Complicated case. But what is not complicated is that there is no moral or legal duty to publish the name of any person who has been accused of a crime—not the boys and not the girl, not before it has been determined whether a crime (rape or a false accusation) has actually occurred. And probably not even after—the public doesn’t have some sacred right to know every thing a private citizen has done, even if it is illegal.  A matter of public record, perhaps, can’t be suppressed. But there’s no reason to insist, other than jackassery and general misogyny on Reynolds’ part, that any individual journalist or blogger has to join in a public orgy of slut shaming.

aimai

I agree with aimai and with Amanda and with Emily.

1. Don’t publish the name of the girl. If she’s charged with falsifying the report, obviously her name is going to come out, but if the prosecuting authorities decide to move on, so should we. Let’s not make this woman’s life any worse than it already is.

2. We really need to stop the temptation of immediately convicting every criminal suspect in the press. This makes false rape accusations—and, indeed, ALL false crime accusations—much worse than they would otherwise be. Ideally, the media should wait until charging decisions are made before they go and publish the name of a rape suspect. I agree with Amanda that false rape accusations are far from a huge problem, but they are certainly very bad for the men involved. Waiting some period before putting the guy’s name in the news might help ensure that at least some innocent men aren’t victimized in the media.

Obviously no one (not even the participants if they were all drunk) knows exactly what happened in this case, but recanting an accusation after being told there was video footage could be a rational decision even if the sex was nonconsensual. Spend the next year or five having sex acts involving your body analyzed frame by frame (see the Orange Country debacle, above) in open court, on network tv and every porn site on the planet, or try to pick up the pieces and get on with your life?

I suspect some of the general outrage also involves the fact that she wasn’t just having group sex, she was apparently cheating on her boyfriend by doing so…

If these people demanding her name really want to fight the problem of false accusations, they wouldn’t be demanding her name so they could condemn her sluttiness while titillating themselves.

Also, if the media make a habit of publishing the names of accusers who recant, we could see more accusers refusing to recant false allegations.  They’ll make the calculation that it’s better to stick to their guns and continue with an investigation and trial than give up and admit they lied.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but Lauren Weedman had a monologue about her false rape allegation.  She lied about being raped to get sympathy from others and word got out to her college’s administration, so they called her in to a room full of counselors, police officers, and the college’s dean.  She was put in a position where she had to either recant and look like a crazy freak in front of an audience of authority figures or continue with her false allegation and go through a long, involved police investigation.  Guess which choice she made.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but Lauren Weedman had a monologue about her false rape allegation.  She lied about being raped to get sympathy from others and word got out to her college’s administration, so they called her in to a room full of counselors, police officers, and the college’s dean.  She was put in a position where she had to either recant and look like a crazy freak in front of an audience of authority figures or continue with her false allegation and go through a long, involved police investigation.  Guess which choice she made.

So how do you walk a line between this and having genuine victims think that they’re not being taken seriously, or that they’re being pressed to recant?

What Aimai said.

The whole group sex thing is so complicated. Yes, some women like it. But when I look back, I know very few women who have willingly and soberly welcomed sex with a bunch of men, no less in a public restroom. It tends to be more like she’s very drunk or very intimidated, especially when we’re talking about teenage girls. we’ll never know what went through this girl’s mind; maybe she was really into it, maybe it was a situation that got out of control and suddenly she realized the men around her had way different ideas than she did and she felt like her choice was over at that moment.

what I’d really like to see with false allegation circuses is the onus put back on the men. “Why were you having a gang bang in the first place? didn’t the girl seem a little odd to you, a little not right in the head? you really should have seen this coming. to protect yourself from other false allegations, please don’t drink too much when you go out, always have witnesses around you, and stick to sex only with serious girlfriends you absolutely trust. No more one night stands or drunken hook ups. No, it’s not fair, but life isn’t fair, and you need to protect yourself.” That’s exactly what women get told about preventing date rape - that they should police their behavior. But god forbid we ever ask men to curtail their own potential sexual adventures.

Well, in Weedman’s case, she should have been approached by a single person, a professional of some type, preferably a counselor, which would put the decision in her hands whether she was a real victim who wanted to go forward with an investigation, a real victim who would rather not do anything, or a false accuser who needed gentle support and help rather than an inquisition in front of 20 people.

Fuck this fucking fucked up fucking culture.

Whether she genuinely wanted that or was just playing to the audience. We’ve all had experiences like that. Whether the boys genuinely wanted to be there, or if they were just afraid to be called sissies. We’ve all had experiences like that, too. Whatever reason she ended up making a false accusation, distancing herself from whatever the fuck thing she felt—hurt or shame or whatever.

