Last Wednesday, LSUPD sent out an email seeking information about a rape that occurred on W. Lakeshore Drive, north of the Lod Cook Alumni Center. It was reported that the rape happened just before 7 p.m on a Tuesday.
Reading the email made me feel sick to my stomach, and rightly so; in any circumstance, rape is an alarming thing to hear about. But this instance was especially unsettling to me not only because it happened while there was still daylight, but also because it happened on campus.
All I could think was “that could’ve been me.” We always hear about how common sexual assault is on college campuses, but sometimes I forget about how immediate that threat is.
There was one phrasing in the email that made me feel particularly uncomfortable. Instead of using the word rape, it was described that “One of the suspects grabbed her and forcibly had sex with her while the other subjects stood around.”
It kept my thoughts occupied for the next few hours. I couldn’t stop thinking about how much that phrasing bothered me.
If I’d been the victim of that situation, I wouldn’t want anyone saying somebody “had sex” with me, no matter how “forcible” it was.
There’s a word for that: rape.
When we hear the word “sex,” most of us don’t think about rape. We think about an act that involves at least two consenting individuals who are having sex with each other, because they find it to be mutually pleasurable. That’s what sex is to most of us – but there’s nothing mutually pleasurable about rape.
Rape shouldn’t be referred to as sex under any circumstance– they aren’t the same thing. Rape is a crime against humanity. Sex isn’t.
Reading this, I’m sure a lot of you are getting your arguments ready: “But, but, but – the Oxford Dictionary defines rape to be…”
I’m not interested in arguing about technicalities.
When someone gets murdered, the police reports don’t say the victim was “forced to die.” Murder is a form of death just as rape is technically sexual intercourse, but the implications are entirely divergent.
Murder isn’t a natural way to die, and rape isn’t a natural way to have sex with someone. Accordingly, rape shouldn’t be referred to as sex.
Maybe you think I’m delving way too deep into semantics. Everyone already knows the difference between rape and sex, right?
Well, no. Not everyone understands the difference between rape and sex.
If everyone understood the difference, we wouldn’t still be having debates about whether or not a girl being too drunk to say “no” is or isn’t rape. We wouldn’t have individuals in positions of power claiming that pregnancies can’t occur from “legitimate” rapes because female bodies have a way to “shut that whole thing down.”
There are many societies around the world that value virginity to an extremely high degree. In many cases, premarital sex is seen as nearly a crime. It’s never okay to shame a woman for expressing her sexuality, but sadly, that’s how it is in many cultures.
Women can be shamed and killed because they were raped. It’s like creating the term “pre-marital rape” and placing it in the same category as pre-marital sex.
If everyone understood the distinction between sex and rape, honor killings wouldn’t be committed against rape victims in the name of upholding a family’s integrity.
There shouldn’t be any ambiguity about how rape is different from sex, but to many, there is — and I’m tired of seeing it. Without consent, it’s rape. There’s a word for it and no one should be afraid to use it.
Referring to rape as sex, even in an official report, can prove to be very problematic on a larger scale. The only way we can end the confusion about rape is to stop considering it just another way to have sex.
Shirin Chowdhury is a 20-year-old English junior from Manhattan, Kansas.