A couple of days ago, I was enjoying some downtime watching YouTube videos until I was suggested a video by the YouTuber Cody Ko…which is funny, because I thought he had stepped away from the internet after being “cancelled” months ago for being accused of committing an act of statutory rape. But alas, there he was on my screen. 

He is getting significantly less engagement on these new videos, but he’s still somehow managing a few hundred thousand views per upload, and when I checked what people were saying, I found that people were defending his actions. Despite everything that had come out about him, he still managed to find an audience. I’m extremely disappointed, but not very surprised. Even in the height of the “controversy,” there were signs that the “cancellation” wouldn’t stick. Firstly, the victim, another internet personality, Tana Mongeau, is a controversial figure, while Ko (up until recently) had experienced minimal controversies. Even though Ko stayed suspiciously silent in the aftermath of the allegations, when Mongeau shared her experience, some internet users were quick to speculate on the validity of her claims. Although Mongeau’s timeline makes sense and other creators have witnessed her relationship with Ko, many had doubts. It certainly didn’t help that she was seventeen years old, just one year shy of being “legal” in her state of Florida when the incident occurred, while Ko was twenty-five. I’ve noticed that a lot of people just didn’t care. Although the majority was loudly condemning Ko, there was also a substantial population who believed the situation was just internet drama and that a seventeen-year-old is close enough to being an eighteen-year-old. I believe that this is mostly a flaw in our legal understanding of maturity. I would wholeheartedly agree that there is no significant difference in maturity between a seventeen-year-old and an eighteen-year-old, but that’s not to say that I think it’s okay for a twenty-five-year-old to engage sexually with a seventeen-year-old. I feel the opposite. A freshly eighteen-year-old is not an adult in the same way that a twenty-five-year-old is. These are different life stages, and the legality isn’t the problem in this situation.

However, it’s a bit irrelevant to even say that, because the law is, in fact, not in Ko’s favor. Although he will likely never face legal consequences, it’s important to remember quite plainly that what Ko did was illegal, and that Mongeau is the victim of this illegal act. 

Interestingly, that doesn’t seem to be enough for some. There’s a reason that such a loud population struggles to accept that what happened to Mongeau was wrong. A large part of it is that the average person still has a very specific image of rape in their heads: They imagine the evil attacker waiting for a woman on her walk home. The average person also hates dealing with grey areas because, quite frankly, the average person handles morally grey situations poorly. When people find out about an abusive dynamic, they need desperately for the victim to fit into a mold of the “perfect victim.” Victims need to be quiet individuals who are always kind in their everyday interactions and never act out—but such people are rare, whether they be victims or not.

Unfortunately, with where we are as a culture, I think we are much more tolerant and at times, outwardly accepting of abuse than we would like to let on. Words like “abuse” and “assault,” or “rape,” tend to garner a strong emotional response, but what happens when we don’t use those words? A 2015 study conducted at the University of North Dakota found that 14 percent of college-aged male participants said that they would “rape a woman,” whereas 32 percent of college-aged male participants said that they would “force a woman to [have] sexual intercourse.” I do not bring up this study to claim that 1/3 of men are rapists. This study had a relatively small sample size, with only 86 men being surveyed, so it cannot accurately represent attitudes towards rape on a national level. However, it can illustrate how our perceptions of certain actions potentially change just by using different terms. It poses the question: Are we averse to rape, or just to the word?

Just for a moment, forget about the word “rape.” Forget about the word “assault.” Returning to our Cody Ko example, let’s say he didn’t commit an act of “rape.” Instead, he made sexual contact with a teenager. He made that decision using his adult brain, which his victim, notably, hadn’t yet developed. We’re not calling it “rape,” but does that make that maturity gap acceptable? Even if there were no concrete definition for “rape,” Ko’s actions would still be just as predatory.

For example, you can hit somebody repeatedly. Even if we don’t use the term “aggravated assault,” we can still recognize that that action would inflict pain on another person, and we should retain the same attitude in cases of sexual assault. 

Again, the average person’s perception of rape only truly accommodates statistically rare and very specific cases, i.e., the random attacker in the alleyway. When presented with statutory cases and cases with factors such as coercion, many people struggle to be supportive or even form a solid opinion. In this situation, it would be beneficial to remember that statutory rape isn’t bad because it falls under the umbrella of “rape.” It is bad because somebody very young got exploited. Coercive rape is not bad because it’s “rape.” It’s bad because somebody got manipulated into making a serious decision. No matter what the circumstances are, rape is never bad on the basis that it is “rape.” It is always bad because it hurts people, and that is as simple as it gets. That is the very core of the issue.

Earlier, I said that the average person struggles with morally grey situations. I still stand by that, but I think that the solution in many events is quite simple—-we should try to realize that many situations aren’t as grey as they appear. If a loved one approaches you and confides that they were in some way exploited or violated, before you ask yourself, “Was that rape?”, ask yourself, “Was my friend hurt as a result of this other person’s actions?” If your answer is “yes,” then be there for your friend. There are a million questions that you can and should ask yourself afterwards, such as “Do I want to continue to associate with someone who caused harm to a friend?” or “Am I comfortable around somebody who can so easily exploit another human being?” (the answers should definitely be “no”) but it all starts with knowing that it is wrong to hurt others. Instead of mystifying one of the worst traumas a person can experience, we would all be better off leading with empathy.