I’ve always found it troubling when I hear people use the word “Nazi” metaphorically.  Terms like “fashion nazi,” “food nazi,” even Seinfeld’s famous “soup nazi” episode, seem to trivialize the Holocaust.  Of course, we often recognize the hyperbole and that’s part of what makes it fun.  But do we really want to make fun with such an idea?   Lots of people didn’t like it when PETA did it.  

In any case, I was thinking about similar uses of the word “rape.”  The word “rape” seems to be everywhere.  People use it not just for its literal meaning, but to describe all manner of unpleasant experiences.  For example, in this story at bestweekever:

capture8

If a person has been raped, does hearing the word thrown around like it is nothing upsetting?

Not to mention, as this example also uses,  playing with the idea of murder.

Do other societies use words like rape and murder metaphorically?  Have we always done so?  Must we?  Or are there alternatives that may be more sensitive to people who lost loved ones in the Holocaust, were raped, or knew someone who was murdered?

All of this to introduce a cartoon from Principia Comica, sent in by Markus B., that aims to illustrate the absurdity of using “rape” as a metaphor:

conshift

Or maybe this cartoon is even more subversive.  Maybe it is suggesting that we feel comfortable being flippant about pain that disproportionately affects women, but not pain that affects men.  Hmmm.