Fuck.

Remember this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=762w2aNYBk0

Kinda related, mostly not.

Fuck. Every which fucking way.

Anyway, I don’t feel so bad for these guys. They’re local heroes. They’ll be getting free drinks and high fives from their peers for years to come. It’s the best thing that ever happened to them.

That’s a pretty bold assumption. I am not saying it’s false, but I would say that there certainly are going to be instances of people falsely accused of rape (and other crimes—again, this isn’t just an issue with rape accusations; rather, anti-feminists and blame-women types focus on false rape accusations) where the accused’s life IS going to be pretty badly harmed. And that shouldn’t be cavalierly dismissed.

I have a hard time believing the sex was truly consensual. I find it difficult to believe that many women really want to have group sex on the floor of a public restroom.

And the odds are astronomical against any single person winning the lottery but every few weeks I see a story about someone winning multiple millions.

You don’t need “many women” for the story to be true.  You need one.

Personally, I would have no trouble keeping the names of people accused of sex crimes out of the papers until they actually go on trial.  I don’t care if someone is a child molester, our justice system should not consist of angry mobs.

The only potential advantage I can see to publicizing the person’s name is to see if more victims come forward, but I don’t know if that’s common enough to make it worth poisoning juries and potentially wrecking the lives of innocent people.

I don’t have an opinion on this particular case. However, I’m troubled by the popular willingness to instantly accept a rape recantation as the final word on the subject. We’re all familiar with the cliche of the battered wife who drops the charges against her husband with her eye blackened and her arm in a sling. This scenario is so common that laws have been rewritten to force the state press charges when the victim won’t, even when she’s the one who called the police.

From the victim’s perspective, allegations of rape are even riskier than allegations of battery. Because the alleged perp can always say that you consented, even if there is ironclad DNA and bloodwork to prove that he ejaculated in you and you were wasted at the time. (Legally, that’s a long way towards proving sexual assault.)

High recantation rates are to be expected, even in clear-cut cases rape. The accuser is fighting against a background cultural belief that it wasn’t rape unless the victim resisted while she was beaten to within an inch of her life…and even then…. Women who want to press charges get a lot of pushback, regardless of the merits of their claims. From family and friends who don’t want to believe the truth, from law enforcement who (understandably) want to concentrate on the strongest cases, from society at large that says whatever happened is their fault.

From the point of view of the criminal justice system, everyone is innocent until proven guilty. That includes both alleged rapists and alleged false-rape-accusers. When it comes to rape allegations, especially those involving alcohol and group sex, there’s room for differences of opinion about criminal culpability. A person who thinks she has been victimized should be able to come forward without fear of criminal prosecution if her case doesn’t seem strong enough to others.

Absent extenuating circumstances, the media should hold off publishing the names of alleged rapists and accusers until charges have been laid.

#15:

I hope not. Look, you may be right about these guys, I don’t know what the social consequences of this episode have been for them.

But being falsely accused of a crime, in this society, generally sucks. Not only because of the fear that you may end up going to jail or facing a long trial, but also because the media often convicts people without a trial. Think about what happened to Richard Jewell—even if these guys aren’t so sympathetic, a lot of folks are.

And also, even if these guys were sleazeballs (which is very likely), we have to be careful about saying that it’s OK to do extrajudicial harm to sleazeballs, especially if the harm can take the form of being identified and associated with the perpetration of a serious crime.

Really, as I said, the best way to handle this is to back off the immediate identification of arrestees and suspects during the early, frenzied days of media coverage of crimes. That’s perfectly gender-neutral and won’t do any harm to the goal of preventing rape and sexual violence.

I’m confused, because I seem to recall from reading rape law back in high school health class that intoxication negates consent.

If she was drunk, wasn’t it rape even if she said “hell yeah, let’s do this!”?

That’s exactly what women get told about preventing date rape - that they should police their behavior. But god forbid we ever ask men to curtail their own potential sexual adventures.

That’s a very good point.

That’s exactly what women get told about preventing date rape - that they should police their behavior. But god forbid we ever ask men to curtail their own potential sexual adventures.

Ta-Nehisi Coates at the Atlantic had an interesting post along those lines after Steve McNair’s murder.  He definitely came down firmly on the side of men taking responsibility for their own bad decisions.

I’m confused, because I seem to recall from reading rape law back in high school health class that intoxication negates consent.

If she was drunk, wasn’t it rape even if she said “hell yeah, let’s do this!”?

