Please do not use the word "rape" for anything other than its standard, current, 21st century

[JuniperLea]

Modern socially acceptable meaning.


I'm seeing "RAPEpublicans" being used... this is disgusting.

RAPE should not be used in playing stupid little games.

Rant off.

[NightWatcher]

1. might I also add "lynch" to that list.

I agree 100%

[Writer]

2. I agree with the both of you.

One day in the future, we'll choose our words better.

[JuniperLea]

3. I agree

Civility begins at home... when we are here, DU is home.

[Irreverend IX]

5. Interestingly enough...

The original meaning of "rape" is basically robbery/forcible theft. I think "the rape of the Sabine women" is what got it associated with forced sexual intercourse.

And lynching originally referred to non-lethal public humiliation inflicted on criminals in the earliest American colonial days.

[JuniperLea]

6. That may well be

But in this context we are using the 21st century, socially acceptable meanings.

[Boojatta]

9. You referred to the word's "original meaning" in the Original Post.

In 1250 it meant "To cause to hasten, to hurry on", among other things.

[JuniperLea]

11. fine... split hairs...

I changed the OP... satisfied?

[Boojatta]

15. Yes, I am satisfied.

[Roon]

4. How about "burned at the stake"?

Faggot=bundles of wood used to burn gays at the stake.

[JuniperLea]

7. Interesting

I've never heard that. I've heard faggot used for a bundle of sticks, and for cigarettes.

[NightWatcher]

8. heard that in London and almost flipped

[JuniperLea]

13. My great-grandfather was born in England...

So I heard a lot of those "odd to our ears" expressions when I was a kid. Funny thing is, the first time I heard "faggot" used as a derogatory term, I thought one guy was calling the other a cigarette... perspective is everything.

[The Doctor.]

22. I was totally addicted to fags...

{bristol}I couldn' go a day wivout one. The firs' 'ing I had t' do in the morning was put a fag in me mouf. My friends always saw me suckin' on a fag. Bu' I 'ad ta' quit.{/bristol}

Ah... those were the days.

[JuniperLea]

26. haha...

Fags aren't allowed on lifts anymore... but keep your pecker up... you can still suck on them outside the hotel;) The hotel will still knock you up too.

[MrBadExample]

24. Faggot etymology.

Actually, that's an etymological urban legend. The use of "faggot" to mean "male homosexual" isn't recorded before about 1914, and in any event, English homosexuals were hanged, not burned. No one's really sure how the derogatory sense of "faggot" came about.

[bean fidhleir]

54. Urban legend

faggot (1)
1279, "bundle of twigs bound up," from O.Fr. fagot "bundle of sticks," from It. faggotto, dim. of V.L. *facus, from L. fascis "bundle of wood" (see fasces). Esp. used for burning heretics (a sense attested from 1555), so that phrase fire and faggot was used to mean "punishment of a heretic." Heretics who recanted were required to wear an embroidered figure of a faggot on their sleeve, as an emblem and reminder of what they deserved.
faggot (2)
"male homosexual," 1914, Amer.Eng. slang (shortened form fag is from 1921), probably from earlier contemptuous term for "woman" (1591), especially an old and unpleasant one, in reference to faggot (1) "bundle of sticks," as something awkward that has to be carried (cf. baggage). It was used in this sense in 20c. by D.H. Lawrence and James Joyce, among others. It may also be reinforced by Yiddish faygele "homosexual," lit. "little bird." It also may have roots in Brit. public school slang fag "a junior who does certain duties for a senior" (1785), with suggestions of "catamite," from fag (v.). This was also used as a verb.
"He used to fag me to blow the chapel organ for him." <"Boy's Own Paper," 1889>
Other obsolete senses of faggot were "man hired into military service simply to fill out the ranks at muster" (1700) and "vote manufactured for party purposes" (1817). The oft-heard statement that male homosexuals were called faggots in reference to their being burned at the stake is an etymological urban legend. Burning was sometimes a punishment meted out to homosexuals in Christian Europe (on the suggestion of the Biblical fate of Sodom and Gomorah), but in England, where parliament had made homosexuality a capital offense in 1533, hanging was the method prescribed. Any use of faggot in connection with public executions had long become an English historical obscurity by the time the word began to be used for "male homosexual" in 20th century American slang, whereas the contemptuous slang word for "woman" (and the other possible sources or influences listed here) was in active use.


http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=faggot

[Zuiderelle]

10. No argument here. But some people will cling to it anyway and defend against all comers.

Doesn't matter how offensive they are, as long as they don't actually mean it themselves. Or something like that.

[JuniperLea]

14. I know... like prison rape jokes

Some people have no sense.

[REP]

12. Note: 21st Century happening >Now

[timtom]

16. American Heritage Dictionary:

" rape1 (r³p) n. 1. The crime of forcing another person to submit to sex acts, especially sexual intercourse. 2. The act of seizing and carrying off by force; abduction. 3. Abusive or improper treatment; violation: a rape of justice."

