This election cycle, the GOP have come out with an all out assault on women’s rights. They attack Sandra Fluke for daring to suggest that women should have their preventive care covered just like everyone else has their preventive care covered. Abortion rights are under assault with state sponsored person-hood amendments. And the idea that there are rapes that are more “rapey” than others just seem to come out of the mouths of GOP candidates from sea to shining sea. Most of the people who are making such comments about raped women are male.

So it is refreshing to see a male candidate discussing the issue of rape in a way that is supportive of half the country. He said “Rape is Rape” in response to Mourdoch and his asinine comments about rape and pregnancy and when you are raped and impregnated, that it is a “gift from God”.

Obama said:

Let me make a very simple proposition: Rape is rape. It is a crime. And so these various distinctions about rape don’t make too much sense to me — don’t make any sense to me.

I agree with him. We have heard many different ways to describe rape by these clowns. We have “honest rape“, “legitimate rape“,  and “forcible rape“. Hell, even Whoopi Goldberg once said that a Roman Polanski didn’t commit “rape rape“. Women’s groups have come out against such labels. I have one more label that should be thrown out. It has bothered me since I first heard it and I still have issues with it today. That is the term “date rape”.

Now, I understand the reason behind the label of date rape. Rape can occur on dates. In fact, most rapes will be perpetrated by someone the victim knows. It is VITAL that our culture changes the way that we educate people on what rape is because we cannot just teach people that they should have their own version of “stranger danger” and expect to be safe from crimes of sexual violence. But if we are to reject any descriptor that modifies rape and makes it different than some other rape, then shouldn’t we also have to stop using the term date rape and instead just explain to people that rapes most likely will be perpetrated by people you know?

And maybe I am wrong. Maybe there is some other reason that exists that breaks the rule on why we shouldn’t modify rapes into kinds. So if you believe I am wrong, please let me know.