Lindsay K. Fullerton
Liberty University & Southern Utah University
Hayden V. Coombs
Southern Utah University
Suggested Citation:
Fullerton, L. K., & Coombs, H. V. (2025). Arguers as players: A game theory reframing of Brockriede’s seminal essay. Utah Journal of Communication, 3(2), 145-151. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17719554
Abstract
Wayne Brockriede’s (1972) Arguers as Lovers marked a pivotal shift in argumentation studies by framing argument as a relational and ethical practice rather than merely a logical one. His metaphors of the “rapist,” “seducer,” and “lover” captured dynamics of coercion, manipulation, and respect, shaping decades of scholarship on rhetorical ethics. However, subsequent critiques have highlighted the limitations and harms of sexual violence metaphors, which risk retraumatizing survivors, reinforcing adversarial models, and undermining trauma-informed pedagogy (Foss & Griffin, 1995; Ben-Amitay et al., 2015). This article argues that while Brockriede’s relational insight remains invaluable, his metaphors should be retired. Drawing on game theory, it is proposed to reframe arguers as Enforcer, Trickster, Teammate, and Spoiler—roles that preserve distinctions of domination, deception, cooperation, and betrayal without invoking harmful imagery. This trauma-informed reframing honors Brockriede’s legacy while providing a more accessible and culturally relevant model for contemporary scholarship, pedagogy, and health communication.
Keywords: Argumentation, Game theory, Trauma-informed pedagogy, Rhetorical ethics, Metaphor.
Wayne Brockriede’s (1972) Arguers as Lovers stands as one of the most influential essays in the history of argumentation theory. The essay shifted scholarly attention away from the purely logical and technical dimensions of argument toward its ethical and relational dimensions. Brockriede identified three metaphorical stances to describe the ways arguers interact in conflict through intentions, attitudes, and consequences. This framework offered a new way of thinking about argument as a relational practice, grounding it in questions of power, equality, and responsibility rather than only in reasoning or persuasion (Van Eemeren et al., 2013).
Although widely adopted, Brockriede’s metaphors have been subject to sustained criticism as they are rooted in sexual violence. Scholars have argued that the use of sexual violence as metaphor is ethically problematic, conceptually ambiguous, and pedagogically harmful. Metaphors affect emotion and behavior, not just reasoning (Andreolli, 2024). Others note that in classroom contexts, references to rape, seduction, and molestation risk retraumatizing survivors and alienating students, undermining the very commitment to ethical communication that Brockriede sought to advance (Ben-Amitay et al., 2015; Mok, 2025).
This article argues that while Brockriede’s relational insight remains invaluable, his metaphors should be retired. Building on game theory, new metaphors are proposed: Enforcer, Trickster, Teammate, and Spoiler. These new metaphors aim to preserve Brockriede’s ethical distinctions without reproducing harmful imagery. Using metaphors indiscriminately in health communication runs avoidable risks (Hauser & Schwarz, 2020). By reframing rather than discarding, we can honor Brockriede’s legacy while offering a trauma-informed model appropriate for contemporary scholarship, pedagogy, and health communication.
Literature Review
Wayne Brockriede’s (1972) Arguers as Lovers is widely regarded as a turning point in argumentation studies because it shifted the field’s focus from logic and strategy to the relational and ethical dynamics of discourse. He proposed three metaphorical stances to describe how arguers interact: the “rapist,” who coerces through force; the “seducer,” who manipulates through charm or deceit; and the “lover,” who seeks engagement grounded in respect and mutual understanding. By emphasizing that arguers inevitably bring their humanness into the process of disagreement, Brockriede positioned argument as an ethical practice rather than a purely technical one (Van Eemeren et al., 2013).
Brockriede argued that ethical argumentation requires “bilateral power parity,” where participants recognize one another as equals rather than objects to be dominated. This challenged dominant adversarial models of the time that emphasized winning and conquest over collaboration. His framework invited scholars and educators to evaluate not only the content of arguments but also the quality of relationships between arguers (Brockriede, 1972).
Adversariality and Rhetorical Critique
Despite its influence, Brockriede’s framework drew criticism for conceptual and practical ambiguities. Blythin (1979) pointed out that his categories were not always clearly defined. For instance, describing the rapist’s intent as either “manipulation” or “violation” conflates very different actions, and characterizing the seducer as one who can either “charm” or “trick” blurs the line between benign persuasion and deception. These ambiguities, Blythin argued, complicated the consistent application of the framework. While recognizing its potential as an evaluative tool, he called for greater definitional clarity.
