The Word 'Rape'

(Source: You Weren't Mugged, You Just Gave Away Your Belongings)

In 2007, a Nebraska judge, Jeffre Cheuvront, banned the use of the word 'rape' in Tory Bowen's rape trial supposedly because it was too inflammatory and prejudicial. He required that the words 'sex' or 'intercourse' be used instead to describe what happened between her and Pamir Safi.

Discussing ruling, Dahlia Lithwick said: [1]

"The real question for Judge Cheuvront, then, is whether embedded in the word sex is another "legal conclusion"—that the intercourse was consensual. And it's hard to conclude otherwise. Go ahead, use the word sex in a sentence. Asking a complaining witness to scrub the word rape or assault from her testimony is one thing. Asking that she imply that she agreed to what her alleged assailant was doing to her is something else entirely. To put it another way: If the complaining witness in a rape trial has to describe herself as having had "intercourse" with the defendant, should the complaining witness in a mugging be forced to testify that he was merely giving his attacker a loan?
The fact that judges are not rushing to ban similarly conclusory legal language from trial testimony—presumably one can still say murder or embezzlement on the stand—reflects not just the fraught nature of language but also the fraught nature of rape prosecutions. We as a society still somehow think rape is different—either because we assume the victims are especially fragile or because we assume they are particularly deceitful."

Indian courts have not used the word rape in a number of their judgments although I think that that has more to do with being conservative than to do with worrying about the word being prejudicial which is anyway a non-issue since jury trials do not exist in India.

Their mindset is revealed in statements like this one made by the Rajasthan High Court in the case of Babu v State of Rajasthan [1984 CrLJ 74 : 'virginity is the most precious possession of an Indian girl and she would never willingly part with this proud and precious possession' ...if not anything else, that statement in itself could just as easily have been written by a Victorian judge in the 19^th century.

Link:
[1] http://www.slate.com/id/2168758/pagenum/all/#page_start