A comment popped up on Abyss2Hope by an anonymous person who mischaracterizes what we say and believe. This comment was not written by the blogger, but by some reader. Here is the comment:
"There's a blog called the "False Rape Society" that is so upsetting, so backward, that it makes you want to pull your hair out. Every single thing you say about what the rape appologists [sic] think about rape is absolutely true. I was so tired of hearing about "real" rapes (must be violent, must be caught on tape, must have witnesses). It is distressing that people think this way. Thank you for what you do."
My, oh, my, oh, my.
Whoever said that rape must be "violent"? What feminist ass did they pull that lie from? If a woman says "no," or if a man unreasonably believes she consented, it's rape, period. Whoever said rape must be caught on tape? Or must have witnesses?
They have transmogrified me into a rape apologist -- by making up things from whole cloth. This is what passes for enlightened feminist thought in 2010: lies and misandry. And, of course, self-righteousness. Don't forget self-righteousness. Anyone who dares to speak up for innocent persons falsely accused of a terrible crime against women must hate women. To the true believers -- the hard core rape feminists -- I know that what we do here must seem to be misogyny because it doesn't advocate castrating or killing anyone who happens to be accused of rape (and I know -- very few feminists actually believe that, but then again, few feminists who write about rape seem to care for presumed innocent or falsely accused men).
Fair-minded people recognize that our goals are far more modest: we do nothing more than advocate that the presumed innocent be treated as if we really did presume their innocence.
But, hey, if they like me, then I'm not doing my job.
Update 1/20/10: An important debate erupted in the comments about whether rape should require evidence of resistance. There should not be any such requirement. So that there is no misunderstanding about my position, see my comment under this post at 5:25 pm 1/19 Pierce Harlan
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39 comments:
Oh yeah, it's so upsetting, so backward, to stick up for people who go through hell after being falsely accused.
I suppose those women who intentionally falsely accuse men of rape aren't 'upsetting' or 'backward' at all!
Someone beat this idiot with the clue bat.
Also, all I can really think is that this is free advertising. Anyone who's already a feminazi doctrinaire is not going to accept the legitimacy of your work (since they put ideology before such patriarchal throwbacks as the right to a fair trial, presumption of innocence, etc.), but anyone who is not will come here and read for themselves.
And they may be shocked by what they find - but not for the reason given by the cited idiot.
I learned long ago that you cannot have a reasonable conversation with a zealot. They are so invested, they have poured so much of themselves into the *mold* of their beliefs that there really isn't room for anything else.
'course, you can't leave them alone, either. Naive people will sometimes readily believe the word of zealot simply because of the intensity with which those words are spoken.
The world would be a better place if zealots from both sides were shoved into a sound-proofed room so they could yell each other hoarse and let the reasonable people do the real work.
Thank you, Snark. Your support of this site is very important.
Sounds to me like they prefer THEIR definition of rape (it is anything I say it is) to the actual definition, because under their definition they can (having had sex at least once in their lives) claim to be rape victims.
Boo hoo hoo
sob
poor me, don't you feel sorry for me now...
oh yeah, where's my victim compensation / free ride / pony?
I am reminded of a quote by Mahatma Gandhi:
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."
So, if it must be, let the fight begin....
and let it be said that we have never ignored them (we have acknowledged that rape is just as terrible a thing as a false rape claim and that being against rape and against false claims is not mutually exclusive by any means)
we have sometimes ridiculed their ideas (but never them if they approach the topic with reason and accountability)
we have never been interested in fighting them (we fight merely for equal protection and justice)
but in the end we will win (and not them) because our cause is based on: reason, accountability, compassion, wisdom, and justice for all.
Has this been posted yet?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/hampshire/8466096.stm
Historically hysteria is only defeated by the truth. But know the hysteria community is saying the " IF THE PUBLIC KNEW THE TRUTH...IT WILL DETER WOMEN FROM COMING FORWARD WHEN THEY HAVE BEEN RAPED!!
This is hogwash...developed by hogs. Where are the studies that prove this??
We don't need silly truth..and silly Academic studies...we need "Klan type hysteria" that attacks, and ostracises anyone who challeges the group think hysteria.
ANon at 10:08 -- it's in line to be posted
Enabling false rape accusers is another femi-nazi tactic to break the patriarchy. Broken patriarchies cannot resist anything that the femi-nazi imposes on the broken masses.
hmmmm. Jenna or GG?
I kind of think they might be one in the same.