Dowling (1983) extended the discussion to pedagogy, observing that competitive debate often encourages “rapist” or “seducer” styles, privileging domination and manipulation over ethical engagement. He suggested that Brockriede’s framework could be useful in debate education by encouraging students to reflect on the ethics of argumentative practice. In this way, Arguers as Lovers began to shape how educators approached the teaching of communication and forensics, even as its metaphors sparked discomfort.
Later scholarship situated Brockriede’s work within broader critiques of adversarial paradigms in argumentation. Casey (2020) argued that adversarial models of communication, whether framed as conquest, manipulation, or seduction, distort the purpose of dialogue by privileging domination over understanding. Although not directed solely at Arguers as Lovers, Casey’s critique echoes concerns that Brockriede’s metaphors, while vivid, risk reinforcing adversarial assumptions. This tension underscores the difficulty of employing metaphors that simultaneously critique domination while drawing directly from its language.
Feminist rhetorical scholars advanced these concerns more directly. Foss and Griffin (1995) argued that persuasion itself, whether framed in terms of force or seduction, remains tied to domination. Even the “lover” stance, they suggested, privileges influence over equality. In response, they proposed invitational rhetoric, a model based on equality, mutuality, and safety, in which communicators offer perspectives without attempting to impose them. This alternative framework directly confronted the patriarchal assumptions embedded in coercive or manipulative metaphors and emphasized inclusivity in rhetorical practice.
Condit (1997) expanded the critique by stressing the importance of accounting for diversity in rhetorical theory. She argued that adversarial metaphors risk oversimplifying or excluding gendered and cultural experiences, reinforcing exclusionary patterns in public communication. Instead, Condit praised models that foster “eloquent diversity,” in which differences are respected and meaning is negotiated without reducing communication to battles for dominance. From this perspective, Brockriede’s metaphors may fail to encompass diverse rhetorical practices and risk perpetuating marginalization.
Expansions and Alternative Models
Beyond critique, scholars have sought to build on and refine Brockriede’s framework. Hample and Dallinger’s “Arguers as Editors” reconceptualized the argument as a collaborative process of revising and refining ideas. In this model, arguers work together to improve discourse, emphasizing construction rather than domination (1990). Similarly, Corder’s (1985) Argument as Emergence, Rhetoric as Love reimagined argument as a cooperative process of discovery, rooted in openness and humility. These expansions extended Brockriede’s relational insight while attempting to avoid his problematic metaphors.
Other extensions aimed to capture dimensions of argumentative behavior not addressed in the original framework. Blythin (1979) highlighted ambiguities, and later scholarship introduced the metaphor of the “molester,” describing arguers who feign intimacy or cooperation only to exploit trust (Van Eemeren et al., 2013; Woods, 2011). Although controversial, the “molester” metaphor reflected efforts to grapple with forms of betrayal and exploitation in discourse.
Enduring Significance and Contemporary Relevance
Taken together, these expansions and critiques demonstrate the durability and limitations of Arguers as Lovers. On one hand, Brockriede’s insistence that argument is about how people treat one another continues to resonate. His virtue-based approach paved the way for scholarship that foregrounds ethics, responsibility, and relationships in argumentation (Van Eemeren et al., 2013). On the other hand, the metaphors he used (rape, seduction, and love), are increasingly recognized as ethically problematic. They risk reinforcing domination, retraumatizing survivors, and excluding diverse perspectives.
The enduring debate around Arguers as Lovers underscores both the brilliance and the limitations of Brockriede’s contribution. His metaphors sparked conversations that inspired new pedagogical practices, feminist alternatives, and theoretical expansions. Yet they also highlight the need for trauma-informed and inclusive frameworks that preserve his insight without reproducing harm. Scholars continue to refine, critique, and reframe his model, demonstrating its lasting impact while adapting it to the needs of contemporary argumentation theory and pedagogy.
Why Sexual Metaphors Should Be Abandoned
Wayne Brockriede’s (1972) Arguers as Lovers was groundbreaking in reframing argument from logical form to relational dynamics. Yet its reliance on sexual violence metaphors creates ethical and pedagogical problems that now outweigh their rhetorical utility. Over the past five decades, scholars in philosophy, rhetoric, feminist studies, and trauma research have shown that such metaphors not only obscure meaning but can also harm learners and perpetuate cultural assumptions (Ben-Amitay et al., 2015; Monti et al., 2024).
