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?

This woman was sentenced to about the same as the average sentence for rape, even though she wasn’t convicted of rape. So this case disproves your point that women are treated more leniently than male rapists.

Do you think a male who raped a child multiple times over a 2 year period would receive an average sentence?

If you think it would be different, by all means share the data.

She groomed and abused the girl for years. She should have got an above average sentence for that.

You're the one saying this case disproves that women are treated more leniently than male rapists, it's on you to back that up.

(Even if she had received the maximum sentence, it wouldn't disprove anything, FWIW - standalone sentencings aren't proof of much when we're talking averages).

Regardless of anyone’s opinion of the sentence, it is the same length as the average sentence for rape, so this case does not illustrate that SA by women is treated more leniently, as you have persistently claimed.

They don't. Because in the UK that's not what rape means.

Your objection is purely semantic. Changing the definition makes no material difference to the harm experienced by the victims.

Your whole argument boils down to: 'not just men, women too!'. Which is simply a tool for deflecting away from the fact that overwhelmingly, men perpetrate the majority of sexual offences and overwhelmingly, women and children are their victims.

If women do commit sexual offences, they are notable because they are rare outliers in a predominantly male field.

Im saying no such thing, im saying this case does not prove what the pp has been claiming, and I’m citing his own sources (average sentence lengths from Sentencing Academy).

https://www.gmp.police.uk/news/greater-manchester/news/news/2025/october/abuser-jailed-for-20-years-for-sexual-offences-and-encouraging-a-child-to-self-harm-in-landmark-case/

https://www.merseyside.police.uk/news/merseyside/news/2026/january-2026/man-from-st-helens-jailed-after-raping-a-baby/

22 years he got ^

https://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/news/operation-stovewood-15-years-in-prison-for-man-who-raped-rotherham-schoolgirl

You're the one arguing semantics here. You're (apparently) saying that men can't can't claim a woman forced them to have sex because the UK law doesn't call that "rape", rather "sexual assault".

Men can, and do, claim they were forced to have sex. See the OP.

I dont get why you dont want a woman who forces sex on a teenage girl to be termed a rapist. I really dont. Especially knowing that it will likely get her a longer sentence.

You said "this case disproves your point that women are treated more leniently than male rapists."

I essentially quoted you (I dropped "your point").

Case 1: 17 offences - compared to the sports coach’s 4.

Case 2: 12 offences (and are you really so tin eared that you’d compare the rape of a baby to any other type of sexual violence?)

Case 3: Closer, but still five counts of rape.

Yes, because he was using that case to demonstrate his point, and it doesn’t prove that, it disproves it. I didn’t post the case, I responded to his post claiming it illustrated something that it doesn’t.

Hers was 5 offences, not 2.

You’re right, my mistake.

Case 1 : so you are pointing out that they only charged a woman with 2 offences for prolonged grooming of a child in her professional care, whereas they charged a man with 17. Does that mean they went harder on him than her?

Case 2: also a child. The person for 2 x plus the sentence that she did.

Case 3: same as case 1. They went harder on the man because they viewed the rape by a woman as less traumatic.

Who is this he you speak of?

Well you’ve referred to women as ‘them’ a couple of times so I presume you’re not one of us.

Do you not really understand how the criminal justice system works? The police will attempt to get charges on as many counts as they can, and the CPS will only authorise if they have >50% chance of conviction (higher in SO cases). If they were able to charge one person with 5 and one with 17, that’s because they could find sufficient evidence for those charges.

The age of children in SO cases makes a difference to charging and sentencing. A 13 year old and a baby are different categories of victim. And please don’t tell me you’re so ignorant of anatomy that you think the harm caused to a baby by an adult penis is the same as penetration to an older child. To be honest it disgusts me that you even need this spelling out but there we are.

That’s not how the law works, trust me they want to go as hard as possible on anyone and everyone.

Did I refer to men as us? I am using they to mean the group I speak of. In a hundred years, I could speak about the same issue but a different group are the ones most affected or most likely to offend.

It is actually only barely relevant that I am a part of that group because it isnt about sisterhood, it is about what is right and protecting the most vulnerable. Women and children are the most vulnerable when it comes to rape.

They often drop charges for several reasons. Money, public interest, lack of resources, not bothered.

Physical harm is one part of the trauma caused by rape. One could argue that a baby is unlikely to be psychologically scarred by what occurred whereas this happened to the teen at a pivotal time of life she will never forget.

I don't think picking out 2 cases proves anything definitively, but if we are doing that - Case 3 was 4 counts of rape plus one of attempted rape.

That's very similar to Rosana Awan, and in her case, the victim was younger and Awan was in a position of trust, which is a major aggravating factor for sentencing.

Her victim's view is that female on female abuse isn't treated seriously enough:

And the greatest harm to women and children comes from men, who use their fists and penises to hurt us. That won’t change in 100, 400 or 1000 years, and yet you want that folded in, collapsed, so that all sexual harm is the same?

Damn right you’re not about sisterhood. And not even personhood because you’ve chosen to hijack the thread of a parent who is dealing with harm to their son, derailing it with lurid descriptions of sexual violence and asking people to choose which is worse.

Grotesque.

So all forced sex is treated as rape, yes. Not all sexual harm. I wouldnt want cat calling treated as rape, but I would want it to be classed as sexual harassment should the victim want it to be.