These two paras are my opinion, despite you not having asked: If it were as simple as “Intoxication negates consent” well, we’d have war-on-drugs level incarceration rates for rape. (I mean, don’t get me wrong - those incarceration rates could probably stand to go way, way up, but not because of a blanket condemnation of drunk screwing.) Frankly, my wife would be in jail. As would I. WEEKLY.

Intoxication to the point of rendering consent meaningless DOES negate consent. Yes. And MRAs and other assholes will insist that there is no circumstance under which a woman can say “hell yeah, let’s do this” and still be too intoxicated to give consent. I am not that person. Plenty of women HAVE been too drunk to consent, but not to drunk to say that phrase or something like it.

As far as the objective answer to your question: There is no objective answer. Laws vary state to state, and interpretation of the laws vary also.

Here’s my question: She dropped the charges when she found out that there was video footage.  That inclines me to believe she did not consent to having this sex act filmed, which inclines me to think that the group sex was not as above-the-board as one would hope.  I don’t know what the laws are state by state, but surely filming someone having sex without her permission is sexual assault, in the ethical if not legal sense.  She consented to the sex, but if she was being filmed against her will or knowledge, then are we really supposed to assume that the young men involved were mere sexual adventurers with nothing but the highest regard for their female partners?

Unless the lawyers I chatted up years ago are off or blowing smoke, one generally does not need the consent of all parties to record/film someone in NY state. 

In NY, what those dudes did is legal from what I’ve heard.  Certainly not ethical, moral, or aboveboard, however…..

I’d like to second (or third, or Nth) the call to keep both plaintiff _and_ defendant’s name out of the press when cases like this come up, which is probably just the generally decent thing to do anyway. Unless there’s some particular circumstance to warrant it (e.g. a fugitive situation), I fail to see how the public interest is sufficiently furthered by having either party’s name in the press. And, contrary to the beliefs of the person who posted this ...

Anyway, I don’t feel so bad for these guys. They’re local heroes. They’ll be getting free drinks and high fives from their peers for years to come. It’s the best thing that ever happened to them.

... a rape conviction doesn’t make one a “local hero”. Seriously? People believe this? Look, regardless of the degree to which you feel rape isn’t given the treatment it deserves by the justice system, no one wears a rape accusation with pride. In job hunting, it is not an asset to have the words “rape” appear prominently in result #1 on a web search for one’s name.

er, replace “rape conviction” with “rape accusation” there.

It’s the best thing that ever happened to them.

Getting fired from your job? Four nights in jail? Suspended from school? Having to put on every job application, “Yes” to the question, “Were you ever arrested?” Please explain the circumstances.

Yeah, a wonderful, fabulous experience.

I say you publish the names of the accused. Or you don’t.

It’s unfair for someone to be judged by the public opinion before being found convicted or not. But we also have a public and transparent justice system. But I don’t think we can play it both ways. I might even include children in this.

But I don’t understand how her name is not known? She’s an adult, how can her name be kept secret or under non-publication? Is this particular to the US?

In this particular case, the accuser was caught in a blatant lie. She claimed they tied her up. They didn’t. If it was rape, her embellishment makes prosecution impossible.

sirkowski,

It’s not that her name isn’t known. It’s simply that, as a matter of convention and courtesy, the names of rape accusers/victims (order of words not intended to be significant) are not generally published. Attempted applications of rape shield laws to specifically enjoin such disclosures have been struck down repeatedly.

Ideally, the media should wait until charging decisions are made before they go and publish the name of a rape suspect

I haven’t seen any statistics on this but, through my own experiences following crime stories in the MSM, the likely hood of a suspect’s name being released to the public seems to rise if that suspect is African American or Hispanic. This seems especially true when the victim is a pretty white girl or woman.

Re: publishing suspects names.

I agree that the presumption of guilt that goes with an arrest is problematic, but to the people saying don’t publish their names until ... they’re charged ... they’re brought to trial ... they’re convicted ... fill in the blank shifting standard ... I’m not sure you’re thinking through the implications.

If the names of people who are arrested are not released, what we have is Guatanamo. You don’t want a system in which the police don’t tell you who has been arrested and on suspicion of what. All this information is public record for a reason, and it’s not just to try the person in court of public opinion.

Next, we have the question of whether the press should, out of discretion, not publish the names. Most people are charged almost simultaneously with being arrested. Technically, the charging occurs at the arraignment, which is a public court proceeding, so most people are arrested on suspicion of ... and then charged within 12 hours of being booked. When police are looking for someone and they have warrants out, sometimes you get the name in the paper before the person is even arrested, but a lot of the time, the name isn’t released at all until after the arrest. So if what you think the press should do is wait until people are charged, that’s pretty much what we have now.