[BlueJazz]

17. I tend to disagree. I don't believe it's possible to take the horrible thoughts out of the word rape

...no matter how it's used.

[JuniperLea]

19. I'd rather never see it used, except in court rooms...

Certainly NOT to take a shot at a political party. That sort of flippant usage is despicable.

[BlueJazz]

31. I'll have to agree with you on the rapeublicans (or whatever), ...

...it is in rather bad taste and going quite overboard. :)

[MethuenProgressive]

18. Words matter.

But some don't care.
Thanks for this thread, Juniperx.
k&r

[JuniperLea]

20. They do matter

People are judged by the words they use. I used some pretty strong language here, and I'm not proud of them. But I would never, ever use a term that to most people means a cruel act against women just to take a cheap shot at a political party.


Thanks, MP.

[Runcible Spoon]

40. it's not just women who are raped.

I hate seeing that, having known many rejected and often gay boys on the street who were brutalized and never reported it, just like women. They are an invisible population, even to advocates against rape such as yourself. Language matters indeed.

[The Doctor.]

21. Can I say "Republicans 'raped' the treasury/Constitution/nation"?

I've been saying that quite a bit lately.

[LeftyMom]

32. Sure, but people who've experienced actual rape will probably think you an insensitive lout.

At best.

Theft of property is not equivalent to an intensely personal and damaging act of violence.

Advice: if you wouldn't use the word rape in front of a rape victim you know IRL, don't use it on DU either. Many of the posters here have experienced rape, and would be hurt by a comment that diminished the crime committed against them.

[The Doctor.]

34. If we guarded every word against offending sensitivities, never a word would be spoken.

Should I use a word, it is the choice of the reader/listener to decide to take my meaning from it or substitute their own. While I'm very aware that the word can trigger the recollection of an horrific event and an emotional response, it is part of the recovery process to control that trigger and diminish it.

I've had to go through that process myself, and there was more than a single word that would trigger the horror.

Your words are thoughtful, and I appreciate the advice, but know that I have friends who were raped, and I do not limit my use of language for fear of upsetting them. Nor will I do so here.

[LeftyMom]

37. So fear of being thought sensitive causes you to cling to a bad analogy?

Statistics suggest that at least a third of women have been raped. If you can't be bothered to find some other, hopefully more appropriate, strong word to express the damage Republicans have done, you should be aware that that callous dismissal of a great trauma is going to be needlessly hurtful.

Furthermore, you don't get to dictate healthful recovery processes to other people, nor decide who's far enough along in it that you don't have to spare their feelings. It's not entirely unlikely, on a statistical basis, that somebody reading your post was recently raped, perhaps so recently that the bruises aren't all healed. And in any case, if you haven't had the delightful experience of some brutish cretin sticking his dick in you uninvited, you really don't get to tell anybody how they ought to respond to or recover from that experience.

My suggestion is to invest in a thesaurus, and find a way to forcefully make your point without wounding women who don't need you jabbing at their emotional scars.

[The Doctor.]

50. Nonsense.

I have no 'fear' of being 'thought sensitive', nor is "rape" the only word in my vocabulary, thank you.

Does it not occur to you that one who may have been 'recently raped' might also 'own a thesaurus'?

Perhaps you missed this in my post;
"I've had to go through that process myself, and there was more than a single word that would trigger the horror."

Are you saying that a victim of 'rape' was not also 'brutalized', 'violated', 'molested', 'abused', 'despoiled', 'assaulted', 'victimized', 'humiliated', or 'ravaged'? Many words have as strong a meaning as 'rape' and pertain directly to such an assault. If one can be sensitive to the word 'rape', one may also be just as sensitive to the above words. Shall I refrain from even attempting use the exact word I need because I might offend or upset someone?

That's what you are saying; that we should mind every word we use because someone might be offended. I know that you personally want to single out that one word, but by your criteria we must target hundreds, if not thousands of other words because of their potential for offending someone for whom the word invokes painful memories.

That you have gone so far as to insult me, and even suggest that I would intentionally 'jab at someone's emotional scars', tells me that you perhaps can't take a step back and realize that there are more causes of harm than rape on the planet. It also tells me that you have chosen wanton indignation over thoughtful consideration.

If you truly do not want to offend anyone, I recommend that you simply do not speak, for that is the only way to ensure that you will be 'thought sensitive'.


Good day.

Dr. E

[Jade Fox]

23. agree.

[leftofthedial]

25. It seems to me that usage IS congruent with a current meaning of "rape."

1. the unlawful compelling of a woman through physical force or duress to have sexual intercourse.
2. any act of sexual intercourse that is forced upon a person.
3. statutory rape.
4. an act of plunder, violent seizure, or abuse; despoliation; violation: the rape of the countryside.