First, sexual metaphors are pedagogically dangerous. In classrooms, terms like “rape” or “seduction” risk retraumatizing students who are survivors of sexual assault, a significant portion of college populations. College women are three times more likely to experience sexual assault than any other female counterparts (RAINN, 2025). With only 20% of those victims reporting through law enforcement and subsequently receiving victims’ services support. This limits their ability to access applicable resources towards healing. Trauma-informed pedagogy stresses the importance of safe learning environments where triggering language is avoided, particularly when alternative metaphors can convey similar concepts (Monti et al., 2024). When repeated uncritically, these metaphors can alienate students from engaging in argumentation, limiting participation in debate, health communication, and rhetorical education.
Second, sexual metaphors perpetuate cultural harm by normalizing violent imagery in discourse. Fraser (2018) argues that rape metaphors sustain hermeneutical injustice by reinforcing distorted cultural understandings of both sexual violence and argument itself. They map domination and coercion onto communication, thereby replicating patriarchal and exploitative worldviews. This aligns with Field-Springer et al.’s (2022) analysis of gaslighting and narrative silencing, which shows how language practices can invalidate survivors’ experiences and reproduce rape culture. This creates ethical irony: a framework intended to foster respectful argumentation simultaneously relies on the language of violation it seeks to critique.
Third, cultural shifts have rendered these metaphors unacceptable. In 1972, Brockriede’s language reflected a scholarly context less attentive to trauma and inclusivity. Today, sexual violence is widely recognized as pervasive and devastating, and rhetorical studies are more ethically attuned. Miller (2023) cautions that reducing sexual violence to metaphor trivializes lived trauma, while Ewing (2013) demonstrates how biblical and literary uses of sexually violent imagery perpetuate harmful associations of women as dangerous or disposable. These critiques illustrate that sexualized metaphors often reinforce stigma rather than challenge it (Ben-Amitay et al., 2015).
Fourth, sexual metaphors are counterproductive in pedagogy. Students frequently disengage when confronted with terms like “rapist” or “molester,” which distract from Brockriede’s central insight about ethical argument. If we want students to learn how to argue in meaningful ways, we have to give them spaces that feel safe and conversations they can actually step into. Gage (2021) notes that intimacy and cooperation can be conveyed without sexual framing, while Ben-Amitay et al. (2015) argue that disturbing imagery risks confusing learners rather than clarifying concepts. By relying on these metaphors, instructors inadvertently shift focus away from meaningful dialogue and land instead on the disturbing language itself.
Finally, abandoning sexual metaphors aligns with principles of metaphor theory. Hills (1997) contends that apt metaphors illuminate their subject without distortion or harm. When a metaphor draws so heavily on trauma-laden imagery that it obscures understanding or causes alienation, it ceases to be apt. Replacing sexual violence metaphors with neutral alternatives, such as those from games, cooperation, or play, provides clarity without retraumatization (Monk, 2025; Monti et al., 2024).
Sexual metaphors for argumentation are no longer defensible. They reexpose individuals to traumatic memories, perpetuate cultural harm, conflict with trauma-informed pedagogy, and fail the ethical test of aptness. More inclusive metaphors exist, and adopting them allows scholars to preserve Brockriede’s relational insight while discarding the harmful language that undermines it.
Proposal: A Game Theory Reframing
Game theory, broadly defined, is the study of strategic interaction among rational agents. Developed in economics and mathematics, it models how individuals make choices when outcomes depend not only on their own actions but also on those of others (Farooqui & Niazi, 2016). At its core, game theory assumes that “players” select strategies to maximize payoffs while anticipating the possible responses of others. The resulting interplay can produce cooperative, competitive, or mixed outcomes.
Applied to communication, game theory repositions discourse as a form of strategic exchange. Each utterance becomes a calculated move in an interactive game rather than a simple transfer of information. As Allott (2006) explains, communicators weigh costs, benefits, and risks of speech acts much like players considering tactical moves. A speaker’s credibility, timing, or rhetorical framing may thus be viewed as strategies designed to influence others while anticipating their replies. This model highlights the fundamentally interdependent nature of communication, where no participant acts in isolation.
