Types of rape

Rape can be categorized in different ways: for example, by reference to the situation in which it occurs, by the identity or characteristics of the victim, and/or by the identity or characteristics of the perpetrator. These categories are referred to as types of rape.

Date rape
Date rape, also called acquaintance rape, is a non-domestic rape committed by someone who knows the victim. This constitutes the vast majority of rapes reported. It can occur between two people who know one another usually in social situations, between people who are dating as a couple and have had consensual sex in the past, between two people who are starting to date, between people who are just friends, and between acquaintances. They include rapes of co-workers, schoolmates, friends, and other acquaintances.

Spousal rape
Also known as spouse, marital rape, wife rape, husband rape, partner rape or intimate partner sexual assault (IPSA), is rape between a married or de facto couple. Research reveals that victims of marital/partner rape suffer longer lasting trauma than victims of stranger rape.

College campus rape
Some studies indicate a particular problem with rape on college campuses.

The US Department of Justice study also found that in "about half of the incidents categorized as completed rapes, the women or men did not consider the incident to be a rape."

Gang rape
Gang rape, or mass rape, occurs when a group of people participate in the rape of a single victim. Rape involving at least two or more violators is widely reported to occur in many parts of the world. Systematic information on the extent of the problem, however, is scant.

One study showed that offenders and victims in gang rape incidents were younger with a higher possibility of being unemployed. Gang rapes involved more alcohol and drug use, night attacks and severe sexual assault outcomes and less victim resistance and fewer weapons than individual rapes. Another study found that group sexual assaults were more violent and had greater resistance from the victim than individual sexual assaults and that victims of group sexual assaults were more likely to seek crisis and police services, to contemplate suicide and seek therapy than those involved in individual assaults. The two groups were about the same in the amount of drug use and drinking during the assault.

South Africa
In Johannesburg, South Africa, surveillance studies of women attending medico-legal clinics following a rape found that one-third of the cases had been gang rapes. National data on rape and sexual assault in the United States reveal that about 1 out of 10 sexual assaults involve multiple perpetrators. In South Africa where boys are often involved in gang rapes, called jackrolling, rape rates are higher.

France
The expression la tournante is a French noun meaning "the turning" and is used as a slang term to mean a gang rape. According to a CNN Insight broadcast, the combination of lack of respect and integration in traditional French society, frustration at lack of representation and opportunities has resulted in dangerous slums dominated by male-run gangs who engage in violence against women, including rape.

Rape of children
Rape of a child is a form of child sexual abuse. When committed by another child (usually older or stronger), it is a form of child-on-child sexual abuse. When committed by a parent or other close relatives such as grandparents, aunts and uncles, it is a form of incest and can result in serious and long-term psychological trauma. When a child is raped by an adult who is not a family member but in a caregiver or in a position of authority over the child, such as school teachers, religious authorities, or therapists, to name a few, on whom the child is dependent, the effects can be similar to incestual rape.

Psychologists estimate that 40 million adults, 15 million of those being men (Adams 1991), in the United States were sexually abused in childhood often by parents, close relatives and other elders on whom they were dependent. According to the National Center for Victims of Crime 46% of rape committed in the United States is perpetrated by a family member.

Effects of child rape include depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, propensity to re-victimization in adulthood, and physical injury to the child, among other problems. Children, including but not limited to adolescents, raped by their parents and other close elders are often called 'secret survivors' by psychologists, as they often are unable or unwilling to tell anyone about these rapes due to implicit or explicit threats by the adult rapist, fear of abandonment by the rapist, and/or overwhelming shame. Since the signs of these rapes are usually invisible except to trained professionals, these children often suffer ongoing offenses in silence until independence from the adult rapist is attained. By that time, the statute of limitations is often long-expired, the adult victim's repressed memories are often considered inadmissible as evidence and the child-rapist is able to avoid punishment.

More than 67,000 cases of rape and sexual assaults against children were reported in 2000 in South Africa. Child welfare groups believe that the number of unreported incidents could be up to 10 times that number. A belief common to South Africa holds that sexual intercourse with a virgin will cure a man of HIV or AIDS. South Africa has one of the highest numbers of HIV-positive citizens in the world. According to official figures, one in eight South Africans is infected with the virus. Edith Kriel, a social worker who helps child victims in the Eastern Cape, said: “Child abusers are often relatives of their victims - even their fathers and providers.”

According to University of Durban-Westville anthropology lecturer and researcher Suzanne Leclerc-Madlala, the myth that sex with a virgin is a cure for AIDS is not confined to South Africa. “Fellow AIDS researchers in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Nigeria have told me that the myth also exists in these countries and that it is being blamed for the high rate of sexual abuse against young children.”

Statutory rape
National and/or regional governments, citing an interest in protecting "young people" (variously defined but sometimes synonymous with minors), treat any sexual contact with such a person as an offense (not always categorized as "rape"), even if he or she agrees to or initiates the sexual activity.

The offense is often based on a presumption that people under a certain age do not have the capacity to give informed consent. The age at which individuals are considered competent to give consent, called the age of consent, varies in different countries and regions (ranges from 16 to 18 in the US). Sexual activity that violates age-of-consent law, but is neither violent nor physically coerced, is sometimes described as "statutory rape," a legally-recognized category in the United States. Most states, however, allow persons younger than the age of consent to engage in sexual activity if the age difference between the partners is small; these are called close in age exemptions.

Prison rape
Rates of prison rape have been reported as affecting between 3% and 12% of prison inmates. Although prison rapes are more commonly same-sex crimes (since prisons are separated by sex), the attacker usually does not identify as homosexual.

The attacker is most commonly another inmate, but prison guards may also be involved.

War rape
During war, rape is often used as means of psychological warfare in order to humiliate the enemy and undermine their morale. Rapes in war are often systematic and thorough, and military leaders may actually encourage their soldiers to rape civilians. Likewise, systematic rapes are often employed as a form of ethnic cleansing.

In 1998, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda established by the United Nations made landmark decisions that rape is a crime of genocide under international law. In one judgement Navanethem Pillay said: "From time immemorial, rape has been regarded as spoils of war. Now it will be considered a war crime. We want to send out a strong message that rape is no longer a trophy of war." .

War rape has only been considered a war crime since 1949. Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly prohibits wartime rape and enforced prostitution. These prohibitions were reinforced by the 1977 Additional Protocols to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. Therefore during the post-war Nürnberg Trials and Tokyo Trials mass war rape was not prosecuted as a war crime.

Rape by deception
Rape by deception occurs when the perpetrator gains the victim's consent through fraud.