From Verbal Violence to the Reproduction of Domination – A Case Study on Iran

Language as the Mirror of Power

Political language does more than transmit demands or express dissent. It reflects underlying power relations, collective imaginaries, and moral boundaries that become especially visible during periods of crisis, repression, or political transition. The metaphors and symbolic frameworks used in such moments are not random: they draw on historical memory, entrenched cultural patterns, and learned cognitive associations that shape how political conflict is understood and narrated. Following the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom movement triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini, sexualized forms of political language—particularly references to rape, bodily humiliation, and sexual domination—have become increasingly visible in Iranian political discourse, especially in online environments. These forms appear not only in extremist or marginal spaces but also in intra-opposition conflicts, online campaigns, and highly circulated political commentary. This observation does not claim a measurable increase in frequency, but rather an increased visibility and salience of such language within public political debate. Human rights organizations have documented the use of sexual violence and sexualized threats as instruments of repression by Iranian security forces during and after the 2022 protests, including rape, gang rape, sexual assault with objects, and threats of rape during detention and interrogation (Amnesty International 2023; United Nations 2024; U.S. Department of State 2023). In parallel, digital rights and press freedom organizations have reported persistent patterns of online harassment and gendered abuse targeting women journalists and women’s rights defenders connected to Iran, including sexualized threats and humiliation (ARTICLE 19 2021; Committee to Protect Journalists 2021). The coexistence of documented state sexual violence and the circulation of sexualized domination metaphors in political speech raises a critical analytical question: how does the symbolic use of rape function within political language, and what forms of power does it reproduce?

Metaphor, Power, and the Body

In cognitive linguistics, metaphors are not merely stylistic devices; they are central mechanisms for understanding abstract concepts. Conceptual Metaphor Theory demonstrates that people routinely interpret complex political ideas—such as nationhood, crisis, or authority—through embodied experiences (Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Lakoff and Johnson 1987). Political theory has long relied on bodily metaphors: Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan famously conceptualized the state as a human body composed of individual parts. Within this framework, describing a nation as a “body that has been raped” does more than express outrage. Such metaphors tend to activate a set of interpretive assumptions: Reduction to Passivity. The metaphor shifts the political community from a collective of agents to a violated body defined primarily by injury. Agency becomes secondary to damage, and political action is reframed as recovery rather than transformation. Marginalization of Structural Analysis. Systemic factors—institutions, political economy, coercive apparatuses—risk being displaced by a narrative centred on bodily violation. Political crisis is translated into sexual injury, moving analysis from structures of power to the management of a damaged body. Legitimization of Guardianship. Bodily violation metaphors implicitly invite figures of protection, repair, or restoration. Authority is reimagined as the capacity to “heal” or “restore” the violated body, aligning with hierarchical and centralized models of power. These effects are not inevitable outcomes of metaphor usage, but they represent recurrent interpretive tendencies documented in feminist and critical political theory. For instance, feminist analyses highlight how rape metaphors in legal and political discourse manipulate conceptual frames to diminish victims’ agency, often framing rape as an inevitable or naturalized event rather than a systemic act of power (Luchjenbroers and Aldridge 2007; Anderson and Doherty 2007).

Gendered Metaphors and the Logic of Guardianship

The feminization of land, nation, or sovereignty has a long history in nationalist, colonial, and authoritarian discourses. In nineteenth-century European nationalism, territories were frequently portrayed as vulnerable female bodies whose “violation” justified masculine intervention, militarization, and control (McClintock 1995; Yuval-Davis 1997). This pattern extends to contemporary authoritarian contexts, where sexualized language reinforces gendered hierarchies and normalizes violence as a tool of control (Henderson 2007). Within patriarchal political systems, this metaphor aligns with a broader logic of guardianship: bodies presumed to lack full agency are positioned as requiring protection by a superior authority—whether framed as a father, king, or saviour figure. When political leaders or commentators describe a nation as a raped woman in need of repair, they reproduce this guardianship logic symbolically, regardless of intent. The metaphor naturalizes asymmetry between protector and protected, authority and subject. Feminist scholarship further critiques this by examining how such metaphors intersect with Foucauldian notions of power, where rape discourse serves not only to repress but to produce subjectivities aligned with dominant ideologies (Henderson 2007; Rohrer 1995). In authoritarian regimes, this can perpetuate a cycle where sexualized threats become embedded in both state rhetoric and opposition responses, undermining collective agency and reinforcing patriarchal norms (Marcus 1992).

