Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Was the Woman Raped or Sexually Assaulted?

Photo taken by fairfaxcounty.

In the past few years, reporters of crime have been using more and more the term sexual assault rather than rape. Why is that? I always thought it meant the same thing... Or at least that is what most of us think. Is sexual assault more of a court term? I'm not sure why or exactly where this preference to use the term sexual assault came from.

The term sexual assault sounds less violating than rape. I believe that it makes the act seem less invading and less horrible! Using the term sexual assault is like calling it, a sexual incident. It doesn't represent the magnitude of the crime. Have you ever noticed that news reporters also use it with the term rapist? Now why don't they use the words, sexual assailant, for consistency sake? If an attacker is as bad as having to call him a RAPIST, then they should call what he did a RAPE. Is the attack itself, not as bad as the attacker?

Well there you have it. I had to vent. Women are getting raped everyday in this country by rapists and it should be reported as such. It is a devastating attack that sometimes ends up in murder. Making it sound less horrible will not help from stopping it.

No comments:

Blog Archive