Hm...

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape

Etymology

The term rape originates from the Latin rapere (supine stem raptum), "to snatch, to grab, to carry off".[14][15] Since the 14th century, the term has come to mean "to seize and take away by force".[16] In Roman law, the carrying off of a woman by force, with or without intercourse, constituted "raptus".[15] In Medieval English law the same term could refer to either kidnapping or rape in the modern sense of "sexual violation".[14] The original meaning of "carry off by force" is still found in some phrases, such as "rape and pillage", or in titles, such as the stories of the Rape of the Sabine Women and The Rape of Europa or the poem The Rape of the Lock, which is about the theft of a lock of hair.

In some countries of Iberian tradition, there is still a criminal entry code for "rapto" covering the abduction of a young (including mildly underage) woman for sex. (Notice that technically this could all be consensual and the supposed abduction be more like running away). No big Romance language uses its cognate of English "rape" to mean "rape". To say "rape" in the contemporary English sense, you say a cognate of "violation" (West to East: violación (Sp.), violació (Cat.), viol (Fr., Ro.)) or another word which I'm not aware of in English (West to East: estupro (Por.), stupro (It.)) -- confusingly, "estupro" (Sp.) also survives on some Iberian tradition codes with a meaning more or less equivalent to statutory rape.

Point being... words change. Rape didn't actually mean "rape", although now it's centuries being used like that. No, I'm not comfortable defending "rape" so I won't. But language is way, way more organic than anyone can see (and that many would like). There is no reason why some day in the future "rape" can't come to mean consensual sex. It may not. But it may. And in the end, it will be things like the contemporary feminist movement which cause this meaning shift, by labelling everything as rape; than any ironic or reclaiming usage from critics.

Many years ago, when I had my 4th grade LGFs, they sometimes would play with their Barbie and Ken dolls. They would make funny, silly scenes, and all that, like all girls do. One day, the scene developed with a Barbie and a Ken being used to represent the characters of a then popular sitcom. After small talk, the Male Character just out of the blue stated very matter-of-factly, "Now I'm gonna rape you, Female Character", which was replied, not with any sort of resistance, but with "OK, you can rape me", followed by the two dolls humping. It lasted for a while and Male "raped" Female more times in the course of that day -- indeed, Female even asked Male to "rape" her at one point. Now, yes, they didn't actually mean "sex obtained by coercion or use of brute force"; indeed, they meant entirely consensual sex, from what the actions and dialogs were. But what it showed me was that they had removed the power of the word "rape" to scare them. I don't know (back then I didn't realize how interesting this was; now I would act different) how aware they were of the actual acts described by "rape" in its literal meaning. But I knew right away and have remembered since, that to two 4th graders, the word had no power over them.



Remember a guy brought a gun to a pizzeria convince that Pizzagate was real.

While "thou shalt not bear false witness", people can also not be made responsible for the deranged actions of others.

Moreover, a guy as batshit crazy as that, would have snapped anyway with another excuse if he had not had that one available.

To murderers, excuses are abundant.