Recent scholarship has extended these insights into applied contexts. Game theory has been used to model crisis communication, where organizations and stakeholders negotiate disclosure, trust, and uncertainty in high-stakes settings (Weverbergh & Vermoesen, n.d.). Similarly, game-based perspectives have been applied to interactive media, where discourse resembles gameplay characterized by signaling, cooperation, and occasional betrayal (Rao, 2011). Video game studies provide further analogies: cooperative play demonstrates the importance of trust and shared strategy, while competitive or high-risk modes highlight the long-term consequences of betrayal (Barr, 2016; West, 2020). Communication, like gameplay, often unfolds as an iterative process where participants adapt strategies and renegotiate rules across repeated interactions.
In this light, reframing Brockriede’s (1972) metaphors through game theory provides a neutral, flexible, and trauma-informed framework. It preserves his central insight that argument is relational and ethical while shifting the language toward concepts of strategy, cooperation, and choice rather than domination or violation.
Game Theory as a Framework for Argument
Game theory supplies a concise vocabulary for analyzing argumentative interaction. Players represent arguers, whether individuals, groups, or institutions. Strategies are the communicative choices they select, from evidentiary framing to withholding information. Payoffs are the outcomes they seek to maximize, including persuasion, trust, credibility, and reputation. Equilibria refer to stable configurations in which no participant can improve outcomes through a unilateral change in strategy (Allott, 2006). Framed this way, analysis shifts from moralized metaphors of sexual violence to strategic reasoning: Which strategy is in play, which incentives support it, and how do repeated encounters alter the likelihood of cooperation across time?
This framework is preferable to dialogic, invitational, and conflict-transformation metaphors because it meets four criteria important for classroom use: operational clarity, coverage of mixed-motive interaction, testable predictions, and trauma-informed neutrality (Harrison et al., 2023; Arbour et al., 2024). The constructs of players, strategies, payoffs, and equilibria enable observable coding of coercion, deception, cooperation, and betrayal within a single analytic system, including bounded rationality and iteration that mirror semester cycles (Allott, 2006; Farooqui & Niazi, 2016). Payoffs can be defined to include ethical goods such as trust, credibility, and repair, which preserves Brockriede’s relational aims while avoiding harmful imagery. Trauma-informed pedagogy favors frameworks that minimize re-exposure to violence-laden language and that create predictable, safe learning conditions; a game-theoretic vocabulary advances both aims (Harrison et al., 2023; Arbour et al., 2024). Communication theory likewise underscores the value of mechanism-explicit models that link conceptual claims to instructional design and assessment (Littlejohn, Foss, & Oetzel, 2021).
Competing frameworks remain valuable but tend to under-specify strategic mechanism. Invitational rhetoric secures equality, safety, and mutuality, yet offers fewer levers for diagnosing manipulation or forecasting breakdowns when bad-faith strategies surface (Foss & Griffin, 1995). Dialogic models illuminate recognition and reciprocity, but provide limited tools for analyzing incentives, defections, and credibility cascades in mixed-motive contexts (Casey, 2020; Littlejohn et al., 2021). Conflict transformation foregrounds structure and repair, but is less granular about turn-by-turn signaling, sanctioning, and conditional cooperation. A game-theoretic lens complements these approaches by specifying stability conditions for cooperation, the effects of sanctioning on payoffs, and the pathways by which spoilers erode trust in iterated interactions. Thus, dialogic and invitational theories delineate the normative horizon of ethical arguing, while game theory supplies the mechanism that renders those conditions durable in real classrooms.
Preserving Relational Ethics Without Harmful Imagery
Brockriede’s (1972) primary contribution was the argument that arguers should treat one another as partners in mutual discovery rather than as objects to be manipulated. This vision of relational ethics continues to shape argumentation pedagogy and practice. Yet the metaphors of rape, seduction, and molestation are ethically untenable. They risk trivializing or retraumatizing lived experiences of violence, particularly in educational settings.
Game theory metaphors provide an alternative that retains the original ethical distinctions while avoiding harmful associations. Unlike sexual metaphors, game-based terms are culturally familiar, non-traumatizing, and emphasize agency and choice. Students often encounter these terms through economics, political science, or gaming culture, which makes them both accessible and pedagogically effective (Rao, 2011; Weverbergh & Vermoesen, n.d.). They also highlight the same key relational dynamics Brockriede identified: domination, manipulation, cooperation, and betrayal, while grounding them in a framework that is precise, ethically responsible, and adaptable to contemporary classrooms.