Feminist types are largely interchangeable. One is the same as the next. They all have the same phrases and the same worldview. There's no difference from one to the next. So in that sense it doesn't matter if it's GG or Jenna or Harriet Harman, they all think with one mind and speak with one voice. Dissent is silenced or crushed.
Can I correct the link to the BBC article? I think it was wrong.
This should be the correct link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/hampshire/8466096.stm
"A comment popped up on Abyss2Hope by an anonymous person who mischaracterizes what we say and believe."
Does anyone have a link to that specific comment or even any idea which thread it came up in?
I did find an older thread there in which she believes she debunks Kanin's FRA findings (one of the worst efforts at logic I've seen in some time), in which Georgia Girl interjects her tale of woe (with her customary - nobody listens to me whine: "I am really in a lot of pain right now -- not because of what happened to me in 1962, but because nobody seems to hear me! It's as if what happened to women decades ago doesn't seem to matter.")
Marcella Chester, who runs that site has a very high opinion of her-self, and an very low opinion of men. I think it would do her some good to have a dose of reality interjected into her echo-chamber now and again (too bad the thread about Kanin is so old). Telling the truth over there is likely to get me banned in short order, but I think some of these "I'm-a-rape-victim-so-all-men-should-have-to-suffer" types need to be addressed when they spew empty-headed misandry.
"Whoever said that rape must be "violent"? What feminist ass did they pull that lie from? If a woman says "no," or if a man unreasonably believes she consented, it's rape, period."
While I agree that if someone says "no" and the other person doesn't stop it's rape, but "if a man unreasonably believes she consented" sounds awfully vague.
Although, I do question why rape wouldn't be violent.
As much as I believe in informed consent, removing the "assault" in "sexual assault" or the "force" in "forcible rape" from their definitions is moving from denotation to connotation. This is part of a feminist trend of creating incendiary language to provoke an emotional response. The verbal strategy of "date rape" and then "rape culture" was to use the word "rape" for things that were not rape. The loaded term "sexual violence" is used to describe all sorts of non-violence, such as staring and tasteless jokes, as "violence". The same applies to "domestic violence". The definition has been expanded to where the term is almost meaningless.
Putting aside situations involving drugs or incapacitation, if someone does not consent to sex shouldn't there be violence or the threat of violence for rape to occur? I find it difficult to believe that most people wouldn't put up some sort of fight.
Anonymous - "if someone does not consent to sex shouldn't there be violence or the threat of violence for rape to occur? I find it difficult to believe that most people wouldn't put up some sort of fight."
The probable counter-argument would be that, lacking any direct violence (real of verbally threatened), there could still reasonably be a perceived threated of violence which would compel a victim to not fight back. A woman could, conceivably, refuse consent, but fail to act physically to prevent sexual congress, simply out of fear of what might happen to her if she did fight.
As Pierce has tried so often to emphasize, human sexuality is a very complex matter.
On the other side of the same coin, there are conceivably many (thousands, if not millions) of instances where a young women (typically, a virgin) verbally protests sex, perhaps even physically resisting (mildly), but, once the sex is initiated, she finds she enjoys it, and even whole-heartedly welcomes it (even falling deeply in love) [Is there a "romance novel" where it doesn't happen this way?].
It just hows how complex sexual relations can be.
And, pointing out why it is so necessary to extend the normal legal cautions against convicting the innocent to the arena of "rape".
Anon at 3:53, I am reporting what the law is in most states. And I happen to agree with it. Nonconsent is the essence of rape, and consent can be manifested in an endless variety of ways, via words or conduct. And, yes, not pushing back might, in the context of all the surrounding circumstances, be one element that evinces consent. The point is, as slwerner said, it's too complicated to tie up in a neat little box with pretty ribbon on it.
When a burglar or trespasser comes into my house, I likely will fight back, but I might not. And I'll be damned if I want the law to require the victim to fight back in order to prove those crimes occurred.
I also don't want my wife or mother to be required to fight back if one of them is ever raped. I also know of countless stories of prison rape where the innocent victim accepted his ordeal without complaint because he anticipated that resistance would turn out badly for him. THAT is often the scariest kind of rape, and I'll be damned if I'm going to advocate that the victim do something that might get him killed.
Sex without consent of either party is immoral by any standard outside the animal kingdom.
Sorry that you disagree.
"Sex without consent of either party is immoral by any standard outside the animal kingdom.
Sorry that you disagree."
I never implied that I disagree with that.