Distinguishing Forms of Linguistic Violence

Not all harsh or sexual language functions in the same way. Analytical clarity requires distinguishing among different discursive forms:

General Profanity
Non-sexual or asexual profanity often serves as emotional discharge under repression. While aggressive, it does not inherently reproduce a stable hierarchy of domination.

Taboo-Breaking Sexual Language
Sexual vocabulary can be used to challenge moral control, break the silence, and reclaim bodily autonomy. Feminist and queer movements—including Iran’s #MeToo testimonies—have used explicit language as a political tool against shame and silencing.

Rape-Oriented Language
Distinct from both categories is language that frames rape not as a crime, but as a metaphor for punishment, humiliation, or absolute power. In this register, sexual violence becomes a symbolic technology of domination, reducing the “other” to an object of violation and erasure.

This form of language aligns with what feminist theorists describe as sexualized domination. Expanding on this, feminist analyses of rape in political discourse reveal how such metaphors often employ euphemisms or frames that obscure accountability, particularly in legal settings, thereby perpetuating victim-blaming and systemic inequality (Trinch 2003; Gavey 2018). In authoritarian contexts, this linguistic strategy intersects with broader power dynamics, where rape metaphors legitimize state violence while marginalizing survivors’ narratives (Cahill 2001).

Freedom, Sexuality, and a Central Paradox

Many feminist and social movements in Iran seek to remove sexuality from regimes of shame and punishment, reclaiming it as a domain of consent and autonomy. Rape-oriented political language moves in the opposite direction: it reconverts sex into a weapon, transforming it from an expression of agency into a symbol of coercion. This paradox is vividly illustrated in documented chants from the Woman, Life, Freedom protests, where even women participants—central to the movement’s feminist ethos—employ sexualized language that adopts a predominantly male perspective. For instance, chants invoking forceful penetration (e.g., references to inserting objects or body parts into symbols of authority, such as the regime’s leadership or institutions, often feminized or portrayed as vulnerable) demonstrate how these metaphors compel speakers to regenerate frameworks of sexual domination.

Such language, while intended as defiance, reinforces phallocentric imagery of violation, potentially internalizing punitive sexual norms and highlighting the metaphor’s pervasive power in shaping discourse, even among those resisting patriarchal control. U.S. State Department reporting confirms that the Iranian state has used threats of rape and sexual assault as tools of detention and interrogation (U.S. Department of State 2023).

The analytical concern raised here is not moral equivalence, but symbolic reproduction: when opposition rhetoric adopts metaphors of sexual domination—even critically—it risks reinforcing the same punitive frameworks at the level of political imagination. Feminist theory deepens this insight by emphasizing how such language perpetuates a “rape culture” that normalizes sexual violence as a political tool, intersecting with race, class, and colonialism to compound marginalization (Buchwald et al. 2005; Harding 2021). This paradox highlights the need for antirape praxis that centers intersectional resistance, challenging not just state actions but the discursive reproduction of dominance (Davis 1981).

Historical Shifts in Iranian Political Language

Iranian political discourse has undergone significant transformations:

• Constitutional Era: Satire and bodily humour were often deployed to critique tyranny and clerical authority, with the body functioning as a site of exposure rather than punishment.
• Post-1979 Period: Official political language became increasingly moralized, while the female body emerged as a central site of state control through compulsory veiling and documented sexual violence in detention contexts.
• 1990s and 2009 Green Movement: Dominant protest slogans emphasized legality, citizenship, and moral claims rather than sexualized humiliation.
• Post 2011: Online platforms facilitated the visibility of more aggressive and humiliating language, including sexualized metaphors, within political confrontation.

