Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrenekoi
I'm sorry that you went through rape. That's a terrible experience that I wish no one and I hope you can recover from it on the best way possible. I had some experiences as a child envolving an adult (it never lead to penetration, but the adult intention was sexual never the less) that were pretty... Complicated.
I still find comparing being called a name to being raped or being shamed for being raped (something rape jokes do) a shock value argument.
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Thank you. I'm surprised about you're reply but in a positive way. So really thank you. And of course I also hope you were able or will be able to recover the child abuse!
The problem with terms like "whore" is that it isn't just being called a name. Just being called a name would be something like "asshole". The term "whore" implicates a lot of things that are degrading to women. There are a lot of things which add to rape culture, rape jokes and names for women like whore are adding to rape culture too. Rape jokes adding to rape culture is far more obvious than calling women whores, that's why Lady Dynamitez was bringing this up. Lady Dynamitez's argument wasn't about comparing one to the other, it was about to link violent language against women to actual violence against women. Therefore also the N word argument. If white people (black people using it is a totally different thing of course) are using this word because they think "it's no big deal" they're also adding to a social climate in which violence against black people is acceptable. Same goes for words like "whore" for women. If people constantly use words like whore or bitch or slut to refer to women they add to a social climate in which (sexual) violence against women is acceptable, because women are constantly denied their humanity by degrading them verbally. It's much more easier to be violent against a person if it was made clear before that they aren't "human enough" to be treated with respect.
So Lady Dynamitez's post wasn't comparing being called a name to making fun about rape victims. It was about to make clear that constantly degrading women verbally and denying them being addressed respectfully leads to rape. And that isn't something Lady Dynamitez or I are making up, it's actually proven by science.
My rapist called me a whore and said I actually wanted the "attention". You see the link to "attention whore"? The thing is, statistically every 6th to 10th woman gets raped (depends on the statistic). A lot of these women can tell you the exact same thing like I did. I think there is a reason why rapists are calling their victims like that. And it's not like rapists are some kind of monsters everyone can easily identify as such. Most of them are perfectly normal men. So by using terms like "attention whore" you're adding to a violent language against women that denies us any respect and some guys sadly are motivated by that because they think we "deserve" or "want" (or both) to be raped and if we're unlucky enough to meet a guy like that, we end up being one out of the ten (or six) women.
That's why I don't care if some people use terms like whore "playfully". This carelessness may be funny for some, but others have to face the consequences. Not to mention that you never know if one of the women you're talking to or who are able to hear/read what you say may be one out of the ten women. What is the hardest about being raped isn't what happened, it's that you're reminded of it on a daily basis because people say all kinds of "funny" things that add to rape culture evey day and you're just standing there and have to pretend you don't care. Because it's not like you would ask people around you to stop saying those things 'cos it's not like you would want to know every person at university for example what happened.
So when I sometimes use the word "bitch" in a playfull and ironic way, I'm only doing this in private when I'm 120% sure no one besides me and my friend can hear it.
And I honestly don't think that it's too much asked for to not use terms that are degrading to people, because someone always has to face the consequenses of a social climate in which violence against certain groups of people is ok.