By: Danielle Binks

Last week there was a ‘sex pest’ in Melbourne’s northwest which, as my colleague Bernadette pointed out, made him sound no more annoying than a fly hanging around your Christmas dinner. In one early article the man was described as a ‘sex fiend’, ‘serial sex attacker’ and a ‘predator’ - but not yet a ‘rapist’. 

One woman spoke of fighting off the ‘sex pest’ with a swift swat to his genitals, but Det Sgt Brett Meadows said police were worried the next victim might not be so lucky: "It’s quite likely the (attacks) could get worse or we can have a victim that isn’t able to fight him off," he said. I assume that ‘worse’ means ‘rape’, and the next victim “might not be so lucky” because she won’t just have been the victim of an annoying ‘sex pest’ but a rapist, which if you ask any woman is infinitely worse.

Whenever I read articles that talk of ‘sexual assault’, I always read it as ‘not rape.’ And I don’t consciously read it that way to diminish what happened to victims, but because I think any adult woman would agree that on the trauma spectrum, you’d do just about anything to avoid being raped including enduring ‘sexual assault’ so long as it didn’t end in rape.

But the term ‘sexual assault’ is a murky one in the news media, as I discovered when I contacted the Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault. I was prompted to do so after talking with colleagues about another sexual assault that occurred in Box Hill. I shared my guilt-ridden thoughts of ‘at least it wasn’t rape’, when one of my colleagues piped up with a terrible thought – what if it’s only legal constraints that stop a newspaper printing the words ‘rape’ or ‘alleged rape’?

I know that this has always been part of the journalism code of ethics, but after the death of Jill Meagher last year news outlets were particularly concerned with educating the public on why discussing the Jill Meagher case in social media was doing harm to the upcoming trial, and why social media discussions should adhere to similar journalism ethics protocols when discussing the case. In law, sub judice, Latin for "under judgment", means that a particular case or matter is under trial or being considered by a judge or court. So printing the word ‘rape’ in a newspaper article implies guilt and could harm the basis for a fair and unbiased trial.

I wondered if this was why we’re more likely to hear about sexual assaults than alleged rapes in the news. When I asked the ACSSA if ‘sexual assault’ and ‘rape’ were one in the same for media reportage, I was given this explanation: “the media may be using these terms differently, or indeed interchangeably.  I would recommend that you speak to news media outlets and find out what they mean when they use the words 'sexual assault' and 'rape'.”

So there’s not even a uniform terminology that all media outlets are to adhere to when reporting on rape and sexual assault? What exactly is there to stop a newspaper from only ever printing the words ‘sexual assault’ when another outlet would say ‘attempted rape’? What is lost when these words are interchangeable?

Reading up on sexual assault laws in Australia reveals that media definitions are likely confounded by the fact that the very definitions of sexual assault and rape vary slightly across jurisdictions. There is no universally accepted definition of "sexual assault" and, as such, there are variations in the type of behaviour that constitutes sexual assault or rape depending upon the state or territory one is in.

According to an ACSSA Media Backgrounder, which is a resource for media and journalists in writing articles, sexual assault definitions vary, based on the range of behaviours viewed as constituting sexual assault or sexual violence.

These might include:

• sexual harassment;




• sexualised bullying;




• unwanted kissing and sexual touching;




• sexual pressure and coercion; and




• forced sexual activity.

And that last dot point, ‘forced sexual activity’ could well cover a myriad of horrors that leads into discussions of what constitutes sex – penetration? Oral stimulation? What about the broadness of 'sexual harassment' - because I know I've been subjected to some particularly foul-mouthed, sexually-charged taunts on public transport that have made my skin crawl - but does that warrant a phone call to the police? Is this perhaps why women don't report sexual assaults - because how are we suppoed to know what constitutes sexual assault if the Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault aren't even 100% clear!?

Rape wordage was discussed by Susan Hawthorne back in 2009, for a blog on gender mainstreaming. In this piece, Hawthorne discusses what is lost when we try to be politically correct in talking about rape:

GBSV stands for gender-based sexual violence. Rape is a perfectly useful word and should be used whenever GBSV is encountered. Every rape, even when the protagonists are not male or the violated ones are not female is based on the idea that men rape women: subject verb object. It is an instance of power over by the powerful and no amount of obscuring will change that. All it results in is a deadening of language.

That ‘sex-pest’ in Melbourne’s northwest has now been captured and his name is Phillip Taupin - he's also now being called the 'alleged bike-path attacker' now. He faced a Magistrates Court with 18 charges over attacks on seven females between December 30 and January 4. It should come as no surprise to anyone that Det Sgt Brett Meadows was quite right in saying that the man’s attacks could escalate with each victim, because Mr. Taupin has also been charged with three counts of raping a woman at Lalor train station back in August, 2011.

Newspaper articles about Mr. Taupin’s sex-pesting ways now say he attempted “assault with intent to rape” – versus the original claims of simply ‘sexual assault’. But that clarification of “intent to rape” has only come with hindsight and realizing that he has prior charges of rape against him. For what it’s worth, I see the term ‘sexual assault’ more than I ever do ‘alleged’ or ‘attempted rape’ when reading newspaper articles. So what’s to say any sexual assault isn’t just a lead-up to an attempted rape (as with ‘sex-pest’ Phillip Taupin. Or does ‘rape-pest’ not have quite the same ring to it?)