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New York Times: On Confusing "Sex" and "Rape"
The New York Times' public editor, Arthur Brisbane, offered a unusual mea culpa
in this past Sunday's paper over the Times' description of former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky's alleged crimes. Sandusky, the paper reported, was seen "having sex with" a 10-year-old boy in the UPenn showers---a term that's totally inadequate (and inaccurate) when describing what, if proven, was clearly rape.
Brisbane notes that part of writers' and editors' reluctance to call a rape a rape is squeamishness over subjecting people to unpleasant words and explicit details. At the same time, he says, the term "rape" is evolving. It was only this year, after all, that the FBI finally agreed to change its definition of the term to include not just forcible penetration of a woman by a man, but all the other kinds of acts that constitute rape, including things like date rape, or having sex with someone who can't consent.
It's a tough thing to even talk about, much less address by changing editorial standards. So good on the NYT for starting the conversation.
Elsewhere: One blogger wishes people would take as courageous a stand against the rape of college women by sports heroes as they have against the rape of little boys, while another notes that the same-sex nature of the crime could have made witnesses in the "hyper-butch arena of a highly-ranked college football locker room" less likely to report it.
It is common for newspapers to use terms like “sexual assault” and “sexual abuse” and “have sex” when reporting on sex crimes. Perhaps, though, it’s time that The Times and other news organizations take another look at the language they use. Victims’ advocates echo what the readers told me in their e-mails: language in news media reports — and, for that matter, in the court system itself — consistently underplays the brutality of sex crimes and misapplies terms that imply consent.
“We constantly talk about victims having sex with their perpetrator,” said Claudia J. Bayliff, project attorney for the National Judicial Education Program and a longtime advocate for victims of sex crimes. “We talk about children performing oral sex on their perpetrator, which suggests a consensual act and a volitional act. We use ‘fondled,’ ‘had sex with,’ ‘performed oral sex on’ — all those kinds of terms.”
Wendy Murphy, an adjunct professor at the New England School of Law, runs a program there whose mission is to persuade court systems to use language that strips out vagueness and the implication of consent. She told me she has worked with journalists and finds they are largely untrained on the subject.
Brisbane notes that part of writers' and editors' reluctance to call a rape a rape is squeamishness over subjecting people to unpleasant words and explicit details. At the same time, he says, the term "rape" is evolving. It was only this year, after all, that the FBI finally agreed to change its definition of the term to include not just forcible penetration of a woman by a man, but all the other kinds of acts that constitute rape, including things like date rape, or having sex with someone who can't consent.
It's a tough thing to even talk about, much less address by changing editorial standards. So good on the NYT for starting the conversation.
Elsewhere: One blogger wishes people would take as courageous a stand against the rape of college women by sports heroes as they have against the rape of little boys, while another notes that the same-sex nature of the crime could have made witnesses in the "hyper-butch arena of a highly-ranked college football locker room" less likely to report it.
