This is both less and more outrageous than it sounds, and gets to a legal problem beyond the disturbing particulars of this case: whether consent under false pretenses is consent at all.

Before anger rains down solely on the three-judge panel from California's court of appeals, let's be clear here: One, the prosecutor screwed up by misapplying California's rape laws, and two, California's 19th-century rape laws still on the books are partly to blame. Still, the judges chose to interpret the law as strictly as possible, reversing the entire conviction and instructing the court to retry the case on a more limited basis.

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That attack has sparked outrage across India and led to calls for tougher rape legislation and reforms of a police culture that often blames rape victims and refuses to file charges against accused attackers.

Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said crimes against women and marginalized sections of society are increasing, and it is the government's responsibility to stop them.

"This needs to be curbed by an iron hand," he told a conference of state officials from across India that was called to discuss how to protect women.

He called for changes in the law and the way police investigate cases so justice can be swiftly delivered. Many rape cases are bogged down in India's overburdened and sluggish court system for years.

"We need a reappraisal of the entire system," he said.

Five men were charged Thursday with murder, kidnapping and rape in the attack on a 23-year-old student who died over the weekend in a Singapore hospital from massive internal injuries. A hearing in the case is scheduled for Saturday at a new fast-track court inaugurated this week to deal with rape cases in the capital.

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According to the Delhi police department, 274 Delhi women have applied for gun licenses and some 1,200 more have called the licensing department to inquire. "These include not only the average working woman, but even students who travel long distances to colleges and even their concerned parents. They were eager to find out more on the procedure to acquire arms," a Delhi police officer told the Times of India.

India's restrictive gun laws require a "grave and imminent threat" to the applicant's life in order to be approved, making gun ownership rare. The 274 applications received in the last three weeks amount to more than half of the applications submitted in 2011.

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All of this in a single day. And it is only what the Deccan Herald had room to print.

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Right now, if you’re a woman in the military, which has startlingly high rates of sexual assault, and you get raped, you face the added insult of having to pay for an abortion out of your own pocket. That’s because the military's health insurance plan is the only one in the federal government that does not cover abortion in the case of rape or incest. It'll only cover the procedure if the woman's life is in danger

Democrats in the Senate have tried to change this, but House Republicans have so far resisted, thus producing two different bills -- one with the change and one without. Yesterday, the House named its representatives to a bicameral committee that will hammer out the differences between the two bills, including this provision. While killing the amendment could reignite the explosive abortion and rape debate of the summer, Republicans generally oppose the expansion of reproductive rights, even for raped female soldiers.

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Asetoyer was talking about the loophole that prevents tribal authorities, who have jurisdiction over crimes committed on Indian territory by Indians, from having any authority over non-Indian male abusers. That's despite the fact that non-Indian men account for an estimated 80 percent of rapes of Indian women, and that the astronomical rate of abuse of Indian women is well documented by the federal government.

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In the letter, the 10 Republicans, along with 110 Democrats, called on Boehner and Cantor "to move quickly on the reauthorizaiton of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) by bringing a bill inclusive of protections for all victims of domestic violence, similar to that which has already passed in the Senate, to the House floor for a vote."

The letter continues that "Each time that VAWA has come up for reauthorization, bipartisan cooperation has swiftly moved it forward so that even more protections for victims of domestic violence become available and accessible. This must be the case again. We strongly urge you to move past politics and send a VAWA reauthorization bill to the President that he can sign immediately."

Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post explains:

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While VAWA has not yet faced a full Senate vote, all Republicans on the Judiciary Committee voted in February against reauthorization. Democrats are clearly trying to use this to capitalize on the recent interest in Republican misogyny, which, legislatively speaking, has become mainstreamed in the party. Sen. Dianne Feinstein asserted on the Senate floor last week that “This is one more step in the removal of rights for women.” Majority Leader Mitch McConnell shot back Thursday, citing a Politico article to suggest Sen. Chuck Schumer “is sitting up at night trying to figure out a way to create an issue where there isn’t one … to help Democrats get reelected.”

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A friend who was violently mugged blocks from where the alleged rapes took place responded to my Facebook post: "Like I always say, don't walk alone at night! Cabs are your friend!!!" Later that night, talking about the attacks, my roommate said, "It's crazy, she was on her way to work -- it’s not like she was walking down the street at night in a skirt." In our fear, out of an emotional grasp for control, were we falling back on the stalest of sexual assault myths -- indirectly blaming the victim?

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I decided to leave my boyfriend not because he had hurt me, but because I was turning 30. He had hurt me, but by the time I left him, it had been four years since he’d harmed me. Our first year together was violent; eventually he was arrested for domestic assault, and he became one of the small percentage of men to go through a batterer intervention program and never attack their partner again. For the years that followed his arrest, I stayed with him because I needed to prove to myself that there was a reason I’d stayed in the first place. The relationship was never a good one, but by the end, it was tolerable. I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in a passable relationship. That is why I left.

