While I'm not going to condone those kinds of comments in the workforce or elsewhere, I'm not quite sure what the general justification is for putting "rape analogies" on such a pedestal compared to other major crimes.
Murder - "That went so badly, we just got slaughtered in that meeting"
Rape - "If we aren't careful the competition's going to rape us"
Theft - "We need to put in a plan to steal their customers ASAP"
What throws me is all of those are Big Bad Things, especially murder, but I don't feel like there would be anywhere nearly the same kind of pushback to anything except making a rape analogy. Maybe a slavery analogy would do it as well? People have gone through terrible experiences where someone they love has been murdered etc, so I'm not sure it's just about the level of trauma it can induce.
Murder - "That went so badly, we just got slaughtered in that meeting"
Rape - "If we aren't careful the competition's going to rape us"
Theft - "We need to put in a plan to steal their customers ASAP"
What throws me is all of those are Big Bad Things, especially murder, but I don't feel like there would be anywhere nearly the same kind of pushback to anything except making a rape analogy. Maybe a slavery analogy would do it as well? People have gone through terrible experiences where someone they love has been murdered etc, so I'm not sure it's just about the level of trauma it can induce.