Recent empirical evidence demonstrates that trauma-informed pedagogy can significantly enhance classroom climate by fostering higher levels of student resilience, improving the quality of teacher–student alliances, and creating greater order and emotional safety in learning environments (Wassink-de Stigter et al., 2024). Similarly, a two-and-a-half-year case study of a disadvantaged secondary school that adopted Trauma-Informed Positive Education (TIPE) reported large improvements in orderly learning environments, effective teaching time, and student connectedness after whole-school professional learning, coaching, and consistent classroom routines (Stokes, 2022).
These outcomes underscore how trauma-sensitive practices cultivate both academic engagement and social-emotional stability. It would be immoral to attempt to test the inverse of these results by deliberately exposing students to trauma to measure the effects on learning or classroom order. Instead, the growing prevalence of student distress signals and formal complaints should serve as compelling evidence for administrators to adopt and sustain trauma-informed approaches. In doing so, schools not only respond to a moral obligation to protect student well-being but also strengthen the foundational conditions that make effective learning possible.
Advantages of the Reframing
The game-theoretic reframing carries several advantages over the original metaphors. First, it is pedagogically safe, allowing instructors to teach argumentation without introducing triggering or alienating imagery. Trauma-informed pedagogy emphasizes creating environments where students can engage without encountering unnecessary risks of retraumatization, and game theory aligns with these goals.
Second, the framework is analytically precise. Game theory provides a robust vocabulary for describing strategies, payoffs, and equilibria, allowing scholars to model argumentative behavior with more clarity than metaphors of sexual violence permit. In simple terms, game theory gives us a way to talk about argument like a shared activity with rules and choices, rather than something dangerous or harmful.
Third, it is culturally relevant. With the rise of digital games and gaming culture, students are familiar with terms such as cooperation, signaling, and defection. These metaphors resonate across diverse audiences, enhancing accessibility and comprehension (Barr, 2016; West, 2020).
Finally, it preserves ethical clarity. Brockriede’s core aim was to identify how arguers ethically position themselves in relation to one another. A game-theoretic reframing retains this relational insight while avoiding metaphors that trivialize or normalize violence. By drawing from concepts of play, cooperation, and strategy, it directs attention to the choices arguers make and the consequences of those choices in sustaining, or undermining, dialogue.
Mapping Old Metaphors to New Roles
Rapist → Enforcer. In Brockriede’s (1972) original typology, the rapist seeks to dominate an opponent through coercion, ignoring mutual respect or equality. In game-theoretic terms, this stance maps onto the Enforcer. The Enforcer pursues brute-force strategies, often treating argument as a zero-sum game in which only one party can “win.” Like a player in a competitive game who insists on overpowering rather than negotiating, the Enforcer disregards fairness and parity. The payoff sought is domination, and the equilibrium reached is one of suppression rather than dialogue.
Seducer → Trickster. The seducer manipulates through charm or deceit, luring an opponent into agreement without transparency. Game theory reframes this stance as the Trickster, a player who exploits signaling games and “cheap talk.” Tricksters misrepresent information, distract, or mislead to secure advantage (Allott, 2006). While the Trickster can achieve short-term gains, equilibria built on deception are fragile. Once deception is detected, cooperation collapses, and credibility is permanently weakened.
Lover → Teammate. The lover was Brockriede’s (1972) ideal stance, characterized by respect, parity, and genuine engagement. In game-theoretic terms, this maps naturally to the Teammate. The Teammate treats argument as a cooperative or iterated game where the highest payoff emerges from sustained mutual benefit. Rather than viewing communication as zero-sum, the Teammate engages in strategies that encourage reciprocity, trust, and fairness (Farooqui & Niazi, 2016). The logic mirrors the prisoner’s dilemma: when parties expect repeated interaction, cooperation becomes the rational strategy.
Classroom Applications
Current classroom applications of the Arguer’s as Lovers article sometimes involve asking students to describe a time when they were “the rapist” in an argument. This framing is deeply flawed and injurious. Asking survivors to identify with the very figure who violated them is an inappropriate and damaging exercise. The irony is striking: when a professor, with unilateral control over the curriculum, imposes such an assignment, they replicate the very dynamic the article warns against. The lesson meant to discourage domination in argument instead becomes an act of domination itself. Students, particularly those with trauma histories, have no real power to refuse participation, underscoring the imbalance of authority at play. Regardless of where a student is at in their healing process, this does not help.
