Skip to main content
Skip to main navigation
Skip to talk navigation

Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Saved Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Flip

1 2

AIBU?

to want police and medical professionals to refer to my rape as rape and not sexual assault?

44 replies

myoriginal3 · 14/01/2017 13:16

Aren't they two different things?

OP posts:

Report

Lambzig · 14/01/2017 16:11

Do you have an ISVA who could help with this OP?

I work with rape crisis and we are trained not to use the word rape until the survivor uses it and to use her words. They may want to take the lead from you perhaps. You are quite right though, you definitely have the right to have it called rape if that is your preference.

myoriginal3 · 14/01/2017 16:13

I always refer to it as rape and they all (medical and police), persist in referring to the 'assault'.

OP posts:

myoriginal3 · 14/01/2017 16:16

By raped, I mean he jumped on me and forced his dick inside me. Rape.

OP posts:

myoriginal3 · 14/01/2017 16:17

Is that explicit enough?

OP posts:

Lambzig · 14/01/2017 16:17

Then they are being very insensitive. You might have to blunt and you shouldn't have to.

ManonLescaut · 14/01/2017 16:18

The term the police usually use for rape is 'serious sexual assault' - then they shorten it.

Rape is a trigger word, you may prefer it but some prefer it not to be used.

myoriginal3 · 14/01/2017 16:20

I have some sort of police officer assigned to me but I don't know what his title is and I keep missing his phone calls and he is never answering his phone.

OP posts:

myoriginal3 · 14/01/2017 16:23

Ye well 'sexual assault' happens to be a trigger for me. I was raped. I was raped. Don't call it something else.

OP posts:

Lambzig · 14/01/2017 16:26

An ISVA (independent sexual violence advisor) isn't a policemen or a counsellor. They are completely independent from the police and are there to advise and support the survivor through reporting to the police, and what happens after, up to and including a court case. A lot of rape crisis centres have them, but in some areas they work in separate units or sexual violence units. if the police haven't put you in touch with one and you think it might be helpful try calling rape crisis.

SarcasmMode · 14/01/2017 16:30

I think they were saying it because many can't bare to hear they have been raped.

I've read quite a few threads that ask not to use the R word so maybe they thought it would be better to not say it?

I'm so sorry you were raped but the police aren't trying to upset you.

myoriginal3 · 14/01/2017 16:33

I never said the police were trying to upset me.

OP posts:

SarcasmMode · 14/01/2017 16:36

No but I was stating that in case you thought they were being insensitive.

Without telling them that you do indeed prefer to call it by its correct germ and not use a broader/softer term.

Many women really can't stand to hear it as don't like to see themselves as victims.

SarcasmMode · 14/01/2017 16:36

Term not germ.

TinselTwins · 14/01/2017 16:42

It's not two different things. Rape is a serious sexual assault. Serious sexual assaults include rape under their umbrella.

They're not calling it something it's not, or not calling it what it is.

But YANBU if you have told them you prefer the word rape, they should use your language xx

BabychamSocialist · 14/01/2017 16:49

YABU but that's fine in the situation.

I believe the reason they use "sexual assault" is as a catch-all and so as not to offend somebody who has been assaulted but not raped, if you see what I mean. You have been raped, and obviously you want to call it that, but the police would rather just not risk offence.

wiilma · 14/01/2017 16:53

You are not being unreasonable. You were raped and people should call it what it is, although I realise why many don't.

The day I saw "Willma was raped twice by xxxxx" in an official document, the sense of relief was strange but intense. Finally someone other than me was naming it. I wanted to scream from the rooftops "he raped me" and the world to stop and understand my world had shattered but nobody would even speak it aloud, acknowledge what he had done to me. So no, you are not being unreasonable.

myoriginal3 · 14/01/2017 17:07

Willma, you have managed to explain why so eloquently.

OP posts:

myoriginal3 · 14/01/2017 17:10

Willma, I'm also so sorry for what happened.

OP posts:

FeralBeryl · 14/01/2017 18:10

I am sorry this happened to you. I am sorry you were raped.
I agree that the authorities are probably encouraged to use an 'umbrella term' This doesn't mean it's acceptable - and certainly not once you have told them the alternative is triggering for you. Could you ask for a different officer to be your liaison person?

Flip

1 2

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.