Some 20,000 sex criminals in Colorado get “treatment” from the state Sex Offender Management Board, or “SOMB.” It’s a big bureaucracy with layers of committees and “work groups.”
Rapists treated by the SOMB are of course not called “rapists.” In fact, that term appears nowhere on the big SOMB website. It was banned years ago because it became associated with criminals who coercively, forcibly and sometimes violently prey sexually upon others – persons who commit what we used to call “rape.”
Stated another way, the term “rapist” came to connote persons who rape. Such a connotation offended such persons and the bureaucracy that caters to them. Hence the modern non-judgmental and non-insulting term, “sex offender.”
But the SOMB now considers even “sex offender” too injurious to the feelings of sex offenders. That’s because “sex offender” has come to connote persons who . . . well . . . coercively, forcibly and sometimes violently prey sexually upon others – persons who commit what we used to call “rape.” Parts of the SOMB website now refer to such persons as “clients.”
Having eradicated rape in Colorado by semantic decree, the SOMB now has time on its hands and wants to formalize its semantics. It wants to adopt a new name for persons who . . . well . . . you know. The new name is “client.”
Always responsive to the public they serve, the SOMB invites us as the public to pick a specific “client” term. The choices are, verbatim from the SOMB website:
— Clients/Adults/Individuals who commit sexual offenses
— Clients/Adults/Individuals who engage in sexually abusive behavior
— Client/Adults/Individuals in treatment for engaging in sexually abusive behaviors
— Clients/Adults/Individuals who have committed sexual offenses
— Client
— None of the above
— No preference/whatever term the Board selects
In short, your choice is to vote for a “client” term or none at all.
These semantics games are what the left does. Looters cannot be called “looters” anymore because “looters” has become associated with people who loot. Looters have feelings, and those feelings get hurt when they’re called “looters” for looting. Because criminals who vote usually vote Democrat, the Dems want to spare them hurt feelings.
Now they’re called “smash-and-grabbers.” Of course, “smash-and-grabbers” will soon become offensive to looters because the phrase will become associated with looting, and then we’ll have to find yet another euphemism.
“Racial discrimination” was replaced years ago with “affirmative action” until the latter became associated with the former. Then it was “diversity” and then “equity” and then “anti-racism.” Nice try, but all these terms are now rightly known to be euphemisms for racial discrimination.
The Democrats have been playing these word games for a century. “Socialism” got cancelled because people came to associate it with Democrats who coercively, forcibly and sometimes violently take money from people who earn it and give it to people who vote for them – what we used to call “theft.”
They replaced “socialism” with a term they stole, “liberalism,” but that too became associated with . . . well . . . Dems who coercively, forcibly and sometimes violently take money from people who earn it and give it to people who vote for them – what we used to call “theft.”
Then came “Progressive” and then “Woke” but each time the Dems have to replace the word when it becomes associated with . . . well . . . you know.
Expect the same corruption of the word “client” once the SOMB adopts it. “Client” will come to connote criminals who . . . well . . .you know. And so in a few years the SOMB will have to come up with yet another euphemism for such persons.
Prediction: They’ll come up with a word for these criminals which they think is incapable of developing a bad connotation such as “sexually misunderstoods” or maybe “victims of their own sexual desire” or maybe “Joseph Rosenbaums.”
A college professor recently defended pedophiles with the moniker “child-attracted persons.” So maybe rapists will become “rape-victim-attracted persons.”
Prediction Number Two: They’ll have to drop those terms as well because, like every term used to label persons who commit certain criminal acts, those terms will come to connote persons who commit such criminal acts.
In the meantime, the SOMB’s new use of “client” presents a ticklish matter for lawyers. Back when I practiced law, we referred to our customers as “clients” because, I suppose, “customers” revealed the mercantilism for which lawyers are sometimes known.
After the SOMB adopts “client” to label rapists, er, sex offenders, er, persons who commit sexual offenses, er, persons who coercively, forcibly and sometimes violently prey upon others sexually – persons who commit what we used to call “rape” – then what will lawyers call their customers?