In contrast, when using game theory metaphors to explore conflict, instructors can create structured simulations that allow students to assume roles and negotiate resolutions without causing psychological harm. These models are effective because they encourage reflection without requiring personal identification with acts of violence. However, when students are asked to embody individuals whose actions are so egregious they would result in imprisonment, educators must exercise extreme caution and sensitivity.
The viral debate over whether a woman would rather be trapped in the woods with a man or a bear illustrates how gendered power dynamics persist in cultural discourse. Given the documented prevalence of sexual assault among both women and men, such assignments fail to recognize the lived realities of survivors and cross clear ethical boundaries in classroom practice. Brockriede’s theoretical framework holds enduring merit, yet the metaphor he employs to illustrate it undermines his own principles through its unfortunate implications.
Conclusion and Implications
Wayne Brockriede’s Arguers as Lovers (1972) remains foundational because it reframed argument as a relational and ethical enterprise. His central insight, that arguers must decide how to treat one another, whether through coercion, manipulation, cooperation, or betrayal, continues to resonate across communication studies. Yet the metaphors he employed, drawn from sexual violence, have become ethically indefensible in light of trauma-informed pedagogy, feminist critique, and cultural shifts in how sexual violence is understood. As a society that knows the deep harm survivors face, we have a responsibility to do better.
By adopting metaphors from game theory, we can preserve Brockriede’s insight while discarding the harm. In this reframing, arguers are conceptualized as players, their strategies described in neutral terms that capture patterns of domination, deception, cooperation, and betrayal without invoking harmful imagery. This approach allows teachers, researchers, and practitioners to apply Brockriede’s framework in ways that are accessible, precise, and responsible. It honors his legacy while adapting it for contemporary classrooms and scholarly debates. For example, later expansions of Brockriede’s framework introduced the “molester” to describe arguers who exploit intimacy, betraying trust from within (Van Eemeren et al., 2013; Wood, 2011). In game-theoretic terms, this is the Spoiler, a hidden defector who pretends to play fairly but undermines cooperation for personal gain. Spoilers exploit cooperative equilibria by disguising selfish motives, much like free riders in collective action games. Once exposed, however, Spoilers destroy the possibility of future cooperation.
The implications of this reframing extend across health communication, pedagogy, and scholarship. In health communication, trauma-informed language is central to fostering conditions of safety and trust. Communication itself can either retraumatize survivors of violence or create space for healing (Ben-Amitay et al., 2015). Brockriede’s original metaphors undermine these goals by embedding domination and violation into the vocabulary of argument.
Game theory metaphors, by contrast, align with principles of fairness and accountability while providing a safer alternative. They preserve important distinctions between coercion, manipulation, and cooperation without alienating participants.Moreover, the language of games and play is culturally familiar, accessible across disciplines, and widely understood by students through sports, digital games, and popular culture (Barr, 2016). This familiarity enhances teaching by making abstract ideas more concrete and relatable.
For scholarship, reframing Arguers as Lovers ensures its relevance in contemporary theoretical conversations. Brockriede’s work remains central because it emphasized argument as a relational act rather than a purely logical procedure (Van Eemeren et al., 2013). Yet continued reliance on sexual violence metaphors risks undermining that legacy. Updating the model with game theory metaphors allows scholars to retain the intellectual value of the framework while aligning it with current ethical and cultural expectations. Just as invitational rhetoric emerged as a feminist alternative to adversarial paradigms (Foss & Griffin, 1995), game theory metaphors can serve as an ethically responsible update that preserves Brockriede’s brilliance while moving beyond outdated language.
Ultimately, reframing Arguers as Lovers underscores the enduring importance of Brockriede’s contribution. Argument, he reminded us, is not only about claims and logic but about how people treat one another in disagreement. That lesson remains urgent today. What must change, however, is the language through which the lesson is communicated. Sexual violence metaphors, once tolerated, are now understood as harmful in both health communication and pedagogy. If the goal is to treat people well in an argument, then our teaching should be rooted in respect. It is time to retire the outdated metaphors.
By adopting metaphors of players, strategies, and outcomes, we retain the ethical clarity of Brockriede’s insight in a trauma-informed, accessible, and culturally resonant form. This reframing not only safeguards his legacy but also ensures its usability for new generations of students, teachers, and practitioners committed to fairness, cooperation, and respect in communication.
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