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Another commenter points out (in response to an affirmation that "the perpetrator class *is* monolithic. In these countries, in these war situations, it *is* exclusively composed of men, acting out masculinity's obsession with the use of sex as violence and power over"): "Women also use sex as a means of violence and power. Research conducted in the US show that 95% of male victims in juvenile detention centres are abused by women http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/mar/11/the-rape-of-american-prisoners/ and that another report highlighted that women raped in US prisons were more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted by another woman than a man"

when some UK Rape Crisis centres began to accept and help male rape victims they received death threats and even threats of having their offices fire bombed. Apparently these threats came from volunteers at other rape crisis centres

Of course there's someone accusing them of "liberal condescension, which habitually appears in their reports on developed countries", but that's another problematic matter...

"If it's not a crime for a mother to intentionally end her pregnancy, how can it be a crime for her to do it unintentionally, whether by taking drugs or smoking or whatever it is," Robert McDuff, a civil rights lawyer asked the state supreme court.

anti-abortion groups were trying to amend the Mississippi constitution by setting up a state referendum, or ballot initiative, that would widen the definition of a person under the state's bill of rights to include a foetus from the day of conception.

Perhaps the most persuasive argument put forward in the amicus briefs is that if such prosecutions were designed to protect the unborn child, then they would be utterly counter-productive: "Prosecuting women and girls for continuing [a pregnancy] to term despite a drug addiction encourages them to terminate wanted pregnancies to avoid criminal penalties. The state could not have intended this result when it adopted the homicide statute."

McGill professor of Social Work Myriam Denov, who did her Phd thesis on female sex offenders, notes, as recently as 1984, a study proclaimed that “pedophilia does not exist at all in women.”

According to a 2004 U.S. Department of Education mass study of university students, 57% of students reporting child sexual abuse cited a male offender, and 42% reported a female offender. Interestingly, 65% of the survivors of female abuse who opened up to a therapist, doctor or other professional were not believed on their first disclosure. Overall, 86% of those who tried to tell anyone at all about their experience were not believed.

According to a 1996 report from the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN), about 25% of child sexual abuse is committed by women, but that figure may be low, because survivors are far more conflicted and shamed in admitting abuse by their mothers than by fathers.

One night in 2007, as they moved from the living room couch to the bedroom for lovemaking episode, K.D. agreed to being erotically asphyxiated — choked to the point of unconsciousness, which some people apparently find heightens the sexual experience. I am certainly not here to judge anybody’s sex life when both parties consent to the activity. Neither should the court. K.D. gave prior consent not just to the choking but also — the defendant’s lawyer argued and the complainant later acknowledged — to the insertion of a dildo while she was unconscious. “At the moment, I just went with it, in the spirit of experimentation,’’ she testified. By her own estimation, K.D. was unconscious for about three minutes and, when coming to, discovered she was being anally penetrated by the dildo. It was removed some 10 seconds later and the couple then had vaginal sex. There was no evidence the woman ever did anything against her will, that permission was revoked by words or conduct, that the husband had failed to ascertain or misunderstood that consent had been given, or that consent was somehow “vitiated’’ by intentional infliction of bodily harm.

Indeed, the trial judge who sent the husband to prison for sexual assault acquitted him on charges of aggravated assault and assault causing bodily harm, concluding the wife had agreed to the choking and didn’t suffer bodily harm “since the unconsciousness that she experienced was only transient.” Yet she convicted on sexual assault because K.D. could not “legally consent to sexual activity that takes place while she’s unconscious.”

The Supremes concurred on that crucial point, on the basis of Parliament’s existing definition of consent — requiring the complainant to be conscious throughout the sexual activity in question. “Parliament’s definition of consent does not extend to advance consent to sexual acts committed while the complainant is unconscious.”

Deborah Orr looks at why some women still don’t adopt feminism or call themselves feminists. She starts by saying that there is a myth that women reject feminism simply because it has a bad image. A kind of 80s dyke image. I agree with her point in relation to that myth, that: ‘The very fact that some feminists are so willing to accept that women don’t want the label for such superficial reasons, rather than crediting women with more profound intellectual discomfort, is an indication that even feminist attitudes can sometimes be dismissive of women and their legitimate concerns.’

Orr writes: ‘The fundamental and rather serious problem is the blunt and somewhat stubborn emphasis on “equality“, difficult enough in a society deeply divided by economic inequality generally, even without the added complication that it’s the people with care of children, whatever their sex, whose economic freedom is most compromised the world over.’ (my emphasis)

‘Feminists (and I’m generalising here) tend towards the conclusion that women who don’t sign up are simply hostages to the tyranny of the patriarchy, whose feeble personal consciousnesses have refused to be raised.’ And, her belief that women reject feminism for more complex and thought-out reasons than mere ‘false consciousness’.

A 2001 report in Psychiatric Times found that female rapists "are most likely to use psychological pressure such as verbal pleading and arguments, emotional blackmail, and deception." Also common among cases of female-on-male sexual assault is taking advantage of an intoxicated man.

, it's tough to accurately estimate how common female-on-male rape is, because it's presumed to be greatly under-reported. That's due in part to the general stigma around sexual assault, but more important, to cultural assumptions about male and female sexuality. Men, we're told, always want sex from women and are happy to get it any way they can. This yarn is so strong that it's tragically woven throughout even cases where underage boys are molested by female teachers.

Just as with prison rape, female-on-male rape gets the comedic treatment.

The sexual nature of the encounter between the French politician and the maid has never been questioned by either side. But the New York Times report suggests that police and prosecuting lawyers have concluded that the 32-year-old Guinean-born maid has lied repeatedly.

police recorded a telephone conversation between the woman and a man in prison on the day of the alleged rape in which the woman talked about the possible financial benefits that could come to her as a result of pursuing charges against Strauss-Kahn.

#3 Hofstra University gang-rape case An 18-year-old Hofstra University freshman accused five men, including another Hofstra student, of gang-raping her after a campus party in Hempstead, N.Y., in September 2009. Four of the men were charged and a fifth was about to be arrested after the woman told police she was lured to a dormitory after a dance party. She said she was bound with rope while the five men took turns sexually assaulting her in a stall in the men's bathroom. Then a grainy and explicit cellphone video of the incident emerged, showing the sex was consensual. The woman recanted her story after the prosecutor asked her: “If there is a video, and I get that video, it's going to show me that what you're saying is true?”

"The men did nothing illegal, but that doesn't make the behavior any less despicable," wrote Newsday columnist Joye Brown about the case. At the same time, "one woman's lie could have sent five innocent young men to state prison for up to 25 years."