The technical reason appears to be *~rape culture~*...

The Washington Post repeatedly used “forced himself upon” which, unless I was dramatically misreading every piece of Vic lit I came across, is their way of saying “rape” when the charges are “sex trafficking” and “sex tourism”. When a grown man is having any kind of intercourse with a 14- year old girl, but most…

I think it’s because of Gawker’s self-inflicted mortal wound with the Hulk Hogan’s sex tape case. Now they will be trying to be extra careful to make it look like they are a legitimate news source. Careful to the point of not being willing to call stuff out. Probably the big wigs of Gawker are breathing down heavily…

I don’t really want to pile on you, since a lot of people have already addressed why the phrasing here is upsetting. I just want to suggest that, in future, if this sort of situation comes up, there are ways to split the difference. If you are concerned about using the word “rape” because that isn’t the exact wording…

Your readers are making sound and substantial points, and you, as the writer, respond in a really childish and flippant way.

But they got it right in the url? That’s weird. Why would they change the title?

Do you always wait to do research after you post the article?

This is rape.

Many news outlets also refused to use “torture” to describe US torture of prisoners. The US refused to call the Egyptian coup a “coup” because by law if it were a coup we couldn’t keep selling arms to them. Obama promised to call the Armenian Genocide a “Genocide” but has refused for the past 8 years to do so so as to…

So because the DOJ and the Post are gutless turds, that gives you a pass?

Good lord. Are you joking? Did it occur to you to question why these sources were also avoiding the term, and that maybe they were wrong in doing so?

Nowhere in this article did you, the author, use the word “rape” to describe what happened to the child. You called it “sex”. Even ignoring that children cannot consent to sex, that she attempted suicide clearly indicates she was not engaging in something she wanted to do.

Courtesy of www.merriam-webster.com:

“Definition of rape

Sexual assault, sexualized violence, sex trafficking, forced sex. All terms that could be used that wouldn’t imply consensual sex occurred between a sex trafficked child and a grown man.

How about just change the headline already instead of obsessively defending yourself on the internet?

Todd Akin’s legacy: We now have to worry about technicalities when discussing a 14-year-old being trafficked and repeatedly raped.

Is there a scenario where a 34 year old man using his power to coerce a family into whoring out their 14 year old daughter as a de facto sex slave to him, then repeatedly “having sex” with her, can be considered anything other than rape?

If she’s 14 and he (as an adult man) was found guilty in the US of having sex with her, it’s by definition rape.

I doubt there is a reason to avoid it. I just googled “age of consent El Salvador” (18 years) and “age of consent Virginia” (18 years, although the first link says 15). ETA: the stories may not have used the word “rape” because the charges are sex trafficking and sex tourism, not rape. But I don’t believe that the…

I’m pretty surprised by it. Does no one else read the articles before they hit the front page? Lauren is also the one who did that story on the Peruvians and Bolivians eating frogs to extinction with that tacky shock photo—except the source NYT article said the frogs were being driven to extinction mostly by…