Of course, sometimes charges are dropped later. Maybe we shouldn’t print their names until they go to trial. So then you have a situation where just nobody would ever know who had been arrested for what unless they went down themselves and filed a public records request (which usually costs money). I’m not sure that actually serves the larger public interest.

Amanda’s point about the lie about the rope certainly seems damning in this particular case.

Something nobody has mentioned, as a general point (are there general cases like this), that (sans rope issues) would still be messy enough to gum the whole thing up, though:

“Group sex” is no more an absolute than “sex” in regards consent. Someone could quite validly consent to sex with “you, you, and you” and then find themselves under a pile of men she never consented to - especially in a restroom with people spreading the word that hey, you can be next. Even if consent was explicit and enthusiastic with regards the first couple of guys, it turns to rape the moment the first nonconsensual thing happens.

I cannot imagine trying to convince the criminal justice system, much less the press and public, under those circumstances. With no opinion either way on this particular case, I could see the temptation to invent some rope or other coercion rather than trying to explain at what point things went wrong.

Again, not commenting on this particular case, but it is not always true that a lie proves the rest of the story false. It does, however, pretty much blow the possibility of prosecution. (And pretty much should.)

Maybe I’m crazy but I don’t really buy consensual when it was 3am on a college campus, and it involves one 18 year old “consenting” to sex with a group of men.  I guess I feel copius amounts of alcohol were involved, and I’d really like to see this lead to a real national discussion, especially at the college level, but before that and beyond that as well, around the meaning of consent when a woman is drunk.

“Unless the lawyers I chatted up years ago are off or blowing smoke, one generally does not need the consent of all parties to record/film someone in NY state”

not really the same thing, no expectation of privacy if i call someone is not the same as putting a hidden camera in the changing rooms of a dept store for example

“I truly don’t want to see innocent men put in jail. And I don’t think the world is free of unbalanced women who file false charges. But I can’t get very upset about false rape accusations as some kind of societal crisis.”

Yes, somehow ive managed to live 50 years without being falsly accused or rape
yet this fact isnt the first thing i think of when i want to stand out in a crowd

New York is a one-party consent state for recording. Which means that at least one of the people being filmed has to consent. That rules out a hidden camera in a dressing room, but not taping a phone call.

So it seems more reasonable to believe that a man would rape a woman than a woman would levy a false accusation against a man.

Well, It happens a lot more often, but both of these happen often enough that they’re believable.  Figure the reporting rate for rapes is ~10%, and the false accusation rate among reports is no more than ~10%, the (man rapes woman to women falsely accuses man of rape) ratio is 100:1.  This means that realistically, I’m more likely to be raped by a woman than falsely accused of raping her.  (By a factor between 2-10, depending on how you guesstimate your numbers).  It’s not a real legitimate concern, it’s disproportionate fear based on expectations rather than facts (We live in an unscientific age.)

I also think the “obviously the woman couldn’t have wanted this, and must’ve been coerced/forced” attitude problematic.  There certainly are women who enjoy such things, specifically because they’re regarded as slutty, even if they’re rare, they ain’t that rare.  We have a gendered “only men are perverts” expectation, but we should (in an even vaguely feminist context) realise that this won’t be true.

It just continues to baffle me that so many supposedly mature men continue to live in fear of false rape accusations, as if any given sexual encounter is just as likely to end in a woman shouting “rape” as not. Guys like the Old Perfesser who get all heated up over this issue are telling us a whole lot about their attitudes to women, none of it particularly flattering.

If an adult woman is caught in one of the rare (yes, Libertarians, NiceGuys® and MRAs, rare) cases of making a false accusation of rape, her name should come out—but as a matter of legal course, not in the sensational press or blogs. You’d think a bloody law professor would understand that.

I realize it’s problematic Brian.  However, an 18 year old, a college campus, it’s 3am.

This all screams ‘DRUNK” to me. 

I also know how easily a drunken consent to sex with one man can turn into something very ugly very fast.  Maybe we all carry our own baggage into these discussions, but if we were all flies on that wall, I wonder what we would have really seen?  Truly consensual sex during the entire encounter?

I have my doubts.  I definitely agree with not releasing this woman’s name.  At the same time I would absolutely agree with changing the manner and speed in which we release the names and pictures of the accused.  I just doubt this case is so black and white either way.  Frankly, a group of men having sex with one young woman, and then filming the encounter without her knowledge, well those aren’t guys I’d want to be alone with.

And that’s really the bottom line.  And just wtf do you think they were gonig to do with that tape hmm?  Of course this will now never be proved, but I think it would have been all over the internet.  The whole thing makes me sick, that’s all.

