structural:expansion
General

Rape is defined in most jurisdictions as sexual intercourse, or other forms of sexual penetration, committed by a perpetrator against a victim without their consent. The definition of rape is inconsistent between governmental health organizations, law enforcement, health providers, and legal professions. It has varied historically and culturally. Originally, rape had no sexual connotation and is still used in other contexts in English. In Roman law, it or raptus was classified as a form of crimen vis, "crime of assault". Raptus referred to the abduction of a woman against the will of the man under whose authority she lived, and sexual intercourse was not a necessary element. Other definitions of rape have changed over time. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia considered rape as a crime that required coercion or force or threat of force against the victim or a third person.

Until 2012, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) considered rape a crime solely committed by men against women. In 2012, they changed their definition from "The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will" to "The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim." The updated definition still excluded from the definition of rape men forced to penetrate women, which is generally recognized as the academic definition of rape. However, it recognized any gender of victim and perpetrator and that rape with an object can be as traumatic as penile/vaginal rape. The bureau further describes instances when the victim is unable to give consent because of mental or physical incapacity. It recognizes that a victim can be incapacitated by drugs and alcohol and unable to give valid consent. The definition does not change federal or state criminal codes or impact charging and prosecution on the federal, state, or local level; it rather means that rape will be more accurately reported nationwide.

Health organizations and agencies have also expanded rape beyond traditional definitions. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines rape as a form of sexual assault, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) includes rape in their definition of sexual assault; they term rape a form of sexual violence. The CDC lists other acts of coercive, non-consensual sexual activity that may or may not include rape, including drug-facilitated sexual assault, acts in which a victim is made to penetrate a perpetrator or someone else, intoxication where the victim is unable to consent (due to incapacitation or being unconscious), non-physically forced penetration which occurs after a person is pressured verbally (by intimidation or misuse of authority to force to consent), or completed or attempted forced penetration of a victim via unwanted physical force (including using a weapon or threatening to use a weapon). The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) has implemented universal screening for what has been termed "military sexual trauma" (MST) and provides medical and mental health services free of charge to enrolled veterans who report MST (Title 38 United States Code 1720D; Public Law 108–422).

Some countries or jurisdictions differentiate between rape and sexual assault by defining rape as involving penile penetration of the vagina, or solely penetration involving the penis, while other types of non-consensual sexual activity are called sexual assault. Scotland, for example, emphasizes penile penetration, requiring that the sexual assault must have been committed by use of a penis to qualify as rape. The 1998 International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda defines rape as "a physical invasion of a sexual nature committed on a person under circumstances which are coercive". In other cases, the term rape has been phased out of legal use in favor of terms such as sexual assault or criminal sexual conduct.

Some countries criminalize non-consensual condom removal ("stealthing"), where one partner removes (or intentionally damages) their condom during sex without telling the other partner; the rationale is that consent was given to protected sex and not to unprotected sex, making the subsequent act non-consensual and therefore illicit; for such cases, United Kingdom, Switzerland, New Zealand have enacted rape convictions, while Australia, Canada, Germany saw convictions for sexual assault; California considers it sexual battery.