A few things happened around the time I decided to leave. First, I lost a lot of weight. Then I bought new clothes, clothes that were a far cry from the jeans-and-hoodies gear I'd adopted to avoid attracting attention. I started wearing skirts and cute little dresses with cute little heels. I got a shorter, more daring haircut; with my diminished size I began to look nearly gamine. Exercising made my skin glow. I discovered liquid eyeliner. “When did you become such a babe?” a co-worker asked. “You’ve been an undercover hottie all this time,” said another. I would remember this as I’d go to the gym or plop down sums of money on the sorts of clothes that had been unimaginable only months before.

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Across the street, Donald Harrington peered out his window. Down the block, Gretchen Barton called 911. A neighbor named Ray lumbered down his steps and rumbled, “Hey, what’s going on?”

The man loosened his grip on the woman. She sprinted up the block screaming. He ran too. Patrol cars arrived. They sped around the block to look for the woman and the assailant, but found neither.

When the police returned, Ray said he had a video that captured part of the attack.

“They said they didn’t want to see it because they didn’t have a complaining witness,” Ray, who did not want to give a last name, told the Crime Report. “Then they drove off.”

The incident shook the residents of the block in Park Slope, a brownstone-lined area in south Brooklyn. A month after the screams, they had heard nothing from the police. The neighbors did the only thing they could think to. They called the New York Daily News.

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This month, the agency made a major step forward to doing just that.

At a meeting in Washington last Friday, members of the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), including representatives from police agencies in Chicago, Baltimore and Philadelphia, came together with FBI officials and victims' advocates to discuss the importance of broadening the definition of a crime that most experts believe is significantly underestimated by the FBI's Uniform Crime Report (UCR).

Currently, the only sexual assault the UCR collects data on is "forcible rape," which it defines as "the carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will."  Because "carnal knowledge" is defined as penetration of the penis into the vagina, the definition excludes oral and anal rape, as well as assaults with foreign objects. It also excludes male rape.

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The very public, recent airing of what many Chinese consider a private affair came as a shock. It generated thousands of online responses, from support for the woman to criticism of her for making her abuse public. After a more than a week of silence, Li Yang, the founder of "Crazy English" language training, finally apologized for beating his American wife.

The case shed light on a problem not often discussed in China, but one that experts say is pervasive here. There are no official statistics, in part because there's no specific law against domestic violence.

A report from the All China Women's Federation released last year found that 64 percent of Chinese adults have experienced violence at home at some point. Another study from from the China Law Institute estimates that more than one-third of Chinese families have experienced domestic abuse and the vast majority of victims are women.

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It's been only four months since Chris Brown stormed off the set of "Good Morning America" (breaking a glass window on his way out) after Robin Roberts pressed him on being arrested for assaulting his then girlfriend, Rihanna. That hot temper of his certainly didn’t win him any new fans, and even his supporters were criticized for coming to his defense. Despite all the awards the man is able to win for his music, he is P.R. poison.

Now there is news of Chris using anti-gay slurs during a pickup basketball game. According to a Radar source:

“He got really ticked off when things didn’t go his way during the game, saying, ‘That’s gay!’ and ‘You’re a f*gg*t a**!’ to the other players,” an eyewitness tells Star exclusively.

When another player didn’t pass him the ball, the 22-year-old Forever singer, perhaps best known for beating up Rihanna, fired off more slurs, calling him a “f*gg*t” and saying it was a “gay” move.

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Last year, Prosser screamed at a different (female) colleague, reportedly calling her a "bitch" and threatening to "destroy" her. When asked about all that, he blamed her for "goading" him into attacking her. That is classic psycho behavior, but I have to say that I did not expect Prosser to be accused of physical violence. And, you know, I wouldn't expect "these women keep forcing me to attack them" to continue working as an excuse for attacking colleagues, but I guess I'm underestimating the conservative movement! Because everyone is running with the "Prosser was forced to put his hands on her neck because she ran towards him" story. Fox Nation headline: "WI Judge Prosser Smeared?" Human Events blames "Big Labor" for forcing Prosser to attack his colleagues.

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Roger Ebert gave it "no rating," which is different than zero stars, and commented, "I am required to award stars to movies I review. This time, I refuse to do it. The star rating system is unsuited to this film. Is the movie good? Is it bad? Does it matter? It is what it is and occupies a world where the stars don't shine."

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Perhaps it's the loss of Earl Sweatshirt from the gang that has caused this less gritty, more high-budget sensation, or maybe it's the gang's higher profile after that whole New Yorker article, which explained where Earl mysteriously disappeared to. (It was boarding school.)

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Websites like the Huffington Post are reporting that a disclaimer at the beginning of "Monster" reads, "The following content is in no way misogynistic or negative towards any groups of people. It is an art piece and shall be taken as such." I don't see that disclaimer anywhere in the 5-minute official video, but even if there is one, does it make any difference? The theme of the "Monster" video is "dead models": There they are hanging by nooses, getting rearranged in bed by Kanye, stuffed in between cushions, getting stepped over by Jay-Z. It's like something Patrick Bateman might have been into, and when you use such powerful imagery throughout your music video, you don't get a pass just because "it's a work of art." You still need to explain why you chose these images, what cultural significance they have, or what they symbolize. Just saying, "It's art," and then showing a bunch of dead women is a cheap way to cop out of the claims of misogyny.

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