“It just continues to baffle me that so many supposedly mature men continue to live in fear of false rape accusations”

If I had to guess, Gracchus, I’d posit that a key reason is involuntary empathy.  I think that many men, deep in their bones, down where the conscious mind doesn’t go, realize that a rape accusation is one of the few areas in our culture where they are treated just like women are most of the time in terms of sex and perception and shaming and condemnation: you are accused, therefore you are filthy and guilty and beyond the pale and your character cannot be redeemed no matter how gross the slander or nonexistent any offence.  Like slut-shaming such accusations are in and of themselves a finding of guilt and imposition of punishment.

Many, man men are clueless about when it happens to women.  But a rape allegation—or fear thereof—gives them a terrifying time in a woman’s shoes.

Just a thought.

what baffles me is why, if men believe false accusations are so common and so easy to pull off, they do things like participate in gangbangs in dorm bathrooms. Women are trained from childhood on to look ahead, anticipate where a situation might be headed, and get out. If these guys really think the world is full of crazy, vengeful women, maybe they should train themselves to do the same.

a rape accusation is one of the few areas in our culture where they are treated just like women are most of the time in terms of sex and perception and shaming and condemnation: you are accused, therefore you are filthy and guilty and beyond the pale and your character cannot be redeemed no matter how gross the slander or nonexistent any offence.

would that this were true…

but back in reality:

kobe bryant. ben rothlisberger. these are just the recent names that spring to mind.

and that’s not to mention the recent redemption (hollywood style) of a convicted, not accused or alleged, rapist—mike tyson.

yes, i understand that fame complicates these equations. i just think it’s sad that the instinctive empathy some men have is with the accused rapists rather than with the alleged victims. i don’t understand that. if a woman accuses a man of robbing her, i don’t think most men automatically think, “it could have been me.”

i think it worries some of these men that they have not always been scrupulous about obtaining enthusiastic consent, so they are invested in seeing that as “not-rape”.

Of course, sometimes charges are dropped later. Maybe we shouldn’t print their names until they go to trial. So then you have a situation where just nobody would ever know who had been arrested for what unless they went down themselves and filed a public records request (which usually costs money). I’m not sure that actually serves the larger public interest.

Preventing mob violence as linked to above seems to be in the public interest to me.  That was only one case, but there are others.  Child molestation cases in particular have become so emotional that there’s a pretty high risk of people acting out before the trial.

I also worry that it’s easier to pressure women into dropping charges based on the bad publicity.  That seems to be what happened in the Kobe Bryant case despite Colorado’s rape shield laws.  If we had anything resembling a responsible press in this country that would only publish facts and not wild rumors, I wouldn’t worry so much, but we don’t. 

At a minimum, I would like to see the alleged perpetrators’ names kept out of the papers until they’re actually charged.

Guys like the Old Perfesser who get all heated up over this issue are telling us a whole lot about their attitudes to women, none of it particularly flattering.

It strikes me as similar to the conservative response to an accusation of racism, as described at The American Prospect’s blog.  Conservatives are unconcerned with racism - to the extent that they even concede that it exists, they don’t consider discrimination in employment or housing or voting to be an issue of interest to them - but the accusation of racism is of great concern to them.  Because while a conservative is unlikely to be a victim of racism, they are very likely to be the “victim” of an accusation of racism.  Thus accusations of racism must be strictly policed and severely punished if false (or even arguable).

I suspect that conservatives think of rape in the same way: they are unconcerned with rape, but very concerned with the false accusation of rape.  Because while conservatives cannot conceive of themselves as victims of rape, they can conceive of themselves as the victims of false accusations of rape.  So they are desperate to identify anyone who would make such an accusation and shame them, the better to protect themselves, regardless of the effect it would have on actual victims of rape.

what baffles me is why, if men believe false accusations are so common and so easy to pull off, they do things like participate in gangbangs in dorm bathrooms. Women are trained from childhood on to look ahead, anticipate where a situation might be headed, and get out. If these guys really think the world is full of crazy, vengeful women, maybe they should train themselves to do the same.

Clap clap clap!

I don’t get it, either, Veronica.  I think that any het male who has even a middling amount of dating/sleeping around experience has run into the Turn On A Dime girl who has trouble written all over her—not necessarily a rape accusation but an emotional or expectational 180 that is so rapid that it practically rips space-time—so their refusal to see that their own feckless dick-drivenishness holds a world of potential hurt is, to say the least, rather, um, anti-empirical of them.

