Chapter 5 - Women and Victimization: Rape and Sexual Assault - Key Terms

Key terms from Stacy L Mallicoat's Women and Crime: The Essentials

Acquaintance rape

Non-consensual sexual contact or intercourse perpetrated by someone known to the victim.

Age-gap exceptions

Legal provisions that exempt consenting, similarly aged individuals from statutory rape or child sexual abuse charges when one partner is legally a minor.

Child rape

Legally defined as sex acts with a child under twelve, be it by threats, force, or administering substances.

Child sexual abuse

Any interaction between a child and an adult (or other child) in which the victim is used for the sexual stimulation of the perpetrator.

Corrective rape

A hate crime in which the victim is raped due to their believed sexual orientation.

Crimes against humanity

Certain grievous crimes committed as a part of a larger-scale attack against civilians.

Extralegal factors

Variables outside the official scope of the law that inappropriately influence legal and judicial decisions.

Genocide

The deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.

Incapacitated rape

When sexual activity happens with a victim who is mentally or physically incapable of giving valid legal consent.

Romeo and Juliet clauses

Specific state-level statutory permissions that provide close-in-age exceptions to statutory rape charges.

Same-sex sexual assault

Occurs when a perpetrator subjects a victim of the same sex or gender to any non-consensual sex act.

Spousal rape

Any non-consensual sexual intercourse committed by a spouse or intimate partner.

Statutory rape

Sexual activity with a person who is under the legal age of consent.

Virgin rape myth

A false belief that sex with a virgin will cure HIV/AIDS