Word.ws English Dictionary

rapism

rapism noun: a paraphilia in which a person is aroused by rape, i.e. forcing somebody into sexual acts against their will.

Noun

rapism (uncountable)

  1. A paraphilia in which a person is aroused by rape, i.e. forcing somebody into sexual acts against their will.
  2. A set of cultural values that make rape morally acceptable.
    • The ethos of Judeo-Christian culture is dominated by The Most Unholy Trinity: Rape, Genocide, and War. It is rapism which spawns racism. It is gynocide which spawns genocide, for sexism (rapism) is fundamental socialization to objectify "the other".1993, Marilyn Pearsall, Women and Values: Readings in Recent Feminist Philosophy
    • As boundary violators, all participate in the mythic paradigm of Rapism.1984 Fall, Harris Mirkin, “The Passive Female: the Theory of Patriarchy”, in American Studies, volume 25, number 2
    Synonyms:
    rape culture

Examples of rapism in a sentence

  • The state of atrocity is characterized by rapism, the fundamental ideology and practice of patriarchy.1998, Mary Daly, Quintessence-- Realizing the Archaic Future:
  • There is one more: can you liberate womyn from the enslavement of sexism, rapism...1993 Spring-Summer, Mykel Johnson, “Casting a New Circle”, in Women's Studies Quarterly, volume 21, numbers 1-2:
  • I imagine being part of a "we" that wants to change rapacity culture in order to change rape culture, to undo rapism as many cultures have sought to undo racism.2014 Fall, Lisa Samuels, “Rapacity Culture and the Body”, in Chicago Review, volume 59, numbers 1-2:

Synonyms of rapism

Origin of rapism

From rape + -ism.

Questions about rapism

What does rapism mean?
Rapism means a paraphilia in which a person is aroused by rape, i.e. forcing somebody into sexual acts against their will.
How do you use rapism in a sentence?
The state of atrocity is characterized by rapism, the fundamental ideology and practice of patriarchy.
What part of speech is rapism?
Rapism is a noun.

Words near rapism in the dictionary

  1. rapings
  2. rapini
  3. rapining
  4. Rapinoe
  5. rapinous
  6. rapism
  7. rapismatid
  8. rapismatids
  9. rapist
  10. rapists
  11. Rapla

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rapism (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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Cite this entry: “rapism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rapism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.