Quickhit: A forensic semanticist on ‘sex’ and ‘rape’

it's not sex, it's rape

Tara Murtha at Philadelphia Weekly brings us Watch Your Language: Pedophilia, gang rape and erroneous Fox29 reporting, which has an opinion from a forensic semanticist about calling rape “having sex” or “a sexual relationship” in court:

But after a recent episode of American Idol (team Bowersox), I accidentally caught some of MyFoxPhilly 29’s local news at 10.

I was shocked. Twice. First by the story of 45-year-old accused pedophile Kenneth Schneider. A local attorney, he allegedly traveled to Russia, found a 12-year-old victim and sexually assaulted or raped him for years. Unfortunately, in this day and age, that isn’t what’s shocking. It’s that Fox News reported that Schneider had been accused of traveling to Russia to have sex with a 12-year-old.

I went to the Web site to check it out and sure enough, the same language was there, along with another story so heinous it grabbed international headlines: In Trenton, N.J., a group of up to seven guys—a mix of adults and minors—paid a teenager for her 7-year-old sister. They allegedly gang-raped the girl as the rest of the partygoers looked on.

Yet, the lead in the Web site story began, “Police in New Jersey’s capital say a 15-year-old sold her 7-year-old sister to have sex with as many as seven men and boys.”

Breaking news: The 7-year-old girl from Trenton didn’t “have sex with” up to seven men. If there was sexual contact, she was gang-raped. The 12-year-old boy from Russia didn’t “have a sexual relationship with” the attorney either. If there was sexual contact, he was raped.

Since neither a 12-year-old nor 7-year-old can legally choose to have sex, there’s no room for any of the he said/she said game-playing that makes it so difficult to prosecute rapists who assault other adults. If sexual contact occurred, it was rape. Period.

“If this came to court and I were an expert witness, I think I would have a pretty good argument to say that these reporters are actually reporting the story wrong, that what they are saying is untrue,” says Dr. Muffy Siegel, associate professor of English at Temple University and forensic semanticist.

“We know that what comes in the subject position of ‘have sex with’ is someone who is actively and willingly having sex,” explains Dr. Siegel. “That’s part of the definition of the verb. Since it’s part of the definition … it’s a false statement to say that that little girl had sex with those men, because she wasn’t a willing agent.”

Siegel says that for a similar but technically distinct reason, the way Fox News described what the pedophile attorney did to the 12-year-old as having “a sexual relationship with” the boy is also incorrect.

She says the phrase belongs to a class called ‘symmetric verbs,’ which in layman’s terms means the action has to be consensual.

“It is false to use the verb if they both weren’t agents in it, and clearly they were not,” says Dr. Siegel.

Unfortunately, the issue isn’t just that Fox News is a geyser blowing steaming piles of bullshit into our brains (though of course, it does). They’re not alone. I’ve heard Oprah say “had sex with” when she meant rape, for chrissakes.

But it’s wrong. “[The listener] has in fact literally been told that the children were agents in this activity,” says Dr. Siegel. […]

The language used by Fox News here is even more dangerous because it’s like a new breed of euphemism hidden in plain sight. The language exists already. It’s the language of the perpetrator—and his defense team. It’s language that takes the point of view of the attacker—it was consensual; we had sex but I didn’t rape her, man.

In particularly astonishing news, the comments, at the moment at least, aren’t completely clueless and abusive. (I cannot warrant that this will be true for future comments.)

[hat tip to meloukhia]



Categories: language, violence

Tags: , , , , , , ,

3 replies

  1. This kind of weasel wordage always gets me very angry. The gulf of difference between “Police in New Jersey’s capital say a 15-year-old sold her 7-year-old sister to have sex with as many as seven men and boys.” and “Police in NJ say a group of up to 7 men and boys bought a 7-year-old girl to rape” is incredible.

  2. Annnd… examples just from today’s news in Australia include:
    Girl forced to have sex for fuel: court

    A mother forced her 13-year-old daughter into a sexual act with a truck driver in exchange for some diesel fuel, a court has been told. […] The mother later siphoned diesel from the man’s truck, which prosecutors say was in exchange for the child.

    (Note that the forcing has been attributed to the mother, not to the rapist.)
    Labor, Opposition buy into child sex consent debate

    CHIEF Minister Paul Henderson said yesterday he did not believe a 13-year-old girl could consent to having sex with her teacher.
    He made the comments after a Supreme Court judge said a teacher was not a rapist “as that word is ordinarily understood” because there was no evidence the sex he had with his student was not consensual.
    But politicians on both sides agreed yesterday that the child could not have consented to the sex. […] Justice Dean Mildren this week sentenced the teacher to a minimum two years in prison for the four-month relationship with his student.
    The physical relationship started after the girl confided to the teacher that she was the victim of a sexual abuse.
    Justice Mildren attacked the Northern Territory News for a headline calling the teacher a “rapist”. “He is not charged with rape. There is no suggestion in the Crown case that the sexual intercourse in this case was without the consent of the child.” […].
    Justice Mildren said the teacher was not a “sexual predator” – but had suffered from a “life of loneliness”.

    LAUREDHEL SMASH.

  3. not a rapist? Not a…?
    Remind me what the definition of “statutory rape” is again? What’s that, oh handy dandy briefing paper from the NSW parliment?
    “The age of consent is important legally because it is the age below which “statutory rape” is committed if sexual intercourse has occurred. If a person has sexual intercourse with a person below the age of consent, that person’s consent is irrelevant and an offence of sexual assault has been committed.”
    http://www.tinyurl.com.au/5md
    “There is no suggestion in the Crown case that the sexual intercourse in this case was without the consent of the child”
    Consent of the child?
    She’s 13!
    SHE CAN’T CONSENT! SHE’S A CHILD!!
    *joins lauredhel in SMASH!*

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