Rape Is Not a "Sex Scandal"

[Content Note: Sexual violence; rape apologia.]

Via Women's Media Center, I read this story about an Air Force recruiter who is potentially facing trial after allegations that he raped recruits and colleagues in his office. This is not the first occasion I've had to mention a US military recruiter who used his position to sexually exploit recruits, and the culture of tolerance for sexual assault against female members of the military is A Problem, by way of cavernous understatement.

The particular way in which sexual violence has been tolerated in the US military is, in some ways, specific to the military culture and chain-of-command rules, which has frequently left rapists the gatekeepers of accusations against them. But the US military doesn't exist in a void: It's part of a larger rape culture, which is facilitated in many ways, not least of which is media that continually refers to rape allegations as "sex scandals."

That is always, always, a contemptibly diminishing euphemism for multiple rapes, but check out this passage in the above-linked article for one of the most absurd juxtapositions around that infuriating phrase possibly ever published:

Rodriguez faces six charges and 35 specifications of misconduct. Prosecutors say he had illicit contact with 18 women and had sex with four in what may be the Air Force Recruiting Service's worst sex scandal ever.

The most serious charges are rape, aggravated sexual assault and forcible sodomy.

Pivoting from "sex scandal" to that list of charges should be profoundly jarring. The phrase is so discordant with the charges that I actually laughed mirthlessly when I read it.

Only in a rape culture, where rape allegations are routinely presumed to be some sort of "miscommunication" or a sex act gone wrong, could most readers casually pass by the identification of a sex abuse scandal as a "sex scandal" and not bat an eye.