Caricature of the word rape: Is it ever alright to use the word casually?

In recent years, the word rape has insidiously made its way into youth jargons. From meaning specific, serious incidents like sexual assault on a person, or violent pillage or destruction of something, it’s now being used in contexts that are supposedly humorous or light-hearted

“Man did you watch Bra­zil’s bru­tal gang-rape by Ger­many at the 2014 WC Match?”, “We got raped at the mid-terms today!”, “I so raped that video-game last night!”, “You so got raped over that post on Facebook!”, “Dude, my new boss is raping me with all this overtime!”

Many of us, if not most of us, both women and men, had at least once in our lifetime used or laughed at the above statements, or other statements to that effect, in our daily conversations. Yes, the statements were made casually and without any malice. We didn’t mean anything by them. We meant them only as jokes. We don’t condone rape. We are horrified by the mere idea of it. Rape jokes never make us want to go out and rape someone.  Rape is just a word. We don’t see any real harm in using it jokingly. 
In recent years, the word rape has insidiously made its way into youth jargons.  From meaning specific, serious incidents like sexual assault on a person, or violent pillage or destruction of something, it’s now being used in contexts that are supposedly humorous or light-hearted. These days the word is frequently being used ‘positively’ to represent winning or acing something and ‘sinisterly’ to denote damage or injury or to dominate, humiliate, and dehumanize another human being. Note that I am focusing particularly on the misuse of the English word here and not on its literal Bengali counterpart ‘Dharshan’. Unlike ‘rape’, the Bangla word ‘Dharshan’ is a bit of a mouthful (thank goodness!) and thus has less appeal to youths who have more catchy Bangla slangs at their disposal to get similar messages across. 
The question that naturally arises now is why make a fuss over it? Is there really any valid reason for concern? Yes, I believe there is. In fact, there’s very alarming and significant cause for concern. Words have impact. Conscious caricature of the weighted word rape strengthens misrepresentation of the gravity of sexual assault in popular cultures. Constant watering down of the word through casual and inappropriate use serves to neutralize the shock factor that should always accompany its usage. Every time we come across the word, it should have the power to convey what a horrific crime rape really is and how utterly it devastates the victims. Our favourite sports team losing a match is nowhere nearly comparable to being raped. Such out of context debasement of the word is desensitizing us to its true meaning and preventing us from feeling the outrage we should rightly feel every time an incident of rape occurs.  When we are fist-pumping over how we ‘raped that assignment’, we are, in point of fact, celebrating a violent crime. We are non-invasively insulting all victims by belittling their trauma and equating rape to winning or achieving something good.   
A week ago I watched the popular Bollywood box office hit 3 Idiots for the first time and was left utterly disturbed. 
The speech delivered by Chatur at the college function alone makes use of the word ‘balatkar’ (rape) 21 times! The word figures numerous other times throughout the movie, always delivered by one or the other of the 3 heroes in a humorous context. What we need to deliberate on is the message it gives when an actor, who is revered almost as a God in our parts of the world, trivializes rape in a movie destined to be watched by millions. From an objective point of view, I admit the movie was side-splittingly funny. I just wonder if India’s Nirbhaya would have found it equally funny had she been alive to watch it after her brutal gang-rape in 2012.   
I am often asked why feminazis (apparently wanting equal rights for men and women is analogous to wanting to exterminate an entire race) need to make such big deal out of every ‘little thing’. 
We also use the word murder indiscriminately in our daily conversations and no one flags a problem there. The thing is unlike murder, rape still has a long way to go in terms of awareness and prosecution. No one actually believes the murder victim ‘asked for it’ or he probably meant ‘yes’ when he was saying ‘no’ to being murdered. There’s no victim shaming in case of murder. The crime of murder is universally accepted as horrible and wrong while many judicial systems are still struggling with the concept of consent, what constitutes as rape, if marital rape even exists and if the victim is equally culpable if he/she is raped (remember the Qatif rape case?). Under such circumstances can we honestly deny that as a society we need to remain vigilant against developments that threaten to minimize the severity of rape as a sexual offense?  If we can, we open our society to more offensive trivialization of the crime and enable rapists to walk away with a slight slap on the wrist, as seen in the case of Stanford sex offender whose father described his rape of an unconscious woman as  ‘20 minutes of action’. 
Let us all agree to get one thing clear- rape is not a catch-all verb and we shouldn’t try to use it as one. I am glad that the silence and taboo surrounding rape is breaking but the break should come through constructive discussions on the subject rather than pithy distortions or exaggerated glorification of the word itself. Colloquialism generally reflects society’s current attitudes and ideologies and there’s strong evidence to suggest our society’s increasing treatment of rape as a non-serious, even joke-worthy, subject. This trend needs to be checked urgently. English is a rich and diverse language with slangs to suit all purposes (!). We don’t really need to invent more out of perfectly good (appalling meaning aside) words. 

