I think a lot of European countries still have it basically written into the law that rape must be physically violent and use physical force or it doesn't count. I remember an older MN thread about the law in Germany (I think about the Cologne NYE assaults). Although that is often the real outcome here in practice our law at least does make provision for victims who are unconscious or incapacitated.
That's absolutely right Eresh though the Germans have since updated their law (it's also one of the things that enabled the Guardian to stick to its editorial line of systematically under-reporting the scale of events because technically under German law at the time many of the crimes weren't legally crimes).
Also spot on that before we pay ourselves on the back as a country, we need to remember that while our laws are not bad on paper, in practice they almost never lead to a conviction so something about our system is badly wrong too.