Sex crimes lite

When Arnold Schwarzenegger was accused of repeatedly grabbing women against their will and putting his hands under their clothing, the news media--including the "liberal" media--called it "groping" and "harrassment." Saying to your fellow employee, "Your ass looks good in that skirt--wear it every day" is sexual harrassment (a word, by the way, that the media needs to learn how to pronounce). Grabbing women and touching their breasts and buttocks is called sexual assault. And in the case of the adolescent who accused him, it is called child sexual abuse.

Back in October, I had a fit when Soledad O'Brien expressed shock that Schwarzenegger might be the subject of a criminal investigation because of the alleged sexual assault crimes. Here was a woman who found it ludicrous that a man who assaults women could be considered a criminal. Of course, she was joined by hoardes of California citizens who revered Schwarzenegger enough to elect him governor. And there was no criminal investigation.

I think that of all the setbacks to feminism, this is the one that has me the most deeply troubled.

Now we have David Hager, who--according to his former wife--raped her repeatedly, yet even she is reported to have said that he was guilty of "sexual abuse." It sounds as though she is using the term "sexual abuse" or "marital sexual abuse" for legal purposes, which implies that either she cannot seek rape charges or that she is somehow liable is she uses the term rape. But Hager forced her to have sex, and we have a word for that, and it begins with an "r." The news media--what little portion of it that has chosen to speak about this case--continues to say that Hager "sodomized" his wife, which he did, but that isn't the issue. The issue is that he raped his wife.

It is interesting that the culture which loves to accuse feminists of manufacturing "politically correct" language has its own politically correct lexicon, and the word "rape" does not appear in it.