All Men Are Rapists

In some settings, it is taken as a given not only that All Men Are Perverts who think about sex constantly, but that the average man will immediately attempt to force himself upon any woman who isn't sufficiently protected. Simply not raping a woman is therefore in itself a sign that a man is a pure and noble hero.

Particularly common in Low Fantasy settings whose writers are trying too hard to avert Politically-Correct History or Anvilicious Straw Feminist works. Also often goes hand-in-hand with a Sweet Polly Oliver heroine, as this is the only way a woman can leave her home in one of these stories without being set upon. Strangely, men are rarely seen as targets for this rampaging rape culture, except in prison movies where it's likely to be used as comic relief.

Also shows up in old-fashioned Romance Novels, perhaps as an attempt to demonstrate the desirability of the heroine. In some of these, the only one who will succeed in raping the heroine will be the hero!

See also I'm a Man, I Can't Help It.

Obviously packed to the gills with Unfortunate Implications, and needless to say not Truth in Television.

No real life examples, please; First, this is a rape trope, and All The Tropes does not care to squick its readers. Second, this is a trope about how characters are depicted in media. Please don't use this page to smear the reputations of real people.

Examples of All Men Are Rapists include:

Film

• In The Book of Eli all the people out in the wasteland are savages that attack travellers, rape the women and then eat them. Eli warns Solara that it's far worse for women to be on the road, the very first people she meets want to rape her. Also inside the "civilised" town women are treated as objects and forced into prostitution.
• Nearly every male character who isn't (blood) related to the heroine of Teeth tries to sexually abuse her in one way or another over the course of the film. It's been speculated that her mutations also include pheromones that induce aggressively sexual behavior in human males.

Literature

• Gor, although in this case it's meant to appeal to the reader.
  • Ditto for the Horseclans books, in which the difference between heroes and villains is that the heroes rape young girls while the villains rape young boys.
• Thieves' World based on its depiction in the Lythande stories. No woman or goat is safe.
• In Diane Duane's A Wind From The South the heroine is again a cross-dressing woman immediately threatened with rape by anyone who uncovers her identity. At least, until she proves herself to have sufficiently strong magical powers to be accepted as an incarnation of the virgin goddess.
• In Roberta Gellis' Greek god-mages fantasy romance Thrice Bound, sorcery is strongly suspected by characters upon seeing a woman who has been traveling with a caravan and not been raped by them (to say nothing of what they thought earlier when she was traveling alone).
• In Mercedes Lackey's The Lark And The Wren, the protagonist fights off an attempted sexual assault early on (and starts disguising herself as a boy afterwards). Not only is it clear that there would be no consequences for that, the book also suggests that all men everywhere constantly pinch and grope any woman who crosses their path. Except the good guys, naturally.
  • Later entries in the series include mobs of yokels who give their justification as "You're the friend of the daughter of a woman who we suspect was a slut twenty years ago, so you're obviously a slut and we should rape you!" This is treated by the heroes as typical backwater village behavior.
  • In Mercedes Lackey's Storm trilogy, set in Valdemar, the protagonists disguise themselves with a circus and hide the women from the soldiers. That doesn't help—as the soldiers take and viciously rape a young man, somewhat subverting this trope, as it is observed that men are not usually targets.
• In Piers Anthony's Dragon's Gold, young Jon disguises herself as a boy. As soon as a group of boys find out she's female, they try to rape her. Narrative text indicates this is a natural reaction to seeing the "bare thighs of a fourteen-year-old girl". She is only rescued because she'll be more valuable sold as an attractive virgin slave—less attractive women in the slave market are subject to repeated rapes.
  • Piers Anthony's classic Xanth stories has a man meeting his future wife at a rape trial. She's standing with the victim, backing up that the woman is "truthful", he's be paid to pretend he knows the rapist and is saying the rapist is a great guy. Since each person has two character vouchers, obviously the girl is lying to cover up the fact she's a whore. The two main characters never revisit this.
  • Piers Anthony's Bio of a Space Tyrant has this trope in spades—in the first book, the hero flees his home planet to protect his sister from rape, but then is kidnapped by raping pirates and watches literally every woman on board the spaceship get raped repeatedly, and, in fact, meet pirates at the door ready to be raped so they won't brutalize the women or steal from the ship.
• In Ciem Vigilante Centipede, almost every man in the series has it in for the Flippo girls. But Candi faces a disproportionate amount of rape threats / attempts. Ex-classmate-turned-hechman-for-the-villain? Double check. Random vampire? Check. La Raza extremist terrorizing an Apache tribe? Check. An empty threat from Victor Nanale? Check. Even Jack's socially engineering Candi into feeling obligated to sleep with him could be interpreted as rape in a sense, since he piles the harassment on heavy right at a moment when she's too emotionally distraught to think clearly. Imaki suspects what Jack is up to, but does absolutely nothing to intervene. (Accessory?) Miriam is date-raped at a party, over half of Marina's partners constitute statutory rape, and a random burglar that breaks into Miriam's motel room in the sequel attempts to rape her for no discernible reason. Almost anyone who's not a rapist is a murderer.
• In The Flame and the Flower by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss, pretty much everything male has a go, including the hero's charming and intelligent brother who otherwise seemed like a perfect gentleman. His rape desire is not held against him in any way. Oh, and also, Their First Time involves the heroine weeping and paralysed with terror while the hero "has his way with" what he thought was a prostitute.
• In Household Gods by Judith Tarr and Harry Turtledove, among other things, the invaders rape everything in their path (the protagonist escapes by pouring sour urine over herself) and then when the good guys show up to liberate the city, they immediately rape the protagonist because, well, she was a woman and she was standing out in the street, what did she expect?
• In The Warded Man, men are constantly threatening the young healer Leesha with sexual threats, and she is eventually raped by bandits. The second book features a group of invaders who rape everyone in their path in order to breed strong warriors for the future, and so on.
• In Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower series this is a feature of the Crapsack World produced by societal breakdown. Once pushed out of the 'safe' enclave, there's nothing but murderers, cannibals, drug addicts, and rape gangs. Small pockets of enforced order (company towns, religious camps) are ruled by abusive men. The female protagonist passes herself off as male when possible in the first book for protection, but by the end of the second pretty much every female character has experienced sexual assault. Unusually, so have some of the male ones.
• In the L. Warren Douglas trilogy (The Sacred Pool, The Veil of Years, The Isle Beyond Time) the heroine Pierette tends to disguise herself as a boy. Otherwise, seemingly polite male characters start groping her as soon as she sits down, with clear intent of proceeding to sex right then and there. This is apparently so normal that not only do none of them expect her to take offense, but she can be rather apologetic about slipping out of their grasp.

Tabletop Games

• FATAL, which selectively invokes "historical accuracy" to explain (in loving detail) why half the males in the game setting are rapists, and why it has detailed rules for in-game rape.

Video Games

• The adult Otome Game Under the Moon features multiple routes for each male love interest, and at least one of them will involve him raping the heroine, giving the general message that any man will be a rapist if approached in the wrong way.