All About Rape

What is rape?

Rape is a crime and is when one or several people force another person to have sexual intercourse against their will. It most often happens when a man rapes a woman, but a man/men can rape another man by anal intercourse, and women have very, very rarely been had up for raping a man. It can happen with someone you don’t know or someone that you do know. The crucial thing is that you don’t want it to happen. A particular nasty form of rape is when someone spikes your drink with a drug that totally makes you forget what has happened and you find yourself in a strange place and don’t know how you got there, but you are aware that someone has had sexual intercourse with you.

And date rape?

Is when you have a ‘date’ with someone, and they take you out, and then they assume that, in exchange for you being taken out by them – you will have sexual intercourse with them even if you do not want them to.

What to do if you have been raped or think that you may have been raped.

Most police forces now run a special ‘Rape Unit’ with specially trained police officers, who are usually women, though if you are a man you can ask to be seen by a man. You should contact the unit immediately by dialling 999 and asking to be put through to them, or contact your family doctor. You should not wash – even if you feel that you really, really want to – as it is extremely important that they take specimens from you including from your vaginal area, as the man’s sperm can be examined and identified as coming from him.

What will happen after you have contacted the Rape Unit or your own doctor?

They will talk to you and take a statement about what has happened. They will take specimens, and advise you about how to make sure that you do not get pregnant. They will also check out to make sure that you have not got any sexually transmitted disease, and if you have then they will arrange for treatment. They will arrange counselling for you and the rape unit will discuss about bringing a charge against the man and how best to succeed in bringing him to courts and getting a criminal charge against him.