Say Anything | ‘Rape’ is a four-letter word

“Oh man, that final totally raped me!”

“Somebody buy me a beer ‘cause I just raped that exam.”

“That guy was so raping me at Smokes last night.”

I’m sorry, what?

Not sure exactly when “rape” slipped into the vernacular to mean anything funny or casual, but this trend is all kinds of awful.

Sloppy speech is usually just that: sloppy, offensive only insofar as English majors want to clock you in the jaw every time you say “literally” when you mean “figuratively.” (“Literally, when I saw him my head exploded.” Is that so?) If you want to say you’re starving when you’re hungry or that a situation is killing you when your survival is not at stake, that’s fine. Well, it’s stupid, but it’s fine.

The problem is when inaccuracy slides into something much, much worse. Take this rape-as-term-of-art phenomenon. The misuse of the word “rape” is abhorrent and unacceptable.

“Rape” is a word we have to respect. Sounds counterintuitive — you don’t want to respect something horrific. But the fact that rape is so terrible is exactly why we need to respect it: “rape” is a powerful word, one with serious medical, emotional and legal implications. You start throwing it around like it doesn’t mean anything and, sooner rather than later, it won’t.

“There are so many misconceptions and myths about sexual assault. I think talking about it in any comic sense would contribute to those,” said Jessica Mertz, associate director of the Penn Women’s Center. “The misuse of the word is making light of a very serious crime.”

Okay, so you know that bombing a calculus midterm isn’t the same exact thing as being a victim of sexual assault. Surely, though, this “stop saying it” reaction is an overreaction. Calm down — it’s just a joke. No one would say “rape” to be funny when talking to somebody who’d actually been raped.

“Obviously no person would joke about rape in front of a person they knew to be a rape survivor,” said College senior Drew Rizzo, former president and current member of One in Four, Penn’s all-male sexual assault peer-education group. “But, the point is people do not know the histories of the people around them — they grossly underestimate it. So people should not use the word ‘rape’ in a joking manner because it inevitably [will] cause someone within earshot a lot of pain.”

Maybe you’re thinking there’s no way your friend could be a rape victim and you wouldn’t know it. The truth is, though, that it’s not an unlikely circumstance. According to the United States Department of Justice, one in four college women report surviving rape or attempted rape, and only five percent of rapes ever get reported — making rape the most underreported crime in the US.

Rape is a crime that is “sensitive in nature” by definition. Victims have a right to confidentiality, a right they generally choose to exercise. Simply put, you don’t know what you don’t know.

Maybe you think that the word and the action aren’t so closely related. What difference does it make if we say one thing and mean another? The thing is, it makes all the difference.

Language has tremendous power. Intent is important, but what you say is important too, even if — especially if — you don’t say exactly what you mean. Words have a weight that extends far beyond a single conversation.

“It’s bigger than just offending the individual you’re talking to,” Mertz said. “Sexual assault is a societal issue, bigger than any one person.”

Next time, just say the final kicked your ass. Or, you know, study a little harder, and you won’t have to say anything at all.

Jessica Goldstein is a College senior from Berkeley Heights, N.J. Her e-mail address is goldstein@theDP.com. Say Anything appears every other Wednesday.

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