Lackland Air Force Base is having a bit of a “sex” problem lately. It appears that one of its soldiers allegedly raped young recruits going through training. Now, that’s a real problem, and I sure hope they get to the bottom of this and make steps to keep it from happening again.
But my gripe isn’t with the case itself, but with the media and how it has this real problem whenever it comes to framing “sex” stories. There’s this, which is a newspaper article from the Global Post, which actually gets its story from NBC. This story refers to the act of rape as a “sex scandal”. Okay, for all of those who will never read my blog, here it goes:
A “sex scandal” is something that occurs when someone has been caught with his penis where it shouldn’t be. That’s the likes of a politician who is fooling around on his or her wife/husband. That’s someone who got arrested for soliciting a prostitute. THAT is a “sex scandal”.
Rape is forcing sex on someone. Okay, there are all sorts of variations of that, but usually it’s an act of violence, or coercion, or forcing someone to do something he/she wouldn’t normally do in the form of sex. Notice how it’s NOTHING like a “sex scandal”?
The media has this HORRIBLE tendency to call “rape” a “sex scandal”, possibly because they’re under the impression that using the word “sex” in the headline will cause more eyes to look at their story. It’s wrong. It’s incorrect. It’s misleading. And it does a HUGE disservice to the people who were victimized by an ACTUAL RAPE.
That’s all I have to say about that.