There is also a threat of violence in the examples you mentioned. I just find it difficult to believe that someone would turn into a rag doll unless there were serious negative consequences for refusing to cooperate.
My point is that as definitions are expanded, an increasing grey area is being criminalized. I also agree with SLWerner, that is complicated, but academic feminists have made a considerable effort to confuse the issue by making it even more complicated:
"Conceptualizing the 'Wantedness' of Women’s Consensual and Nonconsensual Sexual Experiences: Implications for How Women Label
Their Experiences With Rape"
www.sexscience.org/uploads/media/Peterson.pdf
According to that, it's rape even if the woman wanted to have sex. Although I severely doubt that these same feminists would consider the same thing for a man.
Too much of the responsibility is put on the man for being male. For example, at most colleges, it's perfectly fine for a woman to have sex with a drunken man, but it's grounds for expulsion for a man to have sex with a drunken woman.
Anon at 10:48, I have written extensively on rape feminists' and others' attempts to change the rape laws, to insist that only men have responsibility when drunk etc. -- e.g., shifting the burden of proof and making consent an affirmative defense instead of an element of the crime; Fed.R.Evid. 413 -- the most unfair rule in our jurisprudence; the suggestion to switch to an inquisitorial instead of adversary system for sexual assault, etc.
All of it is unjust and immoral. No one on the blogosphere has spoken against these things more forcefully in recent years than me.
But we need to be careful not to revert to a knee jerk insistence that every effort that might result in more convictions is unfair.
I certainly applaud your effort and all your fine work.
Although I don't understand how what I'm saying is a "knee jerk insistence that every effort that might result in more convictions is unfair", I agree, with what I think you are saying, that not having proof of consent is not the same thing as having proof of non-consent.
The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.
Part of the problem I'm trying to describe is that this movement from requiring corroborating evidence, to her merely saying she said "no", to having to prove she didn't say "no", to having to prove that she said "yes" -- this ever moving target -- parallels the changes in the definition of what rape supposedly is.
If the "victim" is not physically forced, incapacitated, not under any duress, or threat of anything, and decides to cooperate, how is that rape? Further, should we convict someone as a "rapist" if there is no evidence of any these elements? Imho, as far as the law is concerned, rape should not only require the absence of consent, but the presence of non-consent.
"An important debate erupted in the comments about whether rape should require evidence of resistance. There should not be any such requirement."
Sorry, if this is the wrong place for this. Perhaps someone should write a new article as I'm a bit confused as to what this blog thinks the requirement should be.
Allow me to put it another way. Legally, besides the accusers word (which we know is often untrue), or admission by the accused, or other witnesses, what other evidence could there be that sex was not consensual? If evidence of resistance is not a requirement, then what evidence should be required?
"Legally, besides the accusers word (which we know is often untrue), or admission by the accused, or other witnesses, what other evidence could there be that sex was not consensual? If evidence of resistance is not a requirement, then what evidence should be required?"
You know, while we often say that rape is a "he said/she said" crime, there is often other evidence that points one way or the other but it requires painstaking police work. Rape is the most difficult crime to investigate. And let's get this clear: it has to be investigated thoroughly. That's not the problem -- police need to do their job. The problem is when they DON'T do their job before depriving a male of his liberty. If after a painstaking investigation, they find it's likely that a rape occurred, they need to charge him. If they find no evidence and his denial is reasonably plausible, they need to drop it.
If we want police to conduct painstaking investigations, as they should, we also must charge false accusers with crimes where they clearly lie. Not just where police find no evidence beyond "he said/she said" -- but where they find evidence of a lie, they need to charge her.
While I agree with what you said above, it still doesn't seem to answer my question. Besides witnesses, and the virtual equivalent of witnesses such as audio/video recordings, what other evidence can show the absence of consent?
From what I can tell from reading about hundreds of rape cases, where the identity of alleged rapist or whether or not sex occurred were not issues (ie. the accused claimed the sex was consensual) the only inculpatory evidence showed problems the alleged rapist's story, such as a false alibi. (Although people seem way more forgiving when the alleged victim's story less than perfect.) However, the only actual evidence of non-consent has been evidence of physical resistance, such as injuries and other signs of a struggle.
That's my question, since consent exists inside people's heads, what other evidence would demonstrate its absence?
