The Double-Ended Debate Next Door.

(May possibly be triggering.)



There's a very strange conflict I have with myself when I think about censorship, especially when I view the world under a feminist lens. My last blog got me thinking about it, and I figured that I might as well put my thoughts down here.

Permit me to elaborate.

There's a lot of censorship that really pisses me off. I don't like it when people act like saying "fuck," or whatever, is worse than doing something really horrible, like protesting someone's funeral, or beating someone to a pulp for their sexuality/gender-identity/lifestyle choices/what have you. It's always made me seriously bitter to see (some) Christians who have the audacity to get offended by words that have long been deemed "swear" words, whilst simultaneously banishing half the population of America to hell, for one facet of their existence or another.

To this day, I wonder who decided this. Let's give an example.

Let's take the words "shit," and "crap."

When you say, "Oh, crap!" or, "That's crap," it is safe and acceptable. But when you replace "crap" with "shit," it suddenly becomes profane and displeasing. They both mean virtually the same thing, but, suddenly, using "shit" makes the entire phrase ostentatious. It is suddenly obscene. Why are only certain words this way? I can say some guy caught his penis in his fly, and that's cool, but if I said, "Wow, that guy's cock now has more teeth than Jaws," someone would likely get offended by my pithy choice of phrase. Penis and dick and cock. Vulva and cunt and pussy. Screw and fuck. Darn and damn. Butt and ass. Heck and hell. Breasts and tits. I will probably never be able to figure out why one is profane, and the other is not. That type of censorship annoys me, because I don't see any sort of real, logical need for it, and I like to think I have a fairly logical mind.

However, I harbor a few opinions about censorship that are probably very at-odds with the above statements.

I snapped at my brother, one time, because he was talking to my mother about... I don't know. Taxes. Insurance. Something of that nature. And he said something along the lines of, "Yeah, they're really raping me on that shit."

Raping me.

My head snapped toward him at the speed of light, and I took a good five-to-ten seconds to breathe and calm down before I slowly said, "Excuse me. That's inappropriate." I didn't get a reply. And I didn't really expect one.

I've been very open about my rape, for a variety of reasons. Mainly because I need to be. I need to help other women (and men) who have been raped, but I also feel like I need to be a voice for women who have survived aquaintance-rape, like I have. It's hard to explain, but I've always thought that I could've processed and dealt with my rape a lot easier, had I not known and trusted and loved him the way I did. You just kind of lose a lot of your innocence when you've been raped by your best friend. That is not to say, in any way, that those who have been raped by strangers have it easier than I do. I'm merely musing/reflecting on my own experience and my own thoughts about it, specifically. No one else's.

I digress.

My brother is certainly not the only person I've ever heard say something like that, in that same vein. "Dude, that traffic ticket raped my wallet," or, "I got raped playing Halo," or, "That Physics test really raped me in the ass." That shit is absolutely inexcusable, to me. So am I a hypocrite? Is it wrong for me to be against censorship, while, at the same time, being totally affronted by the (in my opinion) erroneous use of words like "rape?" Is it completely off-base for me to strongly believe that people can find other ways of expressing themselves in situations like that, rather than to use the word rape? I know some of them obviously think they're being edgy, and funny, but I'm a rape-survivor. And I can say right now that it is most certainly not funny to someone who has been raped.

It's along the lines of what I said in my last blog, about word choice and pejorative terms, and to think about whether what you're saying is malicious or celebratory.

And then I have conflict. Because anyone could say the same thing to me. Do I need to swear in order to get my point across? Do I need to be profane to express myself? Do I need to casually use words that offend the sensibilities of others in my day-to-day life?

I think I've figured out what the difference is.

When I say those perceived "swear" words, I'm not sequestering a select group of individuals and using words that add to their inferiority and marginalization in the world.

When I say, "Fuck, it's hot today," I'm not trivializing someone's lived-experiences, the way saying, "Wow, this heat is raping the top of my head today," would. See how easy that was to switch up?

When I say, "That shit is really lame," I'm not adding to the marginalization of an entire lot of people, the way saying, "That was really gay," would. Gee, that one put a bounce in my step, just now, what with its simplicity, and all.

You get the point.

I don't expect anyone to censor themselves around me, and I certainly wouldn't want to dwarf anyone's natural self-expression. I'm not here to police anybody. It may seem like I'm being overly sensitive, but I don't believe I am. Censorship is not what I'm about at all. I believe in speaking your mind, and speaking freely about what's in your spirit, and heart. But I do think there's a difference between what's appropriate and what is not; what people perceive as "offensive" because they're told to be offended by it, that it's perverse and obscene, and what I (and possibly others) perceive as offensive because it actually is offensive, and it does offend me, down to my core, in an assortment of manners.

I can only reiterate this: Think about your word choices. Do you say words like "rape" casually because you're trying to be funny? Or perhaps because your friends use it in such a context? Rape is not funny. Rape is a horrible, terrifying, debilitating, traumatic, life-altering, humiliating, dehumanizing experience for a lot of people in this world, myself included. Please stop mocking and trivializing the experience of being raped. It hurts too much. There are so many other words you could use other than "rape."

If you need a list, I'd be delighted to provide one.