Yesterday the New York Times reported on the arrest of four college athletes accused of raping two women. In the body of their story, the Times described the allegations plainly, saying that the four stood “accused of raping two female students from nearby Spelman College in Atlanta.”

In the article’s headline, however, in print and online, the paper said the students had been arrested on “Sex Charges.” Not rape charges, sex charges.

Over the course of the afternoon feminists questioned the Times’ choice of headline on social media, with several — including myself — addressing complaints directly to the paper’s Public Editor and Standards Editor. Neither has responded directly so far, but not long after the paper’s critics hit Twitter the online version of the headline was amended — it now says the students “Face Sexual Assault Charges.”

As it turns out, the Times is unusual in that its in-house style manual specifically warns against euphemism in rape reporting. It discourages the use of terms such as “criminal attack” and “criminal assault” in such cases, and directs writers to use the word “rape” in reference to “forced intercourse, or intercourse with a child below the age of consent,” even where state law uses the term “sexual assault.” (The Associated Press Stylebook,” the most widely consulted style manual for journalists in the United States, is silent on these issues.)

In a 2011 blogpost on the Penn State rape scandal, the Times’ Public Editor Arthur Brisbane addressed just this question, declaring that “journalists should avoid using the language of consensual sex” when reporting on sexual assault “and, when appropriate, they should call a rape a rape.” Though that post bore the title “Confusing Sex and Rape,” however, Brisbane used the phrase “sex crimes” no fewer than five times within it. (Brisbane has since been replaced as Public Editor by Margaret Sullivan.)

Some may argue that the presence of the word “crime” or “charge” is enough to make clear that what is being described is a violation, not a consensual act. But unlike the phrase “sexual assault,” “sex crime” and “sex charge” carry no unambiguous connotation of non-consensuality. Consensual sodomy is a crime in many places (and was in the United States until recently). Other sexual acts — public sex, prostitution — are still criminal even in circumstances in which all parties are freely consenting.

Last month the Associated Press announced that it would no longer permit the use of the term “illegal immigrant” in its reporting, and the New York Times deprecated its use a few weeks later. The terms “sex,” “sex crime,” and “sex charge” are inappropriate euphemisms when used to describe allegations of non-consensual behavior. The Times should explicitly ban them from its pages, and the Associated Press should follow suit.