• Six women’s bodies were found at the home of Anthony Sowell, 50, of Cleveland, Ohio, when police arrested him on a rape and felony assault warrant last Thursday. Sowell already served 15 years in prison for a 1989 rape of a 21-year-old woman. Although the bodies have not yet been identified, at least two women who lived within several blocks of Sowell went missing over the summer. [CBS News]
• Illinois’ parental notification law, which requires physicians to inform a parent or guardian when a girl under the age of 17 wants an abortion, will go into effect tomorrow. The parent or guardian will not be allowed to give consent, but he or she must be notified about the abortion. Girls can bypass notifying their parents by going before a judge, but the judge has 48 hours to rule. Parental notification also isn’t required in the case of a medical emergency or if the girl declares in writing that she is the victim of sexual abuse. [Chicago Tribune]

“Date-rape drugs are largely an urban myth used as an excuse by women who booze themselves into a stupor, it has been claimed.”

That’s the first line from an article in today’s Daily Mail, about a new study out of the University of Kent that suggests many women mistake being drunk for being drugged. Of course, there’s more to this story than the “journalists” at the Daily Mail would have you believe. For starters, it’s not that women are using “I was drugged!” as a way of excusing bad drunken behavior, but rather than they may be confusing the side effects of being intoxicated—nausea, dizziness, etc.—with those associated with being roofied. Additionally, a far more comprehensive article in the Telegraph quotes Adam Burgess, of Kent’s School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, as saying, “Young women appear to be displacing their anxieties about the consequences of consuming what is in the bottle on to rumors of what could be put there by someone else.”

Last week, the Huffington Post made our blood boil when they reported on a horrifying trend—that insurance companies are denying benefits for women who’ve been raped, and even dropping their coverage altogether. How can they get away with such a thing? Because, when a woman is raped and it’s unknown whether the assailant used a condom, doctors typically prescribe a month’s worth of an anti-HIV medication (which, uh, I didn’t even know existed) as a precaution. It’s extremely rare that a woman actually contracts HIV this way, but insurance companies view this as a morbid done deal. Susan Pisano, a spokeswoman for the health insurance industry’s largest trade group, America’s Health Insurance Plans, explains, “If you put down on a form that you are or were taking anti-HIV drugs at any time, [insurance companies] are going to understand that you are or were in treatment for HIV, period. That could be a factor in determining whether you get coverage.”

We’re definitely in the DNA age, people. You only need to tune into the paternity-testing “The Maury Show” or a crime show marathon to know that. So it’s about time New York state gives its rape testing kits, which were first introduced in emergency rooms 20 years ago, a DNA upgrade. Today, state officials are slated to reveal the new kits, which also include instructions on collecting evidence from male victims and a training video narrated by Mariska Hargitay (because her role as a detective on “Law & Order: SVU” has made her an expert). Developers from St. Luke’s and Roosevelt Hospitals in NYC say they have learned what works and what doesn’t over the years and the new kit is more comprehensive. Now, the kits provide special envelopes and swabs to collect an attacker’s bodily fluids or other evidence left behind that might contain DNA. The kits also provide information for health professionals to deal with male victims, which is a good thing since the ratio of male sexual assault victims in New York is much higher than the national ratio of one in eight. [NY Post]

I have to say I’m slightly shocked the old rape kits weren’t this comprehensive. I thought the whole point of a rape kit was to collect DNA.

OK, this story is literally a nightmare. Nick Walker, a 21-year-old student at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, went out drinking with some friends, including a 21-year-old girl who was visiting for the weekend. As the night wound down, they all passed out at the friend’s apartment where she was staying. This poor girl woke up in the middle of the night when she felt a “weird sensation.” She found that all of her clothes had been removed and that Nick was on top of her. Nick has no physical memory of any of this—he left the next morning without a word to the victim and later friend-requested her on Facebook, as if nothing happened. When she pressed charges, he was shocked and says that if he did rape her, he must have been sleepwalking. He admitted that this has happened to him before with his own girlfriend. Ack! How awful for everyone involved. Still, whether it was a conscious act or not, the fact remains that this poor girl was raped. Who pays for the crime? Is it fair that this guy should have been cleared of the rape charges? [Daily Mail]

Depressing story alert! An ultra disturbing article in today’s New York Times looks at how military officers in Conakry, Guinea attacked unarmed demonstrators last week. Their main order of business seemed to be sexually assaulting the group’s women. Sadly, experts say this is business as usual in Africa. But what is new is that in Guinea, where cell phones are rapidly outnumbering land line phones, the protesters-turned-victims sent out cell phone photos of rapes in progress by uniformed soldiers. The atrocities were broadcast around Guinea, and then around the world—possibly before the violence even ended.

I’ve been getting increasingly pissy about the lack of celebrities speaking out against Roman Polanski compared to those—like Whoopi Goldberg—who’ve been making lame excuses for him raping a 13-year-old girl and evading jail time. But not Chris Rock! The comic was on “Jay Leno” last night, promoting his new movie, “Good Hair,” and he let his mouth run on the subject. Clip above!

