I had a strange thought the other day, as I occasionally do, and it led me through an odd chain of conclusions. That germinative thought was “why do we call someone who rapes a rapist and not a raper¹?”

There are many ists out there, and the four definitions of the suffix at wiktionary seem to cover all the typical cases, but it seems a stretch to consider rapist as any of them.

The first definition says it signifies a system of belief. Perhaps to some rape is a way of life, but is the act itself an expression of a belief system?

The second possibility is that it describes a profession or field of interest. I can’t imagine many making a living through their rape, nor it being a field of interest for anyone.

The third is that it’s something a person uses. This is a pretty vague definition so it seems the most likely candidate for the origin of ‘rapist’ as a term. Rape is often said to be an exertion of power and dominance over people. In prison, and elsewhere, rape is a weapon used to control people. Still, this seems like a fairly substantial allegorical stretch.

Finally, it could mean it’s a biased view of some sort. Admittedly, raping someone probably means your preferences are biased in your favour but is committing the act of rape equivalent to the personal belief that a specific subset of humanity is less than another? I don’t deny that rapists might frequently be sexist, but does that make rape itself an ist?

So while, none of these really fit ‘rapist’ as well as I’d like, a common thread in these definitions is that all these ists are what a person is. It is something that defines them. Put simply, ers are what you do, ists are who you are. There might be a few exceptions to this, but rules always have exceptions.

But let’s overthink the implications of this linguistic hint briefly. Is it a coincidence that Ist sounds like His and Er sounds like Her? Is there a subtly sexist/chauvinist theme carried through the implied nature of ist? That things that are described by an ist are more robust, more steadfast, than the fickle actions of an er? Are we tacitly endorsing an ist every time we use an ist? No, probably not, but thinking about and subsequently overthinking these sorts of things is just what I do.

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Footnotes

1. Shortly after I had this thought, I came to a place in George RR Martin’s A Feast for Crows where someone is called a “raper” and wondered what that implied about the act of rape in that world. [↩]

Up until now, Dollhouse has been a good show. Even a great show at times. But it wasn’t a Joss Whedon show. The first five episodes were hindered by network interference, but with this episode Whedon finally got out from under the thrall of Fox’s “creative consultancy” and Dollhouse finally became a Joss Whedon show. Before now, you could see inklings of Whedonism in the show — Lubov’s “Sweet Home Georgia” line from a couple weeks ago, in particular — but this episode brought it all together; there was intrigue, philosophical pondering, humour, and plot twists galore. More (a lot more) after the break.

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Something that I don’t think many people want to admit is that you’re pretty much the same person throughout your life. And that means that the girls you thought were attractive when you were sixteen — that is, other sixteen year olds — are probably still attractive to you in your later years of life. So even when you’re forty, sixteen year olds are still probably going to be attractive to you. They might not be appealing because of their immature personality or your awareness of the age difference, but their physical form will still get the blood flowing.

It’s really not a very controversial thought when you get right down to it, but there is still a level of silent disgust both in relationships beyond some arbitrary age difference and in the awareness of the attractiveness of younger girls. Obviously, most of the latter stems from our cultures growing obsession with the minute fears our news media publicize and glamourize for the sake of ratings. We see stories of pedophiles and rapists and though they are depraved and depressing realities of the world, they are the exception to the rule.

Not every guy who is aware that your sixteen year old daughter — or even your thirteen or fourteen year old daughter; everyone matures at a different rate — is a smoking hot babe is a pedophile or rapist in waiting.