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 Rape Main Article |  Glossary |  Rape Index 

Rape (Sexual Assault) Glossary of Terms

The following are health and medical definitions of terms that appear in the Rape (Sexual Assault) article.

Alcohol: An organic chemical in which one or more hydroxyl (OH) groups are attached to carbon (C) atoms in place of hydrogen (H) atoms. Common alcohols include ethyl alcohol or ethanol (found in alcoholic beverages), methyl alcohol or methanol (can cause blindness) and propyl alcohol or propanol (used as a solvent and antiseptic ). Rubbing alcohol is a mixture of acetone , methyl isobutyl ketone, and ethyl alcohol. In everyday talk, alcohol usually refers to ethanol as, for example, in wine, beer, and liquor. It can cause changes in behavior and be addictive.
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Angry: Pertaining to anger, an emotional state that may range in intensity from mild irritation to intense fury and rage. Anger has physical effects; it raises the heart rate and blood pressure and the levels of adrenaline and noradrenaline, and so on.
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CDC: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , the US agency charged with tracking and investigating public health trends. The stated mission of the CDC is "To promote health and quality of life by preventing and controlling disease, injury, and disability." The CDC is a part of the U.S. Public Health Services (PHS) under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
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Date rape: Rape of a woman by a man with whom she is acquainted. The rapist is usually the woman's "date" (escort).
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Exhibitionism ("Flashing"): Exhibitionism is characterized by intense, sexually arousing fantasies, urges or behaviors involving exposure of the individual's genitals to an unsuspecting stranger. The individual with this problem, sometimes called a "flasher," feels a need to surprise, shock or impress his victims. The condition usually is limited to the exposure, with no other harmful advances made, although "indecent exposure" is illegal. Actual sexual contact with the victim is rare. However, the person may masturbate while exposing himself or while fantasizing about exposing himself.

HHS: Acronym for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Also known as DHHS.
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Hospital: It may seem unnecessary to define a "hospital" since everyone knows the nature of a hospital. A hospital began as a charitable institution for the needy, aged, infirm, or young.
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Incest: Sexual activity between individuals so closely related that marriage is prohibited. Incest involving a child is a form of child abuse.

Memory: 1. The ability to recover information about past events or knowledge. 2. The process of recovering information about past events or knowledge. 3. Cognitive reconstruction. The brain engages in a remarkable reshuffling process in an attempt to extract what is general and what is particular about each passing moment.
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Pregnancy : The state of carrying a developing embryo or fetus within the female body. This condition can be indicated by positive results on an over-the-counter urine test, and confirmed through a blood test, ultrasound, detection of fetal heartbeat, or an X-ray. Pregnancy lasts for about nine months, measured from the date of the woman's last menstrual period (LMP). It is conventionally divided into three trimesters, each roughly three months long.
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Rape: Forced sexual intercourse; sexual assault; sexual intercourse between an adult and a minor . Rape may be heterosexual (involving members of opposite sexes) or homosexual (involving members of the same sex). Rape involves insertion of an erect penis or an inanimate object into the female vagina or the male anus . Legal definitions of rape may also include forced oral sex and other sexual acts.
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Semen: The fluid that is released through the penis during orgasm. Semen is made up of fluid and of sperm. The fluid comes from the prostate, seminal vesicle and other sex glands. The sperm are manufactured in the testicles. The seminal fluid helps transport the sperm during orgasm. Seminal fluid contains sugar as an energy source for sperm.
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Shock: In medicine, shock is a critical condition brought on by a sudden drop in blood flow through the body. There is failure of the circulatory system to maintain adequate blood flow. This sharply curtails the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to vital organs. It also compromises the kidney and so curtails the removal of wastes from the body. Shock can be due to a number of different mechanisms including not enough blood volume (hypovolemic shock) and not enough output of blood by the heart (cardiogenic shock). The signs and symptoms of shock include low blood pressure (hypotension), overbreathing (hyperventilation), a weak rapid pulse, cold clammy grayish-bluish (cyanotic) skin, decreased urine flow (oliguria), and mental changes (a sense of great anxiety and foreboding, confusion and, sometimes, combativeness).
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Voyeurism ("Peeping Tom"): Voyeurism is a disorder that involves achieving sexual arousal by observing an unsuspecting and non-consenting person who is undressing or unclothed, and/or engaged in sexual activity. This behavior may conclude with masturbation by the voyeur. The voyeur does not seek sexual contact with the person he is observing. Other names for this behavior are "peeping" or "peeping Tom."

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Rape (Sexual Assault)

What is dissociative identity disorder?

Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is a mental illness that involves the sufferer experiencing at least two clear identities or personality states, each of which has a fairly consistent way of viewing and relating to the world. Some individuals with DID have been found to have personality states that have distinctly different ways of reacting, in terms of emotions, pulse, blood pressure, and blood flow to the brain. This disorder was formerly called multiple personality disorder (MPD) and is often referred to as split personality disorder. Although statistics regarding this disorder indicate that the incidence of DID is about 3% of patients in psychiatric hospitals and is described as occurring in females nine times more often than in males, this may be due to difficulty identifying the disorder in males. Also, disagreement among mental-health professionals about how this illness appears clinically, and if...

Read the Dissociative Identity Disorder article »









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