Are there any other words you want to ban?

[JuniperLea]

27. I'm not looking to ban anything

I think it's in very bad taste to make light of such words by bantering them about... like calling someone a RAPEpublican.

[leftofthedial]

28. I don't think that is "making light" of anything.

I'd characterize the effect the repukes have had on this country as "plunder, violent seizure, or abuse; despoilation," wouldn't you?

[JuniperLea]

29. It's the usage

A made up word is making light.

[Runcible Spoon]

38. technically all words are made up.

the important thing is to understand the context in which the word is used and tease out the precise semantics; is there a deviation between insinuated meaning and inferred meaning for example. I don't think projecting the violent taking by force of something precious, personal, and not given freely from an individual body to a wider body of a community, a people, or a culture is derogatory or insults sexual rape victims at all. In most if not all cases, sexual rape victims correlate to the other social ills that plague the powerless at the hands of the powerful.

As everyone knows, rape is about the taking of power and the humiliation of the victim. Certainly it is valid to extrapolate that to the wounded, limping institutions of our once great nation, be they our schools, our hospitals, our rights, what have you.

I do :hug: you for caring!

[Runcible Spoon]

36. absolutely and I agree.

when I say Bush and this fucking administration have raped my Country, my people, and my planet, I mean that in very serious ways that they have systematically taken something that was not given offered by using violence, brute force, manipulation, and every kind of bitter, nasty coercion.

It's not like a bunch of frat boys sitting around "Yo Justin I TOTALLY RAPED YOUR ASS in Halo!" That usage is offensive to me.

[Junkdrawer]

30. So "I'd like to bitch-slap the NeoCons for raping our nation" is right out...

Got it.

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[alarimer]

35. I'm getting tired of all this PC bullshit

What other words are unacceptable to the thought police?

I think that saying that Bush and company have raped the Constitution is acceptable because it is pretty darn close to the truth. Nothing else comes close to describing what they have actually done. Or when developers come in and completely destroy an otherwise pristine area, nothing else really fits.

[LeftyMom]

39. How dare you uppity women ask us to show sensitivity to rape victims?!?!

No, rape doesn't come close to describing what he's done. Frankly, there's not much you can do to a group that's nearly as damaging and traumatic, let alone irreparable, as rape is to an individual. If you haven't experienced that, you're going to have to take my word for it.

[Runcible Spoon]

42. really? Well I won't play this ranking of suffering game.

To me the word is inclusive as I described above. If given a choice between watching my family die/ my house sweep away in a natural disaster because my government didn't care to help me and have a rapist force sexual acts upon me, well I'm pretty sure what I would choose. So when I say that Bush has raped our Country, you better fucking believe I mean it serious as a heart attack and not just as mere hyperbole.

[LeftyMom]

43. You're trying to use the suffering of real victims to score political points.

Find another metaphor, and stop showing callousness to rape victims.

[Runcible Spoon]

44. bullshit. I think YOU are the insensitive one to co-opt rape victims issues...

and ignoring the many other men who are raped as well. Turning the issue into a women's issue just drives the divide of understanding wider, and sexualizes rape instead of dissecting the social dynamics of power.

You're just a mouthpiece at this point; I wouldn't expect anyone except the already initiated to listen to what you have to say due to your caustic, nasty, and bellowing righteous tone.

Perhaps you need to read some post 1970 feminist/gender studies literature.

[flvegan]

45. Re-read Post #39 shit for brains.

I fail to see where the poster went "all insensitive" and made this just about women.

Please, I beg of you, show me where or shut the fuck up.

[LeftyMom]

46. Actually, I made a point of not using gendered language.

I'm quite aware that men can be and are raped, and that, as a result of societal expectations (and differing anatomy) they frequently suffer even more than female rape victims, horrible a thought as that is.

So if you're going to call me "caustic, nasty and bellowing" I'm going to have to insist that you read and understand my posts, first.

[Selatius]

41. I think "rape" is apt to describe what I see happening in America. Like, the rich are raping...

the poor of their labor and wealth. Or, the US rapes third world countries like Iraq and Viêt Nam. I think in situations where human suffering and death are inflicted are apt situations that can be described as "rape" or "raping."

[VotesForWomen]

47. agreed. nt

[ColbertWatcher]

48. Self delete. n/t

[Jack_DeLeon]

49. But we keep getting raped at the pump.

language evolves, get over it.

[Festivito]

51. Rape is just too weak to describe Republicans.

We do need something stronger.

Any suggestions?

[uppityperson]

52. How about calling them Republicans? Don't forget the lip lift and sneer when you say it.

Or how about fundamentalist narcissist power hungry assholes?

[Festivito]

53. Lifted lip and sneer both lose effect when I post.

Perhaps, combining rapacious and Republican.

RapSmugLieCon.