Raped? Be bold.Tell on him.

RAPE

Rape is a serious crime of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse against a person without his or her consent. It is a sexual intercourse initiated by a perpetrator against a victim without his or her consent. Rape is commonly committed by men against women. Women also rape men but the incidents are rare but it does happen especially against young males by female authority figures.

According to Oxford Advanced Leaners Dictionary (International Student’s Edition), rape is forcing somebody to have sex with you when they do not want to by threatening them or using violence. Rape is derived from Latin word rapere which means to snatch, to grab, to carry off.

Rape comes in different shapes and forms – date rape, gang rape, marital rape, incestual rape, acquitance rape and war rape.

Date rape is a forced sexual assault on a victim by a friend well known to him or her. People often find it difficult to believe victims of date rape because the victim and the perpetrator are known to be frineds.

Gang rape is a forced sexual assault on a victim by a group of people.

Marital rape is a forced sexual intercourse by a husband against his wife. It occurs when the wife is not in the mood for sex but the husband cannot take no for answer. In most African societies, marital rape is not regarded as a crime but in the developed world especially in America, it is a criminal offence. Marital rape also known as sponsal rape is a non-condensual sex in which the perpetrator is the victim’s spouse.

Incestual rape occurs among siblings of the same parents or in a family setting comprising step fathers, step mothers and their siblings from previous marriages.

Child sexual abuse is taking sexual advantage of a child by an adult.

Prison rape is common among prisoners because of lack of avenue to release their sexual tensions. It can occur between warders against prisoners especially female prisoners or between male prisoners against female warders.

Acquitance rape is a sexual assault on a victim by a person known to him or her. It may occur among people living in the same area, working in the same office or belonging to the same association who may not necessarily know one another very well.

War rape is mainly committed by soldiers against the women of conquered territories. It is a violent sexual assault on the women population as a result of war.

Most rape victims hardly report the incident because of the social stigma attached to incidents of rape and also for the fact that most offenders are persons known to the victims.

Rape victims go through a lot of terrible psychological ordeals. They are often traumatised because of the incident. They suffer from severe post tramatic stress disorder and may never live a healthy sex life unless they are properly handled by health care professionals. Emotional and psychological problems victims of rape suffer include disruption of concentration, sleeping patterns and eating habits. Memories of the event never rarelly vacate their imagination.

 They are always relieving the incident which makes it impossible for them to let go and move on with their lives. If the victims are not married before the unfortunate incident, the tendency is to see every male as a rapist and this frame of mind will hinder them from getting married and even if they do, they may not enjoy their conjugal rights because each sexual encounter with their husbands will bring back fresh memories of the past. 

In the event that the rape victim is a married woman, the woman also suffers the same emotional turmoil. Marriages have been known to break down because of the incidents of rape especially in a situation where the husband is of the belief that his wife is the cause of the problem either because of the way she dresses, relates to men or deemed to have behaved improperly.

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime defines rape as, “Sexual intercourse without valid consent”. International Criminal Court (ICC) believes that rape has occured, when, “the perpetrator invaded the body of a person by conduct resulting in penetration, however slight, of any part of the body of the victim or of the perpetrator with a sexual organ, or the anal or genital opening of the victim with any object or any other part of the body. The invasion was committed by force, or by a threat of force or coercion such as that caused fear of violence, duress, detention, psychological oppression or abuse of power, against  such person or another person, or by taking advantage of a coercive environment or the invasion was committed against a person incapable of giving genuine consent.”

So have you been raped? Be sincere to yourself. Do not hide it .Report it.