Political Memes

Overall the problem comes from the fact that there is a difference between consensual and non-consensual sex, no matter the age. And yes there is the question of at what age can a person truely consent, but technically the word still applies for descriptive purposes.
So, for people above the legal age, rape is generally non-consenual sex. But below a magic age that isn't consistent across the world, rape includes consenual sex. That causes there to be a gap in that there aren't useful words to differentiate between consensual, and non-consensual sex with a minor. Some word argue there is no difference, but technically there certainly is.
You also have no easy way to describe sex with a very young kid vs a 17.9 year old. Yet they are certainly very different also. Since the world can't agree on a static age for consent, and really everyone is different, so it just isn't that simple, you can be sure that these differtiations matter to some people. In short, all rape is bad, but some is certainly even worse. But terminology doesn't support differentiation. So news people make up thier own.

Edit: I know it may have been hard to parse, but my intent here is to advocate for removing the ambiguity of what people have done. At this point "rape" means so many things that people no longer universally consider it bad. I can't change those people's opinions, but better terminology would help ensure those people aren't discounting how bad a thing a person did was, just because we don't have good terminology to communicate it.

Take statutory rape, it doesn't distinguish enough.
If some 30 year old person ties down a fighting 5 year old and... straight to the gallows in my opinion. If a 18.5 year old has consenual sex with a 17.9 year old girlfriend, then the gallows seem a bit extreme. But they are both statutory rape technically. Better terminology would make it easier to assign even harsher penalties than are already assigned for the base case. And they could remove some of the wiggle room it gives judges to be lenient because "it would ruin his life"...