Word.ws English Dictionary

corrective rape

corrective rape noun: the act of raping someone because of their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity in an attempt to force the person to be heterosexual or to enforce gender stereotypes.

Noun

corrective rape (countable and uncountable, plural corrective rapes)

  1. The act of raping someone because of their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity in an attempt to force the person to be heterosexual or to enforce gender stereotypes.
    • Raping a lesbian, HRW [(Human Rights Watch)] researchers found, can make a man a township hero. Attackers boast publicly of their crimes and declare to their victims, "We'll show you you're a woman," the report said. Such attacks are known as "corrective rapes" in South Africa.[2011 December 5, Donna Bryson, “Rights group: South African lesbians face abuse”, in Yahoo! News, archived from the original on 12 Nov 2012
    • In early reports of corrective rape, gender non-conforming behavior among black lesbian women is cited as one of the most prevalent motivations behind the perpetration of such violence (Mufweba and Bhengu, 2003).2021, S. J. Dodd, editor, The Routledge International Handbook of Social Work and Sexualities, Routledge, →ISBN, page 99

Forms of corrective rape

pluralcorrective rapes

Origin of corrective rape

corrective + rape. First used in South Africa, in reference to the raping of lesbians.

Questions about corrective rape

What does corrective rape mean?
Corrective rape means the act of raping someone because of their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity in an attempt to force the person to be heterosexual or to enforce gender stereotypes.
What part of speech is corrective rape?
Corrective rape is a noun.
What is the plural of corrective rape?
The plural of corrective rape is corrective rapes.

Words near corrective rape in the dictionary

  1. corrective
  2. corrective facilities
  3. corrective facility
  4. corrective lens
  5. corrective lenses
  6. corrective rape
  7. corrective rapes
  8. corrective shoe
  9. correctively
  10. correctiveness
  11. correctives

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: corrective rape (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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