The 'R' word

Society has been desensitising itself to strong language for decades.


20 years ago, Grandma would have washed my mouth out for saying 'Blast it!' in her kitchen.


30 years ago, 'Drat!' probably would have elicited a similar response. (I wasn't alive then, but that wouldn't have been any excuse.)


50 years ago, you'd be rapped over the knuckles for forgetting to use an apostrophe when saying the word 'It's'. (I hear English teachers were really quite strict)


Even in the last 15 years, the 'F' word has gone from the height of shock-language, to a more-colourful feature of everyday language. Consequently the 'C' word soon took its place, but is also now appearing 'tolerated' in the more private of conversational circles.


The other word that appears to be following suit is the 'R' word.


Rape.


Unlike your average curse word, Rape used to mean something. Specifically, one person (usually a man) forcibly having sexual intercourse with another person, against their will, especially with a threat of violence.


Today, however, you can be raped on the sports field (often entire teams can be involved), raped by an exam (I'm not entirely sure how this works), and even have your Facebook profile's newsfeed raped (a experience which has been fondly dubbed as  being 'Fraped').


Call me a traditionalist, but I'm all for words like 'Rape' being preserved to keep their original, and incomparably-solemn meaning.


If you've ever spoken to a victim of a rape or even sexual assault, you've probably felt overwhelmed as you hear about their feelings of hurt, anger, guilt, personal violation and fear - fears which transcend into their everyday lives and rob them of their sense of safety in any public (or even private) place. You might have shed a tear as they've related how they now feel emotionally and physically damaged, broken and used.

Image from ehow.com

Years ago I did have that conversation with a Rape victim (a real one). And I can tell you: at the end of it I reckon I still had no idea how that person feels, even many years after what may have just been a single incident.


To describe such trivial events as losing a soccer match, or finding somebody's made thirteen consecutive posts on your Facebook wall, with the same word given to describe my friend's experience is purely callous in its ignorance.


Of course, there is ignorance, and then there is the downright malicious, like the Facebook 'Page' I saw earlier this evening, which a contact of mine had decided to 'Like'.

 'Wanna play the rape game?', 'no', 'that's the spirit!' [sic]

[Sic], in this case, sums it up perfectly. And it describes the what-was-then 7 809 people who had decided that it was a page worth 'Liking'. Not to mention additional groups of 150, 10 563 and 45 208 individuals who had decided to support three other pages just like it (I didn't expand to look at any more search results).


No doubt some will read this and think I'm overreacting, but frankly I have a few tender spots which twinge when I hear others' heartaches being thrown around in such a facetious manner.


Of course, we are all guilty of something like this, whether it's mistreating 'Rape'; or using the words 'Fag', or 'Gay' as generic pejoratives; or even 'Fat'.


Please: Let's think twice before we speak. We never really know our audience.