The writer is freelancer

Caricature of the word rape: Is it ever alright to use the word casually?

In recent years, the word rape has insidiously made its way into youth jargons. From meaning specific, serious incidents like sexual assault on a person, or violent pillage or destruction of something, its now being used in contexts that are supposedly humorous or light-hearted

Man did you watch Brazils brutal gang-rape by Germany at the 2014 WC Match?, We got raped at the mid-terms today!, I so raped that video-game last night!, You so got raped over that post on Facebook!, Dude, my new boss is raping me with all this overtime! Many of us, if not most of us, both women and men, had at least once in our lifetime used or laughed at the above statements, or other statements to that effect, in our daily conversations. Yes, the statements were made casually and without any malice. We didnt mean anything by them. We meant them only as jokes. We dont condone rape. We are horrified by the mere idea of it. Rape jokes never make us want to go out and rape someone. Rape is just a word. We dont see any real harm in using it jokingly. In recent years, the word rape has insidiously made its way into youth jargons. From meaning specific, serious incidents like sexual assault on a person, or violent pillage or destruction of something, its now being used in contexts that are supposedly humorous or light-hearted. These days the word is frequently being used positively to represent winning or acing something and sinisterly to denote damage or injury or to dominate, humiliate, and dehumanize another human being. Note that I am focusing particularly on the misuse of the English word here and not on its literal Bengali counterpart Dharshan. Unlike rape, the Bangla word Dharshan is a bit of a mouthful (thank goodness!) and thus has less appeal to youths who have more catchy Bangla slangs at their disposal to get similar messages across. The question that naturally arises now is why make a fuss over it? Is there really any valid reason for concern? Yes, I believe there is. In fact, theres very alarming and significant cause for concern. Words have impact. Conscious caricature of the weighted word rape strengthens misrepresentation of the gravity of sexual assault in popular cultures. Constant watering down of the word through casual and inappropriate use serves to neutralize the shock factor that should always accompany its usage. Every time we come across the word, it should have the power to convey what a horrific crime rape really is and how utterly it devastates the victims. Our favourite sports team losing a match is nowhere nearly comparable to being raped. Such out of context debasement of the word is desensitizing us to its true meaning and preventing us from feeling the outrage we should rightly feel every time an incident of rape occurs. When we are fist-pumping over how we raped that assignment, we are, in point of fact, celebrating a violent crime. We are non-invasively insulting all victims by belittling their trauma and equating rape to winning or achieving something good. A week ago I watched the popular Bollywood box office hit 3 Idiots for the first time and was left utterly disturbed. The speech delivered by Chatur at the college function alone makes use of the word balatkar (rape) 21 times! The word figures numerous other times throughout the movie, always delivered by one or the other of the 3 heroes in a humorous context. What we need to deliberate on is the message it gives when an actor, who is revered almost as a God in our parts of the world, trivializes rape in a movie destined to be watched by millions. From an objective point of view, I admit the movie was side-splittingly funny. I just wonder if Indias Nirbhaya would have found it equally funny had she been alive to watch it after her brutal gang-rape in 2012. I am often asked why feminazis (apparently wanting equal rights for men and women is analogous to wanting to exterminate an entire race) need to make such big deal out of every little thing. We also use the word murder indiscriminately in our daily conversations and no one flags a problem there. The thing is unlike murder, rape still has a long way to go in terms of awareness and prosecution. No one actually believes the murder victim asked for it or he probably meant yes when he was saying no to being murdered. Theres no victim shaming in case of murder. The crime of murder is universally accepted as horrible and wrong while many judicial systems are still struggling with the concept of consent, what constitutes as rape, if marital rape even exists and if the victim is equally culpable if he/she is raped (remember the Qatif rape case?). Under such circumstances can we honestly deny that as a society we need to remain vigilant against developments that threaten to minimize the severity of rape as a sexual offense? If we can, we open our society to more offensive trivialization of the crime and enable rapists to walk away with a slight slap on the wrist, as seen in the case of Stanford sex offender whose father described his rape of an unconscious woman as 20 minutes of action. Let us all agree to get one thing clear- rape is not a catch-all verb and we shouldnt try to use it as one. I am glad that the silence and taboo surrounding rape is breaking but the break should come through constructive discussions on the subject rather than pithy distortions or exaggerated glorification of the word itself. Colloquialism generally reflects societys current attitudes and ideologies and theres strong evidence to suggest our societys increasing treatment of rape as a non-serious, even joke-worthy, subject. This trend needs to be checked urgently. English is a rich and diverse language with slangs to suit all purposes (!). We dont really need to invent more out of perfectly good (appalling meaning aside) words. The writer is freelancer