Some terms in common usage are highly undesirable because the words alone trivialize the violence or mislead as to the perpetrator.

• Date Rape — This term minimizes the violence by downgrading rape by a date from “real rape,” i.e., rape by a stranger. It has been called “rape light.” This is a particularly offensive and misleading term because the vast majority of rapes are committed by someone known to the victim, often in the context of a dating relationship, and victims suffer the same harms as victims of other types of rape.
• Abusive Relationship — This is a term constantly used in coverage of cases involving domestic violence or the intersection of sexual assault and domestic violence. But a relationship cannot itself be abusive; people are abusive. This term literally erases the people involved and the person responsible for the violence.

Using words like “happen,” “occur,” and “experience” are so much the norm in describing sexual and domestic violence that it requires a concerted effort and frequent revision of our own writings among even those of us most concerned with this issue to use them correctly, but it can be done, and it is worth the effort.

As Phyliss Frank and Barry Goldstein write in their paper The Importance of Using Accountable Language, 

“The use of accountable language is not a technicality or merely a play on words, but rather an issue with profound consequences…If we say a woman was hurt it seems like it just happened and there is nothing to do about it. If instead we refer to the man who is hurting the woman, this requires taking action to stop him from hurting her again and provides consequences for the harm he caused.”¹