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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

...to be utterly disgusted that people - especially women - use the word 'frape'. It's not big or clever, is DISGUSTING

218 replies

hairfullofsnakes · 05/08/2011 23:17

...a stupid, awful word that should be banned. How can people use this word and not feel ashamed of doing so?

OP posts:
MightyQuim · 05/08/2011 23:49

Aitch did 9/11 completely pass you by?

DontCallMePeanut · 05/08/2011 23:49

Ok, how about "fack" (facebook hacking) It's accurate. It's non offensive. And as a former victim of hacking, I don't find it offensive.

JarethTheGoblinKing · 05/08/2011 23:49

YANBU

I hate this word.

It trivialises rape because it brings the term 'rape' to mean hacking a Facebook account. Hacking somebody's account can never be as intrusive as rape, therefore the term is patronising.

Demiwave · 05/08/2011 23:50

Rape: "an act of plunder, violent seizure, or abuse; despoliation; violation: the rape of the countryside. " Dictionary.com

Prolesworth · 05/08/2011 23:50

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

AitchTwoOh · 05/08/2011 23:51

and off the top of my head, victims of a hijack would never be treated as if they had somehow asked to be or deserved to be hijacked, or their pain minimised and no redress sought on their behalf.

seriously, no one has ever managed to tell you why an aircraft hijack is different to rape? who have you asked?

DontCallMePeanut · 05/08/2011 23:51

9/11 happened once. Now, I know you dislike my use for stats, but more people (male AND female) are victims of rape than are victims of hijacking.

Valpollicella · 05/08/2011 23:51

It trivialises rape because someone posting something stupid as your status is not comparable to being raped.

That clear enough Mighty?

JarethTheGoblinKing · 05/08/2011 23:53

Aitch, well said.

Since when was the word 'hijack' reserved for planes? Surely it just means to take over. 9/11 has nothing to do with tis discussion so why bring it up?

JarethTheGoblinKing · 05/08/2011 23:54

Sorry, on phone, slow x posts

squeakytoy · 05/08/2011 23:54

what about people who gleefully go on about "house porn" while looking through the online estate agents... does anyone get all uptight about the use of the word porn in that context??

AitchTwoOh · 05/08/2011 23:55

MQ, 9/11 was the biggest terrorist plot this planet has ever seen, it was hardly 'a hijack'. if anything, that's another trivialisation, tbh.

MightyQuim · 05/08/2011 23:55

No-one has managed to explain how the word 'frape' trivialises the sexual assault. People - like yourself - have spoken about how bad rape is (as if anyone needs to be told) but that doesn't explain why using an alternative meaning of the word is trivialising the crime of rape.

pissedrightoff · 05/08/2011 23:56

Do most of us here not use the term 'kill' the thread?

lockets · 05/08/2011 23:56

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Thumbwitch · 05/08/2011 23:56

It is a stupid term and one I hope dies out. "Facejack" seems more appropriate to what has actually happened.

Rape has meant other things in older times but is rarely used now except in the legal sense (and for the crop, which is usually termed oilseed rape to differentiate it).

Wiki has this to say about the derivation:
"The word rape itself originates from the Latin verb rapere: to seize or take by force. The word originally had no sexual connotation and is still used generically in English. The history of rape, and the alterations of its meaning, is quite complex. In Roman law, rape was classified as a form of crimen vis, "crime of assault."[96] Unlike theft or robbery, rape was termed a "public wrong" iniuria publica as opposed to a "private wrong" iniuria privita.[97] Augustus Caesar enacted reforms for the crime of rape under the assault statute Lex Iulia de vi publica, which bears his family name, Iulia. It was under this statute rather than the adultery statute of Lex Iulia de adulteriis that Rome prosecuted this crime.[98] Emperor Justinian confirmed the continued use of the statute to prosecute rape during the 6th century in the Eastern Roman Empire.[99] By late antiquity, the general term raptus had referred to abduction, elopement, robbery, or rape in its modern meaning. Confusion over the term led ecclesial commentators on the law to differentiate it into raptus seductionis (elopement without parental consent) and raptus violentiae (ravishment). Both of these forms of raptus had a civil penalty and possible excommunication for the family and village receiving the abducted woman, although raptus violentiae also incurred punishments of mutilation or death.[100]

From the classical antiquity of Greece and Rome into the Colonial period, rape along with arson, treason and murder was a capital offense. "Those committing rape were subject to a wide range of capital punishments that were seemingly brutal, frequently bloody, and at times spectacular." In the 12th century, kinsmen of the victim were given the option of executing the punishment themselves. "In England in the early fourteenth century, a victim of rape might be expected to gouge out the eyes and/or sever the offender's testicles herself." "

(I only included the last paragraph for general interest rather than because it pertains to the discussion here.)

JarethTheGoblinKing · 05/08/2011 23:56

I did, MQ.

AitchTwoOh · 05/08/2011 23:57

well i am not fussed for house porn etc as a term, nor am i fussed for porn itself, but porn is simply not synonymous with rape, so that is another pretty odious point, i am afraid. surprising that this is the level of analysis, tbh.

DontCallMePeanut · 05/08/2011 23:58

Squeaky, never heard that term in my life.

It trivialises rape because it describes something which isn't rape as such. The media do everything they can to avoid calling rape "rape", yet it's acceptable, it seems, to call something which isn't rape "rape". No wonder women don't get taken seriously when they come forward to say they've been raped, when a term like that can be lobbied around so easily.

AitchTwoOh · 05/08/2011 23:58

heaps of people have, MQ. i think you are not reading. i suspect this is what happened with your previous 'can any one tell me how an aircraft hijack isn't the same as a violent sexual assault?' interactions.

Thumbwitch · 05/08/2011 23:59

I meant to add, I have a book that was written in the early 20th Century which talks about a small boy "suffering a rape upon his small person" when he is forced to take off his dirty rags and take the first bath he has ever had in his life (he's a chimney boy) - so using the word in terms of generic assault, rather than sexual. There is no ambivalence about the context either and I am not misreading it. I am pretty sure that it is Georgette Heyer's Arabella that contains the line so definitely no sordid undercurrent.

AitchTwoOh · 06/08/2011 00:00

HUGELY shocking post, lockets. but very illuminating, i think.

MightyQuim · 06/08/2011 00:00

BUT IT ISNT COMPARING IT TO RAPE FFS! Just like raping the countryside isn't the same or anywhere near as bad as rape.

Aitch - there was me thinking that when someone forcibly takes control of an aircraft it is a hijack...oh wait actually it is!

Again peanut another good point - more people are victims of rape than of hijacks - so you are saying that is why the word frape trivialises the crime of rape but hijacking used in trivial circumstances doesn't trivialise the crime ot refers to? Because there are more victims of one than another? That doesn't make sense to me.

squeakytoy · 06/08/2011 00:01

I cant say I have known the media to shy away from using the terms rape or rapist when reporting a crime.

BimboNo5 · 06/08/2011 00:01

Its so childish and offensive I really worry when otherwise normal well rounded people use this term. As for comparing changing your status and porn to someone forcibly having sex with you wt flying fuck? And then the feeble attempt to bring 9/11 into the mix?