Anon at 7:08, you seem to be asking me rhetorical questions while still wanting me to trap me into saying, "Duh! I don't know." Sorry, that's not the answer. Here's the answer: it depends. How's that? It depends on the factual circumstances. I just had this same discussion with a mediator in a major case regarding fraud -- same thing. Reguires proof of intent to misrepresent. The proof is difficult. The facts of every case are different, but CIRCUMSTANTIAL evidence often blows holes in the story of one side or other. What could it be? Anything, depending on what happened. And if the alleged victims lies, it gives police and prosecutors a great excuse to not pursue it. I will be writing about a case where the alleged rapist lied about a rather serious matter but was found not guilty -- the young man and I have corresponded, and his case is interesting because he destroyed some material evidence.
One of the things used to prove non-consent is the pretext phone call. "Gee, I'm sorry I didn't stop -- I should have been more considerate" -- bad thing to say on the phone if the "victim" calls you. The call might be placed from the police station, and the police might be recording and listening. Nice, huh?
Bragging to an acquaintance about how banged a drunk girl. Bad move.
"you seem to be asking me rhetorical questions while still wanting me to trap me into saying, "Duh! I don't know."
Sorry, but I'm not trying to do anything like that. Perhaps I'm not being clear. You repeated the same exceptions already mentioned such as "evidence often blows holes in the story of one side or other" or admission by the accused. Which still leaves the central non-rhetorical question unanswered. While I think it is a very important question, you might not, and you are entitled to your opinion. Either way you not obligated to answer.
I found Abyss2hope very helpful 3yrs ago, it helped me make sense of what had happened to me. Sure, you'll get people on there who have odd ideas - just as you'll probably get them on here. I've never found Marcella Chester to be man-hating and she's helped me to regain my trust in men, so I hope that most of you won't write her off.
great discussion about the violence thing, I think it's good to look at our beliefs around actual rape even though this site is more focused on helping victims of false rape.
Natalie, thank you for writing. Our site is unique in focusing on essentially one problem -- a problem that affects not just men but, yes, some women, too. But it is a problem that is overlooked -- and, sadly, purposefully so by persons who think it will hurt the war on rape (it can only help the war on rape).
Just as you were a victim of a terrible crime and mistrusted men, we have lots of readers here who were falsely accused. I gently counsel some who have lost their faith in women. I am happily married, and I can't imagine how terrible it would be to mistrust half the population for no reason aside from their gender. Both rape and false rape claims can do terrible things to people.
What too many rape advocates fail to realize is that false accusers are the enemy not only of the falsely accused but of rape victims. I think Marcella and people like her think we are helping rapists when that's the last thing we want to do. We are actually helping rape victims, and it's long past time that we joined forces. If we can help reduce false accusations, as is our goal, rape victims will have greater credibility. You see, rape is trivialized when we dignify false accusations and insist they must not be punished.
"Besides witnesses, and the virtual equivalent of witnesses such as audio/video recordings, what other evidence can show the absence of consent?"
Anon, I didn't mean to be flippant -- I need to remind myself that our readers haven't spent the past 29 years of their lives immersed in the law.
Evidence aside from witness testimony is tangible, so you're talking about video (e.g., the two of them holding hands after the alleged rape seems to contradict any such claim), and records of emails, notes, letters, text messages, messages on blogs (oh, yeah!), phone records, and really anything where the parties' state of mind is manifested. The test for rape is whether a reasonable person in the male's position thought there was consent, so you'd want to find anything that indicated how he described the evening. Example, if he emailed his mother and told her about this great girl he met, and how it's getting serious, etc. that sure doesn't sound like a rapist. Or if he went to rent a movie for the two of them to watch after the alleged rape. Or ordered them a pizza. Rapists are less likely to do that than non-rapists. Note that a lot of this isn't dispositive -- it just sheds some light on what happened. In short, it's detective work, and what you're looking for is any physical evidence that would shed light on how they felt about each other.
I didn't think you were being flippant, and perhaps you are correct that I'm not looking at this as a lawyer would. Most of the sort of evidence you describe above would be exculpatory, things the defense would use. My question is about the other side, what evidence should the prosecution be required to have?
Part of the problem as I see it, is that the burden is increasingly being put on the defense to show consent, when in principle it should be on the prosecution to show non-consent. Clearly, the word of the alleged victim, the word of only one person, should not be enough.
" . . . the burden is increasingly being put on the defense to show consent . . . ."
In most criminal trials, the accused decides not even to testify. The burden to prove non-consent never shifts back to the accused. Despite the letter of the law, if there are competing plausible accounts it is rare that a prosecutor takes it to trial.
falserapesociety.blogspot.com; You saved my day again.
Gals
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