{"id":47673,"date":"2012-06-04T11:30:07","date_gmt":"2012-06-04T16:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=47673"},"modified":"2013-11-08T04:25:51","modified_gmt":"2013-11-08T09:25:51","slug":"symbolic-consequences-of-the-new-definition-of-forcible-rape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2012\/06\/04\/symbolic-consequences-of-the-new-definition-of-forcible-rape\/","title":{"rendered":"Symbolic Consequences of the New Definition of &#8220;Forcible Rape&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In January the U.S. government <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/01\/07\/us\/politics\/federal-crime-statistics-to-expand-rape-definition.html\" target=\"_blank\">announced a new definition<\/a> of &#8220;forcible rape&#8221; to include <a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2012\/02\/04\/male-victims-of-sexual-assault\/\">male victims<\/a> and\u00a0oral or anal penetration in addition to vaginal. This has legal implications, of course, but also symbolic ones. \u00a0Language shapes how we experience the world, potentially changing how we feel about an event in our lives. \u00a0This happened to at least one person, prompting them to send in a postcard to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.postsecret.com\/2012\/05\/sunday-secrets_26.html\" target=\"_blank\">Post Secret<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2012\/06\/12.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-47674\" title=\"\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2012\/06\/12.jpg\" width=\"402\" height=\"563\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The more inclusive definition is a net good, I believe. \u00a0Legally, it&#8217;s best that we have the tools to prosecute these crimes and, for some people, being able to use this word to describe something terrible that happened to them will be validating and empowering. \u00a0For others, however, it may heighten the trauma.\u00a0&#8220;Rape&#8221; is a powerful word and many Americans imagine it to be among the most harmful of crimes. \u00a0Like <a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/08\/08\/reactions-to-child-sexual-abuse-trigger-warning\/\">child abuse<\/a>, but unlike even very violent non-sexual physical assaults, rape is\u00a0often believed to be a long-lasting harm, maybe even one that you can never truly recover from.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the word &#8220;dammit&#8221; in the card is meant to convey exactly this sentiment. \u00a0It was easier, perhaps, to think it was a bad night. \u00a0Now, though nothing has changed except for the language, the victim has to contend with having been raped.<\/p>\n<span class=\"ft_signature\"><em><a href=\"http:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/\">Lisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/American-Hookup-New-Culture-Campus\/dp\/039328509X?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">American Hookup<\/a><em>, a book about college sexual culture; a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Gender-Interactions-Institutions-Lisa-Wade\/dp\/0393931072?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/intro\/\">Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a><em>.\u00a0You can follow her on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lisawade\">Twitter<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/lisawadephd\/\">Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In January the U.S. government announced a new definition of &#8220;forcible rape&#8221; to include male victims and\u00a0oral or anal penetration in addition to vaginal. This has legal implications, of course, but also symbolic ones. \u00a0Language shapes how we experience the world, potentially changing how we feel about an event in our lives. \u00a0This happened to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2056,23384,55,2090,133],"class_list":["post-47673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crimelaw","tag-social-construction-discourselanguage","tag-gender","tag-gender-violence","tag-violence"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47673"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58350,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47673\/revisions\/58350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}