I’ve always wondered if much date-rape horror could be avoided by manipulating the expectations of the stupid males—the brutal ones are something different—to trigger their own self-interest (because their empathy and humanity seem to be underdeveloped).  Some variant of “dude, she’s not worth it” might work; “every maybe is a no, and there’s plenty of happy yesses out there” likewise.  Clarity of communication might result (though I may be Dreaming Large there.)

At the very least it’s an effort to get the buggers to start thinking and perhaps worth it for that reason alone.  Who knows, maybe empathy might flower and a smidgen of understanding women as people might involuntary grow.  One can only hope.

Because while conservatives cannot conceive of themselves as victims of rape, they can conceive of themselves as the victims of false accusations of rape.

i would say that they can conceive of themselves as accused rapists, period. because they know, deep down, that they don’t really care if women consent, and i would guess that a fair number of them have at least had a brush with date rape. this whole “women are people, and thus have the right to say no” thing is just a pesky legal detail to a lot of that crowd.

sophiefair:
Those names cited are celebrities and celebrities are pretty much given to do anything in this culture, even kill when they want to.  It’s a uber-privileged subset where my comment doesn’t apply.  For those 99.99999999%  of males who aren’t millionaire celebrities my point, I believe, remains valid.

“It strikes me as similar to the conservative response to an accusation of racism, as described at The American Prospect’s blog.  Conservatives are unconcerned with racism - to the extent that they even concede that it exists, they don’t consider discrimination in employment or housing or voting to be an issue of interest to them - but the accusation of racism is of great concern to them.  Because while a conservative is unlikely to be a victim of racism, they are very likely to be the “victim” of an accusation of racism.  Thus accusations of racism must be strictly policed and severely punished if false (or even arguable).”

I dont even think that they care about FALSE accusations of racism or rape
far too many of them are ok with both racism and rape, dont think there should be any negative consequences for either, and you have no business making accusations weather true or false

no seeker, i used those names because they are celebrities and thus would be familiar to other pandagonians. but i think my point still holds. and i would say that most men are given the benefit of the doubt—this is why we have the slut-shaming and “gray-rape” narratives that we do in our culture. the whole “you were asking for it” thing that goes on whenever a woman says that she was raped.

again, we don’t have this weird belief that men are in constant danger of being falsely accused of any other crime. the only one that comes close is domestic violence, particularly in ugly divorce cases. and it’s because these situations play into ugly stereotypes about sexual women and assertive women that the belief in the incidence of false allegations has so much traction.

again, i think that most men who are terrified about being accused of rape are terrified because they KNOW that they have not always obtained clear and enthusiastic consent in the past. they know that they have crossed the line somewhere, and they don’t want to think about what that says about them. far easier to imagine themselves as victims of vengeful harpies.

i just think it’s sad that the instinctive empathy some men have is with the accused rapists rather than with the alleged victims.

My cynicism will be showing, but I find that that’s about as surprising as a business man having more empathy for the board of director being accused of employing strike breakers than for the people who lost their jobs during the strike… Just saying.

i know, blackbloc, but as a straight woman with daughters, it’s still very sad. not surprising. but sad.

what BlackBloc said

I’ll have to agree with everyone here who knows that a rape accusation is not always as bad as accusations for other crimes or even equivalent to a woman being accused of legal sluttiness.  One of my classmates in college was a rapist (unfortunately, he got away with it completely).  His victim was another classmate and I was the first person that she told so I was there through everything.  After this guy raped her, we all had classes together for 2 more years.  My class had about 30 people in it and we were a fairly close group because we had almost all of our classes together.  Of course, when he did it, there were some people who believed the victim and some people who sided with the rapist.  I expected that to happen (although it wasn’t split by gender lines, which surprised me).  However, what I didn’t expect was that the majority of people had the attitude of “I don’t want to get involved or take sides”.  Rather than splitting our group into two groups, we had a lot of people who just ignored the whole thing.  There were a few people that really stuck by the guy, and slightly more that really stuck by the victim and stopped talking to the guy.  There was a fair amount of people who didn’t “take sides” but started to distance themselves from their former friend over time.  For about 6 months other guys would watch this guy went they went out drinking with him.  But over the following 2 years, most people just ignored the whole thing and didn’t treat him any differently because of his rape accusation.  The last I heard he graduated and got a fairly good job, just like everyone else in our class.  It really had only one minor effect on him.  Our department’s professors assigned groups for our senior project, so I left anonymous notes in some mailboxes asking that the rapist not be assigned to a group with women, and he ended up in an all-male group (hardly surprising in an engineering class anyway).  Don’t misunderstand me; I strongly believe that false accusations are detrimental to men, women, and society.  I just don’t think a rape accusation is always bad as we assume it would be.

