Thanks 135 and 212 :) to 235 The fact of the matter is that within English usage, we use one thing to refer to another - for better or for worse it has been ingrained and accepted within our society that such a description has no relevance to its original usage. For example, a victim of attempted murder will take no offence at the usage of the phrases "I'd kill for a coffee", "I have time to kill", "He gets away with murder", "He stabbed me in the back", "I'll give a stab at it" or "this papercut kills". Murder, despite being considered a worse crime than rape, does not have people arguing that phrases that reference murder shouldn't be used. For some reason, rape is starting to be given a special place where these things are noticed - I recently took part in a discussion where I defended the usage of the word 'frape'. At the end of the day, I think people have to accept the reality of this. It really is unfortunate if these phrases act as a trigger to rape victims, and that isn't something that I'd wish to happen. But the reality is that idioms and analogies such as these have become an intrinsic part of language. Everybody uses them all the time without even noticing, and to argue against one is to argue against them all. No more would things spread "like wildfire". No more would people "rob you blind". Stopping all these potentially offensive phrases is impossible.