No. We are not doing that word-washing anymore. Not after what we had to read. Not after people had to live through.....or not live thr
No.
We are not doing that word-washing anymore. Not after what we had to read. Not after people had to live through…..or not live through.
Calling children “underage women” or “underage boys” is not a mistake.
It is a strategy.
A softening tactic.
A way to slide harm past people’s conscience without tripping the alarm.
Children are children.
Girls are girls.
Boys are boys.
Anything else is a lie told to make abuse sound tolerable.
When someone says “underage woman,” they are trying to borrow the dignity, agency, and sexual maturity of adulthood and paste it onto a child who does not have it.
That is not sloppy language. That is predatory language.
It is the same old trick with a fresh coat of paint.
It turns a child into a participant.
It turns a crime into a “relationship.”
It turns an adult’s responsibility into a child’s burden.
And for girls especially, it is vicious.
Girls are already adultified.
Already blamed.
Already sexualized before their bodies have even finished growing.
So when someone reaches for that phrase, what they are really saying is:
“I need this child to sound older so I don’t have to feel how wrong this is.”
That deserves heat, not patience.
Because language shapes what people excuse.
And predators know this even if innocent people don’t……yet.
Photo by Land O’Lakes, Inc./Unsplash.com
Language shapes what juries rationalize.
Language shapes what communities look away from.
If you can’t bring yourself to say “man abused a child,” then you already know it’s indefensible.
And let me put this in Black-mother terms, since that’s the energy you called in:
I don’t need your euphemisms.
I don’t need your academic detours.
I don’t need your fake neutrality.
You will not dress harm up and expect us to nod politely.
You don’t get to shrink a child so an adult can feel bigger.
You don’t get to rename violence so it sounds less ugly.
You don’t get to play word games while children carry scars for decades.
If your language protects adults more than it protects children, it is trash language.
If your wording makes abuse sound “complex” instead of criminal, it is trash language.
If your phrasing makes girls sound responsible for what was done to them, it is trash language.
Say it clean.
Say it honest.
Say it so it cannot hide.
Children are children.
Harm against them does not need soft edges.
It needs truth, pressure, and zero room to breathe.
And if that makes some people uncomfortable?
Good. VERY Good.
Discomfort is the beginning of accountability. For all of us. We must be better than whatever this is. The children deserve better.
**Keep connecting the dots because it never stopped it changed language and tactics…..