doesn’t happen the way you think it does.

In upgrading SA, you downgrade rape

it what’s the propose - don’t think it will lead to more convictions or tougher sentences?

You are the one who wants to introduce risk of pregnancy as an aggravating factor. I listed sources where the judge made remarks about the perpetrator not being as bad as they could have been (such as wearing a condom) and then the perpetrator getting a ridiculously light sentence. Happened all the time until people started calling it out from the 90s onwards.

Of.course the judge remarking on the perpetrator being "considerate' is why they ended up getting a couple of years or whatever they were sentenced opposed to 10 years or something.

No you dont. You call anything that amounts to forced sex rape to make it uniform regardless of sex or anatomy or whst was used to penetrate.

I don’t WANT to introduce the risk of pregnancy as an agggtavaring gator, it’s IS an aggravating factor. In the U.K., the law is that a penis must be forcefully penetrating to be rape. There is no problem with this unless you really hate women. But to pretend that being raped by a penis doesn’t carry the same risks as anything else, is at best mentally stupid and at worst, apologist behaviour

Again show we one case where the sentence was lighter because one of those risks didn’t present. Such as “She was infertile so I’ll reduce your sentence”. I’ll wait. Becaue according to you this would happen all the time.

The fact is, no court in the land would be allowed to formally find out the fertility status of a victim let alone use it in court. But like I say I’ll wait for the hundreds of sentencing reports tha are no doubt out there, because the penis rule has been in force for decades now, so there must be loads.