The rule I would distill from all this is “Don’t have sex with people who are batshit crazy,” or even “Save yourself for marriage.”

the media is having its frenzy over the “terror” of false rape accusations. where is the chorus of calls for men to carefully document the woman’s consent, to avoid group sex situations in bathrooms, to avoid initiating sex with drunk (or apparently drunk) women? oh yeah, we can’t go blaming the male victim, only female ones….

here’s something that bugs me:
the woman claimed she was tied up with ropes, and apparently there is video footage showing this to be false. the media frenzy reaction has been to conclude that the entire charge of rape is false.

but can we be so sure? 

women are explicitly told never to go to frat parties alone, never to get too drunk, etc. and women are also implicitly told that if they dress “provocatively” or “lead him on” that it’s essentially the woman’s fault. but women are also implicitly (sometimes explicitly told) that it isn’t rape if they don’t fight back hard enough.

long story short, did the woman invent the ropes because she believed that her simple lack of consent, or alcohol-impaired judgment, wasn’t enough? did she believe, after years of careful social indoctrination, that you can’t just say “no”?

I suspect that conservatives think of rape in the same way: they are unconcerned with rape, but very concerned with the false accusation of rape.  Because while conservatives cannot conceive of themselves as victims of rape, they can conceive of themselves as the victims of false accusations of rape.  So they are desperate to identify anyone who would make such an accusation and shame them, the better to protect themselves, regardless of the effect it would have on actual victims of rape.

“False” in their mind, maybe - since they don’t think it’s rape if she’s their partner/drunk/flirting/dressed sexily/etc…

but women are also implicitly (sometimes explicitly told) that it isn’t rape if they don’t fight back hard enough.

Don’t forget that we’re also told that fighting back can get you killed… so better to lie there and take it and live than fight back and die…

I listed off the various mixed messages that we femmes live with to a male friend of mine the other day and he didn’t believe me until we went to the intertubes and pulled up various “be careful” sites and messages (many on college websites) that were only aimed at women (men were only told not to consume alcohol until they died…). Until that point he had said “the burden of being careful is equal on everyone” after that he had to re-think… or at least humor me (I’m not sure wich yet, we’ll see if his attitude changes over time)

I’m a man and I agree with about 90% of what Amanda says—but what gets me on this comment board is the wildly incorrect assumption that rape accusations cause no trouble for those accused.

Look in the U.S. at this time, a man convicted of drunken public urination if a child saw him, that man is a registered sex offender for REST OF HIS LIFE.  Can that person have a career? Rise high in an organization?

I speak from personal experience here. I broke up with my lover (no violence, no yelling or swearing, no threats); left the city for a couple of weeks. When I get back, I find that my lover lay a formal charge of rape against me with the police, and had gone around to friends, family, and colleagues, spinning the story. My business was destroyed. Three months later, my ex recanted, but the damage was done. My career, which I had spent years building, was destroyed. None of the hundreds of people I had helped over the previous decade mattered, compared to the stigmatism and perversion associated with the accusation of rape. Ten years later, I have not recovered economically or socially. 

I’m not saying that rape isn’t ugly and horrible and life-changing—it is. But this attitude that a rape accusation or charge “isn’t as bad” as other crimes is demonstrably false. Rape is a serious fucking thing, and denying the effects of false charges is the same as denying the effects of rape. Amd saying that fewer people are damaged by false accusations than are damaged by rape, so false accusations are not a problem is not an answer which fits into a society aspiring to justice.

Is there any solution? To my mind, Amanda is on the right track that society MUST become more open and accepting of sex—all kinds of sex (masturbation, group sex, polyamoury, birsexuality, etc.), so that in the future charges of rape will not be distorted by attitudes such as “sluts deserve it”, or “all men will rape given half a chance.”

CJ, that occurred to me as well.  That she might have invented the ropes to defend herself against the “Why didn’t you fight back/harder?” line of questioning.

drew #47 - paranoia about false rape accusations and having a fuzzy concept of consent is not exclusive to conservatives.

“I’m confused, because I seem to recall from reading rape law back in high school health class that intoxication negates consent.

If she was drunk, wasn’t it rape even if she said “hell yeah, let’s do this!”? “

I don’t think it works that way.

If this is the case, I am both a serial rapist and a chronic victim of sexual assault.

If this is the case, I am both a serial rapist and a chronic victim of sexual assault.

Said with complete lack of self-awareness…

Said with a complete lack of humor…

You know what always goes over well on feminist blogs? Rape jokes!

See, the thing with humor? It’s supposed to be funny. That’s kind of the point.

