I think throwing such accusations around is a dangerous business. When you slap "rape apologist" on anybody who you disagree with, you reduce the term's value. Think of politically and socially charged terms as electronic devices. The more you use them, the more you drain the battery. Words like "rape" and "misogynist" are joining words like "emo" in the ranks of terms that have been so overused on the Internet, their inherent impact has all but disappeared.

When we spend our time accusing Penny Arcade of enabling rape, we do an injustice to *real* cases of sexual abuse where somebody has legitimately suffered. We end up in a "cry wolf" situation where, eventually, nobody wants to pay attention because they heard it all before.

We've seen this with racism. People pulled the race card so much that there's beginning to be a backlash. Accusations of racism have become a comedy staple, the fear of being labeled a racist is a joke that is often played out in TV shows like The Office. It no longer *means* anything to be accused of such things, because such accusations are casually tossed out with little respect to their actual meaning.

You can accuse Penny Arcade of belittling rape with its comic. I do not believe it did, but you could potentially make the argument. If you do, however, I would demand that we also examine how the other side of the debate has belittled rape by turning it into just another weapon in their petty online bickering.

This argument has achieved little more than make people sick of the word rape. That's not healthy.