My first thought was that the word "rape" must have come to mean something different, for example maybe it's been redefined so that women can still rape men, but a man who forces himself upon a woman is assaulting her, not "raping" her. Changes like this happen in language/culture. (As in the Old Testament, wherein the only reason lesbians aren't sentenced to death is that Moses didn't think of sex as something women could do, but only have done TO them.) But this would have been trivially easy to make clear (ten more words of exposition from the Confessor would have done it), and the author didn't bother.

It seems as though the author was trying to show that The Future Is Shocking and Offensive. It most certainly will be. But the culture we see isn't consistent with the Hey Rape Is Legal Now bombshell, and he's made no attempt to reconcile them. So, yes, the conclusion we're left with is that either the author doesn't understand what rape is, or doesn't care.