You know what always goes over well on feminist blogs? Rape jokes!

It’s like this one time I made dead baby jokes on a parenting forum. I mean, you know how humorless these breeders get, right?

As a mother, I have taught my sons (especially the 20-something son) to be incredibly careful about the character of women with whom they get involved with sexually. I tell them that women are human (gasp!) and that they they can be as unreasonable and irrational as men, especially in regards to emotions and sexuality. I also warn them about how alcohol (and all drugs) can seriously alter judgment for everyone involved. A false rape accusation is a nightmare for any mother with a sexually active son.

On the flip side of this, I am firm believer that women are indeed strong, self-reliant, capable of acting on their own agency. As an older Feminist, I loathe the culture of victimhood that is spreading too much through the Feminist community. Women - even younger women - are perfectly capable of making their own decisions and acting in their own interests, sexually or otherwise. If a woman wants to drink, that is her decision, no one is forcing her. If she wishes to be sexual on her own volition, then I say “You go grrl!” with the very important caveat that she is responsible for her own actions and the consequences of her actions. If she has regrets for her decisions, she must wrestle with those demons, not cast blame on those around her.

Women are strong, intelligent, and independent and we all must recognize that.

If she has regrets for her decisions, she must wrestle with those demons, not cast blame on those around her.

If I ever meet one of your sons, I’m totally going to do him, then I’m going to go down to the emergency room and get a rape kit and pelvic exam, and I’m going to talk to police officers for hours giving them every little detail for their report, and then I’m going to go to court, where everyone and his pet gerbil will get to hear every little detail about my sexual history and what a crazy-money-grubbing slut I am.

OMG it’s going to be so hot!

Live in fear.

“Live in fear. “

Raise sons. Check back in when they become sexually active. In the meantime, work on your sense of humor.

It’s actually much scarier raising daughters - nay, being a daugher - in a world that runs on male sexual entitlement.
In the meantime, work on your pathetic imitation of a feminist. “You go grrl?” Seriously?

“In the meantime, work on your pathetic imitation of a feminist.”

Tell ya what, girlie… before you take on a pissed-off, middle-age mom with decades in the cause, you had better put on your big girl panties. I have tampons older than you.

You don’t know know male sexual entitlement until you have worked in an office when there were absolutely no laws to protect against sexual harassment. If I had new pair of shoes for every time a male supervisor directly asked me to sleep with him in order to get a promotion, I’d be the next Emelda Marcos (google her, you probably don’t know who she is because you’re so young). I was the generation that fought for women in the workplace, truly fought. Roe v Wade? EEOC? Thank your mother’s generation for those.

You youngsters have the whole world at your feet and still you perceive yourselves as victims. You can be career women, moms, gay, straight, whatever you want to be but you still limit yourselves because you think the world is going to crush you under the boot heel of the patriarchy. It’s not. The world is going to simply ignore and you, as a woman, have to make your way and follow your own passions and fully accept the consequences of your decisions, just like us mature women.

Every time I hear a young Feminist mention the patriarchy and male sexual entitlement I think “oh, another victim Feminist making every woman look weak and scared”. You think being a daughter is hard… boo hoo. EVERY woman was a daughter to someone.

Like I said, raise sons. Teach them that there is no such thing as male sexual entitlement. Teach them that girls are not always victims and are not weak so they can respect women, not try to protect them. Women don’t need protection, we need opportunities.

Oooh, you aged!* What a towering accomplishment! And the second wave! It existed! Who knew!

Every time I hear a young Feminist mention the patriarchy and male sexual entitlement I think “oh, another victim Feminist making every woman look weak and scared”.

If patriarchy and male sexual entitlement are such silly notions of imaginary monsters, it begs the question what you think was the basis of thought of all those male supervisors who felt entitled to ask you to sleep with them.*

*allegedly

If she wishes to be sexual on her own volition, then I say “You go grrl!” with the very important caveat that she is responsible for her own actions and the consequences of her actions. If she has regrets for her decisions, she must wrestle with those demons, not cast blame on those around her.

so i guess if your sons are ever the victims of a crime while they are intoxicated, you will tell them to take responsibility for their own actions and decisions and not bother feeling like victims or expecting the police to investigate the crimes against them, let alone press charges.

fuck off. i have teenage daughters. they are not victims, but they could be. just like you could be. or your son could be. and i’m not going to teach them that the world is all peaches and cream for them already, because it isn’t. that’s why i’m still a feminist. because the world did not suddenly become a safe and equitable place for women just because you want it to be.

oh, and it’s IMELDA marcos, not emelda. want to try and school someone? know your shit.