The more the word is used metaphorically, the more people lose touch with what it really means.

The rape metaphors are flying, of late, like Cabbage Patch dolls off shelves during a holiday stampede.

The latest inappropriate rape metaphor was volleyed on Monday by Elisabeth Hasselbeck on The View during a discussion of vile tweets Chris Brown lobbed at comedienne Jenny Johnson in an online spat. Hasselbeck called Brown's Twitter tantrum "verbal rape," while co-host Whoopi Goldberg disagreed, suggesting instead that both Johnson and Brown were guilty of "verbal assault."

I'm with Whoopi on this one. There are plenty of apt words for Chris Brown's obscene tweets—"disgusting," "juvenile," "pornographic,"" immoral," "stupid," "pathetic," and "unworthy of attention" immediately come to mind—but "rape"? Please.

Can we just call a ceasefire on the rape metaphors?

After all, all words are not created equal. And while language is ever evolving, and the connotations of words always shifting, "rape" is a word whose use and power ought to be respected and reserved for its true meaning. Not out of respect for what the word signifies, but out of respect for the power over the act that naming it offers us.