(NSFW) Why soften the language when it comes to sexual abuse of children?

I think the response is pretty negative either way.

It’s disgusting, why sugar coat it? Then maybe more people would punish the perves as they deserve to be punished.

No, the language doesn’t hide the horror of what happens, but it can incite the public if it is too blatant.

The terms themselves are offensive to many people. Some prefer not to hear such things. Others don’t want to actually worry about the problems that these children are going through. By covering these things with a blanket word, it is easier for them to put it out of their mind.

I agree with you, and @Carinaponcho. It’s easier to forget about such horrors and go on with your day if you are not quite clear on what is going on.

I’ve even heard people express surprise upon learning that child porn is not just naked pictures of children, but is often horrific images of children having these things done to them.

I agree with @Adirondackwannabe. We should be using those terms, instead of babying people with less offensive ones. People should be getting more pissed off, disgusted, and disturbed by stuff like this.

@bookish1 I understand your point. But does the child get to sugar coat what happened to them? They’ve been fucked, fingered, and otherwise assaulted. It’s ugly, but it’s what happens.

I agree. Another example is that it is so often called “molestation” (a synonym for “annoyance” in common English) rather than “rape” in the case of children.

What, like “diddle”? Personally I find that word disgusting…

Excellent question, and one that really has me thinking. I have to admit that even I, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, use ‘softer’ language to describe what happened to me. Just reading this question, seeing those terms used in conjunction with children, kind of freaked me out, honestly.

If you think about it, though, we don’t use terms like “ass fucking” even when talking about sexual assault on adults. “Sodomy” is usually substituted. Something to do with politeness, I think. Still, with kids it seems to all just fall under the very general terms “sexual abuse” and “inappropriate contact”. There are ‘polite’ terms to describe the actual acts, so I don’t know why we don’t use them.

Because the perpetrators would no doubt find titilation in the narrative alone, no need to further sully the innocence of child victims.

We would get desensitized to those phrases over time as well.

It’s hard enough for me to hear or read about abuse against children. I couldn’t expose myself to the stories if they were any more explicit. I would prefer to be reminded that awful things happen to innocent children so that I can do my little bit to help make the world better than to have to be completely desensitized or unable to hear such stories.

I would prefer to not have thicker skin about such issues.

An afterthought: My mother is a social worker. She told me years ago about a little baby, a couple of months old, brought to the emergency department with rectal tears because his mother’s boyfriend was “lonely” and anally raped him. Just the memory of the couple of sentences she shared makes me sweaty, nauseous, teary and angry. It was too much for me to bear.

That, in my opinion, is why we use other language.

Perhaps to avoid giving other child abusers new ideas, who might think, hey, I’ve haven’t tried this approach.