Posted on 09/20/2014 5:15:17 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
In the emotionally charged conversation about rape, few topics are more fraught than that of false allegations. Consider some responses to the news that singer-songwriter Conor Oberst had been falsely accused of sexual assault. Last December a woman writing in the comments section of the website xoJane, going by the name Joanie Faircloth, claimed Oberst raped her when she was a teenager.
The charge spread across the Internet; Oberst denied it and brought a libel suit against Faircloth when she refused to retract the story. In July she completely recanted, admitting that she had made it all up to get attention. Yet instead of showing sympathy for the ordeal of the musician—one known for being supportive of feminist issues—some chided him for taking legal action to defend himself against a false, career-damaging charge. In the Daily Dot, pop culture critic Chris Ostendorf decried the lawsuit, arguing that it could intimidate real victims of rape and that it promoted the idea of men as victims of false accusations—even though that’s exactly what Oberst was. After Oberst dropped the suit, Bustle’s Caroline Pate praised his decision and referred to the saga as “a roller-coaster for both parties”—treating the false accuser and the wrongly accused as morally equivalent—and called the revelation of Oberst’s innocence “crushingly disappointing.”
False rape accusations are a lightning rod for a variety of reasons. Rape is a repugnant crime—and one for which the evidence often relies on one person’s word against another’s. Moreover, in the not-so-distant past, the belief that women routinely make up rape charges often led to appalling treatment of victims. However, in challenging what author and law professor Susan Estrich has called “the myth of the lying woman,” feminists have been creating their own counter-myth: that of the woman who never lies.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
I teach at Steubenville High School, and we’ve been in-serviced well on rape. Not only are false accusations rare, but they are also easy to detect forensically. #waronwomen Slate. Keep it classy.
a person who falsely decries being raped and gets another in serious trouble b/c of it, is worse than a rapist, imo. ought to be treated worse.
it destroys someone’s life. try to rebuild a reputation after that. if falsely jailed and losing years of your life what kind of job can the guy get, and his 2a rights are gone.
rape fakers are worse than rapists. i don’t care what anyone else thinks.
Surprised but glad to see Slate take on this topic.
People who falsely cry rape are just as bad as those who are rapists, in my opinion.
It got insane when the Packwood circus excuse of “It’s the seriousness of the charges”, not the facts. From that day on, guilt or innocence became irrelevant. It was now only the seriousness of charges that matter.
Agree.
Do you have a reference for the forensic evidence of rape?
Gosh, you guys HAVE had to deal with a lot.
If you’re the type for one night stands you may want to set up video and audio recording to protect yourself
Feminists often cry rape... but one look tells you its bogus. Feminists are always FUGLY!
Officers should be able to dismiss shrill feminist claims based on the fact that nobody would go near those fat cows!
A girl has sex with a guy so she has his “dna material” inside of her. Perhaps the sex is a bit rough. She gives herself a few bruises after the fact.
There is no way to distinguish this “forensically” from a real rape and if the man is convicted and sent away no one knows the difference.
Punishment should at least match the punishment for the fraudulently alleged crime.
I suggest keeping the evidence "in the cloud".
Wrong. In both instances there will be evidence on the cervix. In the rape situation, there will be evidence on the vagina’s entrance. If the female gets off on the roughness, there will be no significant evidence on the vagina’s entrance.
it’s why i think people who lie about crimes are worse than real criminals are. they delibertely mislead everyone, they make divisiveness and put grous against groups for lies, and wrongfully inflate a problem just because they want to draw attention to something that didn’t even happen.
it is sick, calculating, manipulative, and turns people against other people for nothing. for a lie. and it adds a layer of mistrust to people who genuinely suffer something terrible. they can destroy people’s careers and lives, jail people on lies.
they should get at least the same sentence a real criminal would, maybe more for lying and deceving the court, destroying peoples’ reputations, being jailed.
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