Legitimate.

That’s the pernicious legacy of parsing “good rapes” from “bad” ones, legitimate ones from fake ones, not-so-bad rape from “rape rape.” There’s no way to make rape anything other than what it is – a devastating attack on someone’s humanity, an assault not just on the body but on the mind and spirit. There’s no way even the best-intended person could ever know exactly what an attack like that does to someone until they have gone through it. Until they have survived.

And that’s why Rep. Akin can’t be allowed to get away with what he said without consequence. It’s not the words he used: “legitimate rape.” If only it were just the words. But it’s worse. It’s the entire attitude toward rape that has to be done away with, not just the politician. As long as the survivors of rape are scared to come forward because they fear they won’t be believed, or be told their rape wasn’t real or bad enough, or because they are scared of a legal system that is cold and unempathetic, we will never do right by the survivors of rape.