The other side of this of course is that 'rape' in the UK is still a very specific crime that requires a penis for instance, where a lot of those charges in other places are from when the laws were made broader in scope, and allow for female perpetrators and that kind of thing.
I admit I was surprised to discover that you're right, and the basic legal description of rape requires penetration with his penis into someone's vagina, anus, or mouth.
That wording sort of implies that a woman cannot commit rape in the UK, which is wild. But there are a further 78 sections to this law that define in great detail a series of other crimes, exceptions, caveats, and modern amendments.
These extend even so far as to include different body parts such as digital penetration, changing the wording of vagina to include vulva, specifying the inclusion of surgically constructed body parts (for example with a gender reassignment surgery), and even, in the case of offenses against animals, stipulating the inclusion of "similar parts" for animals that do not have a vagina or anus. Which kinda implies that someone in the past tried to get their client off charges because they fucked a bird or something and technically that doesn't count because they have a cloaca. Which would be almost funny if it wasn't awful.
The important part to note is that by the letter of the law, the courts do persecute acts that are morally equivalent to their definition of rape with the same degree of severity. For example if a woman forced a man to have sex with her, it would not be rape under our definitions, it would be "Causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent" - which although lacking the powerful word, carries the same suggested sentence as rape; the language being: "A person guilty of an offence under this section ... is liable, on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for life."
Rapeseed oil comes from the rape plant in the family Brassicaceae. Plants in this family aside from rape are radishes, cabbages, and importantly, turnips.
The latin word for turnip is rāpa, so its easy to see how a similar plant is called the rape plant.
The word rape for the action of non-consensual sex comes from the latin rapere which means to seize, abduct, or plunder by force. Originally this did not explicitly have its modern sexual connotation, but acts of rapere were often carried out by soldiers or invading forces taking from civilians, and we know full well that pillage and rape are crimes often perpetrated together.
Different words with different origins.
Did you think rape oil is some crude horrible british joke that we're all in on or something? like what was going on in your head? Why did you imagine we call it that?
The first time I heard Clarkson say rape seed on Clarksons farm I had to do a double take and then promptly google what the fuck he was on about. Absolutely blew my mind.
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u/cnzmur 20h ago
The other side of this of course is that 'rape' in the UK is still a very specific crime that requires a penis for instance, where a lot of those charges in other places are from when the laws were made broader in scope, and allow for female perpetrators and that kind of thing.