Lydia Laythe (The Beacon)
By Lydia Laythe, Staff Commentary
"Man, that Bib. Trad. test raped me!"
"Dude, I raped this guy on Call of Duty last night!"
More and more, I'm hearing exclamations like this used casually on campus. And for the record, if I hear another person say "rape" in casual conversation while laughing and joking around, I might just punch them right in the face. Rape is a serious issue, despite what people will say to diminish it (directly or indirectly), and it should never be joked about - ever.
For those of you who say, "Well I was just joking," let me just say, "shut up." Do you think my best friend's grandfather and next door neighbor were "just joking" when they raped her? Do you think the little boy down the block was "just joking" when he was raped by his father and brother?
No. No one was "just joking," so stop treating rape like a joke. Think about the harm you could be causing someone. A person you're talking to could be a victim, or know a victim. Your words can trigger strong emotions or cause them to recall an extremely traumatic event. You may not even know it.
I was friends with a girl for eleven years before I found out that she had been raped by her grandfather when she was five years old and then again by a boy in her neighborhood when she was eleven. She and I had been best friends for eleven years before she told me about all the suffering she had endured. She had changed her appearance in an attempt to avoid the attention of her grandfather. She had blamed herself for being "too pretty" for the neighbor-boy to resist. She had hated her body, suffered depression, anorexia, bulimia, and thoughts of suicide. She had gone to rehab, transferred schools twice, and all the while she had suffered in silence. She had told her older brother, her parents, and me. That was it. I thought I had known everything about her, but I had not known about her pain. So please don't assume that you know someone's entire life story, because chances are you don't. You don't know the pain you could be causing someone without even realizing it.
Furthermore, you diminish the issue when you laugh about it. When you laugh about rape, even out of context as a joke, you diminish the real thing - you diminish the pain, the suffering, the hurt and the struggle that every rape victim has had to overcome.
You never know who you're talking to. You may think that you know your group of friends, but 1 in every 6 women are a victim of attempted or completed rape and 1 in every 33 men are a victim. It may not seem like a lot, but to put it in perspective: UP had about 3,900 students last year. That means, according to that statistic, 650 women and 118 men could be victims of rape. This being said, it's important to understand that an estimated 54 percent of sexual assaults are not reported to the police. So be aware of the fact that someone close to you could be a victim of rape, or know someone who was a victim of rape.
You may not fully understand the gravity of this issue, and our culture has made it so taboo to talk about these things, confront these issues upfront. But as someone who has been affected so closely by this issue, let me say that I may not understand ALL the emotions of a victim, but I can understand a small part of the emotional response to hearing someone joke about rape. I'm so disappointed in the people I hear using it as a joke. I'm hurt, disgusted, disappointed, angered and heart-broken by it. I've seen the destruction rape can cause to a person, the pain and suffering people have to deal with. I would never wish it upon anyone, and I sure as hell would never joke about it.
So the next time you FAIL a test or WIN a game of Call of Duty, please open a dictionary, broaden your vocabulary, and consider the power of your words. You may not realize the impact you're making on the people around you and the strong emotions you're causing.
Lydia Laythe is a freshman social work major. She can be reached at laythe16@up.edu
(Ann Truong | The Beacon)
