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The Rise In "Rape Talk"
He was given every chance to apologise. But on the Today programme yesterday, the world heavyweight champion, David Haye, seemed unrepentant. On Tuesday, publicising his upcoming bout against Audley Harrison, he promised to "violate" his opponent, adding that the match would be as "one-sided as a gang rape". A wave of criticism crashed over him, and on Thursday, when asked by a Today presenter whether he would like to issue a mea culpa, and address his allusions to rape, Haye ducked the question and simply offered this strange explanation: "You'll have to wait and see the fight first," he said, "I'm talking about the one-sidedness of the fight." He wasn't actually going to gang rape Harrison, he added, which was certainly good to know.
By dodging an apology, Haye implied he hadn't said anything wrong, that there was no need to express regret; indeed, earlier this week he tweeted: "If I apologised for every stupid/ignorant thing I said, I wouldn't have time for anything else during the day!" And, in some ways, Haye's jovial, unapologetic response isn't surprising. After all, the use of the word "rape" to describe all kinds of bad experience – from getting beaten up in a boxing match, to having your hairdo completely ruined – has recently become usual, average, shruggable. Just as the word "gay" has been twisted by pop culture, used to refer to someone or something a bit uncool, the word "rape" is now regularly used where "nightmare" or an apt expletive would previously have been in order.
An example of so-called rape talk? Coming out of an exercise class recently, a guy turned to one of my friends, sweating and breathless, and heaved a sigh of satisfied exhaustion. "Wow, that was just like being raped, wasn't it?" he said. My friend stood motionless, blinking back at him. Another? In the July issue of UK Elle, the Twilight star Kristen Stewart talked about being trailed by the paparazzi, saying that when she sees the resulting photographs: "I feel like I'm looking at someone being raped." (Stewart later apologised for the comparison). Online, there has been a lot of talk about "Facebook rape": a term used to describe a third party getting access to someone's Facebook account and changing their details. Almost 1.3 million people are fans of the Facebook page "Thanks wind, you have totally raped my hair", where photos of windswept women are posted. And the rightwing US shock jocks, always ahead of the crowd with vile, vicious language, have been using rape talk for years. In separate discussions of healthcare reform last year, Rush Limbaugh warned his listeners, "get ready to get gang-raped again", while Glenn Beck compared himself and his viewers to "the young girl saying, 'No, no, help me,'" while "the government is Roman Polanski".
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