The editor-in-chief of far right site Breitbart News has claimed women have co-opted the term rape to refer to sex which they later regret.

Alex Marlow argued women have exploited the word in the wake of the me too campaign which has seen a steady stream of high profile individuals come forward to allege and denounce sexual assault.

The 31-year-old, whose news website has been branded misogynist, xenophobic and racist, said the definition of rape had been so far broadened it had lost all sense of meaning and this made it difficult to know whether accounts of rape were credible.

“Rape used to have a narrow definition. Rape used to have a definition where it was - it was brutality, it was forced sexual attack and penetration. “Now it’s become, really, any sex that the woman ends up regretting that she had,” Marlow said on SiriusXM Patriot's Breitbart News Daily.

“And that leaves us without a lot of clarity, because when words lose their meaning, then they can be manipulated.”

He added: "Rape used to mean something. We used to all know what it meant. And now we don't know what it means. And then we don't know what's credible and what's not.”

Later on the radio show, Marlow, whose publication has been dismissive of recent sexual assault allegations, said the slew of women who have come forward made it difficult to keep “track of what is a real assault and what is not.”

He said: “We have distorted the definition of the word rape. Now it seems to be the claims are losing some credibility because there are so many of them, which is a shame because there are many legitimate victims of brutal attacks and predatory behaviour by powerful men.”