Types of rape

There are several types of rape, generally categorized by reference to the situation in which it occurs, the identity or chacteristics of the victim, and/or the identity or characteristics of the perpetrator.

Forcible date rape
The term "acquaintance rape" (or "date rape") refers to rape or non-consensual sexual activity between people who are already acquainted, or who know each other socially &mdash; friends, acquaintances, people on a date, or even people in an existing romantic relationship &mdash; where it is alleged that consent for sexual activity was not given, or was given under duress. The vast majority of rapes are committed by people who already know the victim.

Drug facilitated date rape
Various drugs are used by rapists to render their victims unconscious, some also cause memory loss.

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.

It is often assumed that spousal rape is less traumatic than that from a stranger. Research reveals that victims of marital/partner rape suffer longer lasting trauma than victims of stranger rape, possibly because of a lack of social validation that prevents a victim from getting access to support; a problem that domestic violence services combat.

Different countries have different rape laws. In many countries it is not possible to commit the crime of rape against one's own wife or husband.

Even more so, if two people are regularly sexually intimate, in many countries it is not a crime for one partner to have sex with their sleeping or drunk partner even though that partner did not give express consent.

College campus rape
Some studies indicate a particular problem with rape on college campuses. The subject attracts attention because of the presence of many young men and women, often experiencing their first years away from home together, in an environment where prior controls, supervision and discipline are to a great extent removed, and where youths are in a position to engage in adult behavior with some anticipating new activities and freedoms, whilst others are left more vulnerable and less supervised.

In the United States, students are allegedly most vulnerable to rape during the initial weeks of the first two years. According to the U.S. Justice Department, 3.8% of college women and 1.7% of men were victims of completed rape within a six month period, and in 90% of the cases the attacker was known to the victim. In a typical college career, one-fifth to one-fourth were victims of attempted or completed rape. According to one 1992 study, one out of twelve college aged men and one in every twenty college aged women committed rape, making each responsible for an average of three rapes.

The Department of Justice study also found that in "about half of the incidents categorized as completed rapes, the women or man did not consider the incident to be a rape." According to the Journal of Counseling and Development, women aged 16–24 are at the highest risk of sexual assault. One study has concluded that as many as one in four college aged females has been a victim of either rape or attempted rape.

Group rape
Group rape (also known as "gang" or "pack" rape) occurs when a group of people participate in the rape of a single victim. 10% to 20% involve more than one attacker. It is far more damaging to the victim, and in some jurisdictions, is punished more severely than rape by a single person. The term "gang bang" was a synonym for gang rape when public discussion of sexual activity in general was taboo; in the advent of the pornography industry and relaxed sexual tensions, that term is now often used as a slang term for consensual group sex.

This is also related to rape as means of warfare, where the pack mentality is highly predominant.

According to sexual crime profiler Roy Hazelwood, gang rape "involves three or more offenders and you always have a leader and a reluctant participant. Those are extremely violent, and what you find is that they're playing for each other's approval. It gets into a pack mentality and can be horrendous."

Rape of children by parents, elder relatives, and other responsible elders
This form of rape is incest when committed by the child's parents or close relatives such as grandparents, aunts and uncles. It is considered incestuous in nature but not in form when committed by other elders, such as priests, nuns or other religious authorities, school teachers, or therapists, to name a few, on whom the child is dependent. 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 &mdash; of both genders &mdash; on whom they were dependent.

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 insidious 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 escape justice. (It should be noted that repressed memories are a hotly debated topic in the psychological community, and many psychologists do not believe in their existence. For more information, see the "repressed memories" article.)

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 categorised as "rape"), even if he or she agrees to 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 is called the age of consent. This varies in different countries and regions, and in the US ranges from 14 to 18. Sex which 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.

Prison rape
Many rapes happen in prison. These rapes are often homosexual in nature (since prisons are separated by sex). Interestingly these acts are mostly committed by people who were not homosexual before prison. The attacker is most commonly another inmate, but prison guards may also be involved, primarily in female prisons. 

Rape as means of warfare
This type of rape is also known as '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. During the Yugoslavian Civil War, it was reported that Serbian soldiers herded enemy women into camps, who were then raped on a daily basis until pregnancy occurred.

German women who became pregnant after being raped by Soviet soldiers in World War II were invariably denied abortion to further humiliate them as to carry an unwanted child. As a result, according to the book "Berlin: The Downfall, 1945" by Antony Beevor, some 90% of Berlin women in 1945 had venereal diseases as results of consequential rapes and 3.7% of all children born in Germany 1945-1946 had Russian fathers. The history behind this particular rape of the German women by the Soviet troops was considered a taboo topic until 1992. (see also Red Army atrocities)

Additionally, in China during World War II, the Nanking Massacre occurred, where rape was used as a tool to humiliate the civilians under Japanese oppression.

According to a review of "The GI War against Japan: American Soldiers in Asia and the Pacific during World War II", rape is seen as a method for soldiers to bond with each other, and also to enhance their aggressiveness, and it also "reflects a burning need to establish total dominance of the other"[the enemy]. As a consequence U.S. soldiers rape of Japanese women was "general practice". One Okinawan historian estimates that 10,000 women were raped during the three month Okinawa campaign. During the first 10 days of the occupation of mainland Japan following the Japanese surrender 1,336 cases of rape were reported in the prefecture of Kanagawa alone. (see also Allied war crimes during World War II)

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 judgment 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."