I feel like the American society of the 21st century has become numb to the true meaning of words. Our society throws out offensive words like they are nothing. Using them like they are adjectives describing a car.
When the youth of today uses these words and the environment gets a sudden chill they don’t understand why. They think there is something wrong with the person who is “offended” not understanding what the big deal is.
The word that I have the hardest time with. I feel our society has gotten numb to the meaning of the word and uses it out of context. The word is RAPE. This word should be powerful and make people shake at the mention of it. But it is used without thought of the true meaning of it. This saddens me to think that this word is thrown around like it is an adverb.
Examples
“That sports team is raping the other team”
“Oh man, that final totally raped me!”
“Somebody buy me a beer because I just raped that exam.”
“That guy was so raping me at the store last night.”
I was recently speaking to a co-worker who was feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work she was expected to get done. She said, “I am getting raped” That sentence struck me to the core of my being. I interrupted her conversation and I told her. “Don’t you ever say that word like that again around me unless you have been through it.” I lost it I had to leave my work area and speak to a supervisor to get myself calmed down” I was able to get back to work but I avoided the co-worker. A little while later I went up to her and I said “I am sorry for losing my temper. But I am not going to apologize for standing my ground” She then said, “I am sorry I was not saying it to you personally I just felt like that was what was happening because I was expected to do so many things at once” I tried to explain to her that that is not what was happening to her. She was overwhelmed with a lot of work but she was not being raped. I even challenged her to replace the word rape with sexually assaulted in that sentence “I am overwhelmed I am getting sexually assaulted” Hope she would see the power of the definition of that word. She was not comprehending the significance of the word. So, I stopped the conversation. She apologized and I walked off.
“Rape” is a word we must respect. Sounds counterintuitive — you don’t want to respect something horrific. But the fact that rape is so terrible is exactly why we need to respect it: “rape” is a powerful word, one with serious medical, emotional, and legal implications. You start throwing it around like it doesn’t mean anything and, sooner rather than later, it won’t.
I feel like because our society uses this word like it does not have a true mean is one of the reasons why we don’t take rape seriously. If the word has no meaning that we can’t take the word seriously.
When we hear about someone that has been raped our society seems to want to begin questioning the victim. That is unfair and unjust.
We need to really think about the true meaning of a word before we use it We really need to put meaning to the words that we say.
I encourage you to stop and think about the words you say and realize how they can hurt those around you.
Take Care. Much Love