These shifts do not represent linear progression; rather, they reflect changing symbolic repertoires shaped by repression, media environments, and collective trauma.

Social Media and Discursive Amplification

Engagement-driven digital platforms tend to amplify content that provokes strong emotional responses, including outrage and fear. Research on platform dynamics suggests that such incentive structures can privilege extreme or dehumanizing language over deliberative discourse. Social media also collapses boundaries between previously “private” informal speech and public political debate, exposing discursive layers shaped under long-term repression without institutional mediation.

Neuroplasticity and Discursive Habituation

Neuroscience research on neuroplasticity shows that repeated exposure to linguistic stimuli can reshape attention, emotional salience, and habitual responses (Pulvermüller 2005; Citron 2012). Emotionally charged or violent language activates neural systems for threat detection, emotional processing, and memory, enhancing impact; profane and sexualized words, in particular, elicit stronger amygdala responses due to their taboo nature, linking to heightened arousal and reward pathways similar to those in media violence exposure (Bergen 2016; Anderson et al. 2020).

Dehumanizing representations reduce activity in networks for perspective-taking and social cognition (Harris and Fiske 2006), potentially weakening empathy and moral restraint. Chronic exposure to hate speech or violent media leads to desensitization via diminished frontolimbic responses regulating empathy and aggression (Kelly et al. 2007; Pluta et al. 2023). fMRI studies link repeated dehumanizing language to reduced amygdala-anterior cingulate connectivity, impairing pain empathy and increasing harm tolerance toward outgroups (Guillard and Harris 2019; Dunbar 2022). Exposure to sexualized or violent rhetoric, including profane slurs, can exacerbate this by altering connectivity in emotion regulation networks, fostering indifference or normalized aggression (Butler et al. 2022; Mathews and MacLeod 2005; Mikesell 2024).

Social reinforcement stabilizes these patterns: approved expressions are repeated, entrenching habits without ideological intent.
Thus, sustained rape-oriented metaphors may embed punitive frames in political interpretation, beyond individual intent.

Political Consequences

Democratic politics depends on recognizing opponents as rights-bearing subjects rather than enemies to be annihilated. Rape-oriented political language undermines this foundation by transforming political disagreement into a logic of bodily domination. Historical research on authoritarianism shows that dehumanizing language often precedes the normalization of unlimited coercive power.
Movements that normalize humiliation and symbolic erasure face a structural risk of reproducing these logics within institutions after gaining power—not as inevitability, but as a documented pattern in political transitions.

Leadership and Symbolic Responsibility

Leadership is defined not only by programs, but by symbolic boundaries. How leaders respond to dehumanizing language within their support base—by condemnation, silence, or encouragement—signals the kind of power they envision. Silence may function as tacit legitimation.
Democratic leadership requires transforming anger into accountable political action. Where humiliation becomes normalized, commitment to pluralism and rights becomes difficult to sustain.

Conclusion

The circulation of rape-oriented metaphors in Iranian political discourse is not merely a question of civility. It reflects deeper structural tensions produced by repression, trauma, and the symbolic inheritance of state violence. If political language continues to frame bodies as objects of domination, the promise of liberation remains fragile.
Democracy is not built by institutions alone. It requires a political imagination capable of resisting the symbolic reproduction of domination. Without reconstructing the language through which power is imagined, political transitions risk carrying old logics into new forms of rule.