We’ve already posted about Roman Polanski being arrested this weekend for that decades-old “sex with a minor” conviction, but after watching the ladies of “The View” argue over the issue this morning, I felt compelled to write more. For starters, in the clip above, Whoopi Goldberg, who I never expected to be a rape apologist, coins a term I’ve never heard before—“rape-rape.” Apparently “rape-rape” is NOT when you drug a 13-year-old girl with alcohol and a Quaalude and then have anal sex with her. That’s something else that’s, apparently, not as bad. WTF?

In 1977, director Roman Polanski was at Jack Nicholson’s house in Hollywood during a photo shoot. He met a young model named Samantha Geimer, who was only 13 at the time, gave her champagne and half a Quaalude and then allegedly raped her. Polanski was arrested and plead guilty to having sex with a minor, and served 42 days in state prison for what a judge termed “pre-sentencing diagnostic testing.” When he was released, he fled to France to avoid facing charges and potential further sentencing. He’s lived in France for the past 32 years, where he is a citizen and cannot be extradited, and has continued to direct films—including “The Pianist” which won him an Academy Award for Best Director and Best Picture. Polanski has never returned to the U.S., and has mostly avoided traveling to countries where he could be arrested. But on Saturday, as he arrived in Switzerland to speak at the Zurich Film Festival, he was picked up by Swiss officials bearing a U.S. arrest warrant.

The Hofstra University freshman who lied about a gang rape and sent four innocent young men to jail won’t spend any time behind bars herself. Last week, a prosecutor opted not to file criminal charges against Danmel Ndonye, 18, in exchange for her undergoing one year of mental health treatment and performing 250 hours of community service.

Two weeks ago, my gentle and loving boyfriend of three months held me down and forced me to have sex with him against my will, and then told me I had asked for it. And technically, he was right.

Jacob and I had only been dating about a month and a half when I intimated that I had a rape fantasy. Over the years, I’d had my share of experience with role-playing and rough sex. I vividly recall a male friend of mine in college telling me that I had a distinct air of “sexual prey” about me, and me thinking that this was a huge compliment. Being dominated and playing the innocent who secretly wasn’t had been my currency and had guided the sexual dynamic I forged with partners for the last 10 years. But only for the last few months had I allowed myself to entertain what I considered to be the final frontier— a simulated rape.

Mackenzie Phillips, best known for her role on the ‘70s and ‘80s sitcom “One Day at a Time,” and for being the daughter of musician John Phillips from the legendary ‘60s band the Mamas and the Papas, will appear on “Oprah” today to discuss all kinds of family secrets shared in her new tell-all, High on Arrival, out today. Sure to be the biggest jaw-dropping secret of all is the confession that she had a long-term sexual relationship with her father that eventually became consensual! The first time her father had sex with her, she says, was the night before her wedding to Rolling Stones entourage member, Jeff Sessler, when she was 19.

I just found out that my rapist is dead. Not only is he dead, but he ended up killing a lot of women. I always wondered if he would rape again, but I never thought he would graduate to murder.

Most of us who’ve lived in a college dormitory before have had that sexual assault prevention lecture from campus security that’s basically, like, “Women! Cross your legs!” I guess society thinks it’s easier to just make women protect themselves, rather than changing men’s behavior, hence, advice like “cover your drinks so you don’t get roofied” and “don’t walk walk home alone at night.”

You could just stay in your dorm room all year, girls.

Yeah, “rape prevention” advice that makes women have to be on the ball with our behavior all the time is damn annoying. So I’m thrilled a blogger at No, Not You, who did a college RA training last month, wrote up 11 handy-dandy sexual assault prevention tips FOR MEN.

Earlier this week we were upset to hear an 18-year-old woman at Hofstra University on Long Island had allegedly been gang-raped by five men in a dorm bathroom. Each day, we read increasingly troubling newspaper reports describing how the student had gone back to a dorm room with one of the alleged rapists who took her phone at a frat party. There, she said, five men took her to a stall in the men’s bathroom, tied her up with rope and gang-raped her.

But guess what? Apparently, it’s not true. Today the District Attorney for Nassau County on Long Island reported that the accuser, whom she called “very troubled,” told police the sex was consensual. When the young woman was told the incident may have been caught on video tape, she admitted she’d lied.

Ew, this is every woman’s worst nightmare happening in real life: a creepy man dubbed “The Georgetown Cuddler” is going around D.C. college campuses, breaking into dorm rooms, and climbing on top of sleeping women. Last week, a female Georgetown student woke up at 4 a.m. to find a stranger in her home touching her inappropriately, just two days after another student woke up with a man believed to be the Cuddler lying next to her on the couch and covering her face. Apparently, this creep also likes to take a blanket from the victim’s bedroom, lay it on top of her, and then he lies on top of the blanket, too. Oh, and occasionally he tries to rape his victims “with varying success.” The Sexist blog, based in D.C., suggested more appropriate names for this creep could be “The Georgetown Entry-Gainer,” “The Georgetown Blanketlayer” or “The Georgetown Rapist.” Gross. Hopefully, some girl bonks this guy on the head with her vibe so police can catch the perv.

Alas, I know exactly how freaky this is, because the weirdo-in-my-bed thing actually happened to me once. Not with the Georgetown Cuddler, though. More, after the jump…