Maybe “Johns”?
the Aspen beat 
How about if you don’t want your feelings hurt then don’t loot, rape, steal, etc. If we could only follow the ten commandments. They have certainly covered all the bases for thousands of years.
Excellent advice.
Well, they can’t be called “John” because people with the name of John would become associated with . . .
Here’s an interesting related thought:
If an 11-year old is mature enough to make the decision to mutilate his/her/their genitals for “gender confirmation” surgery without parental involvement or even notice, then isn’t an 11-year old also mature enough to make the decision to have sex with an adult?
Legalized pedophilia is the logical outcome. Ugh.
Glenn,
Can you please define logic?
Well, for you and me, Robert, it is derived not merely from the Greek word for “reason,” but from John’s use of the word for the Second Person of the Christian Trinity. It is signifies the very Light of Truth that shines in the darkness, and which the darkness cannot “comprehend” — that is, seize utterly and extinguish.
Nothing is more outrageous than watching the folly of Leftist bureaucrats employing Orwellian tactics to boost the self-esteem of criminal psychopaths and sociopaths.
I would like to give these bureaucrats a taste of their own medicine by having these so called “clients” register onto babysitting and child daycare employment hiring lists in which these same bureaucrats enroll their own children for child care services. Let’s see if the bureaucrats are willing to risk and expose their very own children to what they are dumping onto to the rest of society.
In the meantime, don’t like the term “sex offender?”
Okay then … then let’s better refine the term and call “sex offenders” with the new term …convicted criminal perverts.
Problem solved.
Hardly surprising for a society that routinely employs the word “tragedy” to describe an event in which planes are flown into the World Trade Center or a SUV is driven purposefully into a crowd of Christmas revelers in Waukesha. (Indeed, the latter example has just been referred to as an “accident caused by an SUV.”) Apparently the more appropriate term, “atrocity,” is reserved for events having the order of magnitude of the Nazi Holocaust; anything less is an error in judgment.
Almost as bad is the use of “pedophilia” to describe what used to be known as “pederasty” — homosexual predation whose “clients” are not children, but sexually mature young men, who of course are just as vulnerable are scarred for life by such expressions of “love.”
“Evil” itself, of course, is a word employed only by various species of “phobes,” Bible thumpers, and white supremacist terrorists.
This also means the SOMB will need to change its name. My passing thought on this matter is that in the not-so-distant past, our Governor would be considered a sex offender for his life style choices, instead of just a demented progressive that he is.
Just so.
I’ve stopped using the term looter. I prefer thieves and opportunists.
No one can make me call rapists, clients. If journalists have any self respect they will do the same. Are we all meant to fall into line at such disgusting, woke pronouncements?
I’m a liberal on most but not all issues. Moreover, I had a very good career in sex offender treatment and management. I taught classes on it, published, helped write a of ethics for the National Association and was involved in creating California’s SOMB. In short, I’ve got creds on this subject. And I TOTALLY agree with Glenn. I’m liberal on most issues but I never say I’m “a Liberal.” The Liberal tendency to address problems by creating and banning words is one of the reasons.
Funny you should mention “johns”, because prostitution is still a sex crime (for both parties), in Colorado. If a woman is arrested for solicitation, will she be referred to as a client in legal proceedings? This is getting really confusing.
I can’t help wondering if Rosenbaum’s strabismus could indicate some kind of neurological disorder that led to criminality
I don’t get it. For over a century, progs have insisted that “Biology is not destiny.” If you don’t like the chromosomes you were born with, then change your “gender.” But the line of thinking you have laid out suggests that free will and moral choice are determined by biology.
Which is it?
I don’t get it. For over a century, progs have insisted that “Biology is not destiny.” If you don’t like the chromosomes you were born with, then change your “gender.” But the line of thinking you have laid out suggests that free will and moral choice are determined by biology.
Which is it?