Bibliography

Amnesty International. 2023. “They Violently Raped Me”: Sexual Violence Weaponized to Crush Iran’s Woman Life Freedom Uprising. London.
Anderson, Irina, and Kathy Doherty. 2007. Accounting for Rape: Psychology, Feminism and Discourse Analysis in the Study of Sexual Violence. London: Routledge.
Anderson, Craig A., et al. 2020. “The Influence of Media Violence on Youth.” Psychological Science in the Public Interest 21 (2): 81–110.
ARTICLE 19. 2021. “Online Harassment Against Women Journalists in the Iranian Diaspora.” London.
Bergen, Benjamin K. 2016. What the F: What Swearing Reveals About Our Language, Our Brains, and Ourselves. New York: Basic Books.
Buchwald, Emilie, Pamela Fletcher, and Martha Roth, eds. 2005. Transforming a Rape Culture. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions.
Butler, Emily A., et al. 2022. “Emotional Language Processing: Neural Mechanisms and Implications for Mental Health.” Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 135: 104567.
Cahill, Ann J. 2001. Rethinking Rape. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Citron, Francesca M. M. 2012. “Neural Correlates of Emotional Language Processing.” Brain and Language 122 (1): 66–74.
Committee to Protect Journalists. 2021. “Online Harassment Against Women Journalists in the Iranian Diaspora.” New York.
Davis, Angela Y. 1981. Women, Race, and Class. New York: Random House.
Dunbar, Edward W. 2022. “The Neuroscience of Hate and Bias Ideology: A Brain-Behavior Approach to Bias Aggression.” Aggression and Violent Behavior 62: 101678.
Gavey, Nicola. 2018. Just Sex? The Cultural Scaffolding of Rape. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
Guillard, Charlotte, and Lasana T. Harris. 2019. “The Neuroscience of Dehumanization and Its Implications for Political Violence.” In The Routledge International Handbook of Military Psychology and Mental Health, edited by Updesh Kumar, 1st ed., 434–48. London: Routledge.
Harding, Kate. 2021. “Rethinking Rape Culture: Revelations of Intersectional Analysis.” American Political Science Review 115 (4): 1224–40.
Harris, Lasana T., and Susan T. Fiske. 2006. “Dehumanizing the Lowest of the Low.” Psychological Science 17 (10): 847–853.
Henderson, Holly. 2007. “Feminism, Foucault, and Rape: A Theory and Politics of Rape Prevention.” Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice 22: 225–68.
Kelly, Christopher R., Matthew L. Gruys, and Steven Sackett. 2007. “Repeated Exposure to Media Violence Is Associated with Diminished Response in an Inhibitory Frontolimbic Network.” PLOS ONE 2 (12): e1268.
Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. 1987. “The Metaphorical Logic of Rape.” Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 2 (1): 73–79.
Luchjenbroers, June, and Michelle Aldridge. 2007. “Conceptual Manipulation by Metaphors and Frames: Dealing with Rape Victims in Legal Discourse.” Text & Talk 27 (3): 339–59.
Marcus, Sharon. 1992. “Fighting Bodies, Fighting Words: A Theory and Politics of Rape Prevention.” In Feminists Theorize the Political, edited by Judith Butler and Joan W. Scott, 385–403. New York: Routledge.
Mathews, Andrew, and Colin MacLeod. 2005. “Cognitive Vulnerability to Emotional Disorders.” Annual Review of Clinical Psychology 1: 167–95.
McClintock, Anne. 1995. Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest. New York: Routledge.
Mikesell, Carly M. 2024. “Exploring Mechanisms of Rehumanization: Can Cognitive-Based Compassion Training Reduce Blatant Dehumanization?” Frontiers in Psychology 15: 1103718.
Pluta, Agnieszka, Joanna Mazurek, Jakub Wojciechowski, and Tomasz Wolak. 2023. “Exposure to Hate Speech Deteriorates Neurocognitive Mechanisms of the Ability to Understand Others’ Pain.” Scientific Reports 13 (1): 2917.
Pulvermüller, Friedemann. 2005. “Brain Mechanisms Linking Language and Action.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 6: 576–582.
Rohrer, Tim. 1995. “The Metaphorical Logic of (Political) Rape: The New Wor(l)d Order.” Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 10 (2): 115–37.
Trinch, Shonna L. 2003. Latinas’ Narratives of Domestic Abuse: Discrepant Versions of Violence. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
United Nations. 2024. Report of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran. Geneva.
U.S. Department of State. 2023. Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Iran. Washington, DC.
Yuval-Davis, Nira. 1997. Gender and Nation. London: Sage.