Prudie on “real” rape

161 thoughts on Prudie on “real” rape

1. Prudie = Roiphe. (Katie, not Anne. Unlike Katie, I have nothing against Anne.)

   When Yoffe gets fired from that job I will rejoice.

2. “Of course she didn’t deserve it! But she deserved it.”
   Gag.

3. Since her first version of the story is that she was ashamed of her behavior

   Many rape victims’ initial emotion after the assault is shame.

4. Say you understand her shame, but you’re concerned about her drinking, and if she addresses that, she won’t find herself in such painful situations.

   Let’s see if I got this right. The problem is her drinking? That she gets drunk?

   So a women should never get drunk because there are people out there who will exploit her drunkeness and that then will be her fault?

   I dunno, it may be me speaking from the position of privilege as a man, but this sounds pretty much teethgnashing stupid.

   If one gets drunk it gives nobody the permission to exploit one’s lack of decision making control! Hey you sold me your house for 1$ last night when you where drunk, this should surely be enforceable by law…

   if there’s any way her behavior could be construed to be consensual

   Ah, we have to check any possible way, even the teeny tiny little details to see if she hasn’t have give consent. She smiled? Consent! She went with him? Consent! She drunk alcohol! What a harlot!

   Sorry, severly drunken people can’t give consent to anything, which is true for sex too (which makes it rape even without her drink being druggen in my opinion). If men have to be teached this way through the sledgehammer of criminal justice, I can’t say I feel very sorry for the culprit.

5. Prudie.. she’s kind of an asshole, no?

   The fucked up thing is that some victims may not recognize a given situation as rape because everyone is so programmed to look for any reason to NOT call something rape… even victims.

6. But I think cases like the one you are describing here—in the absence of any evidence she was drugged—where someone voluntarily goes home with a stranger in order to have a sexual encounter, makes it that much harder for women who are assaulted to bring charges.

   So if I go home with a guy, I have consented to sex? What if I change my mind after I get there?

   Also, how do we know she wasn’t drugged? I was drinking once, and was clearly tipsy, but ended up falling down, black out drunk. I hadn’t had a really huge amount, and I never black out, and when I described my behavior to a friend who happens to be a scientist, and she immediately said it sounded like I had been given GHB or ketamine. The friend could have been drinking and still been drugged. Or deliberately plied with alcohol by a rapist. Or been raped by someone who knew she was intoxicated and counted on that.

   Look, I agree that this case will go nowhere in the criminal justice system–a drunk complainant who told a conflicting story before reporting the incident is not the ideal witness, and in the absence of other evidence, a DA is going to see this as a losing case. A friend might well advise her that, given the facts, filing charges is unlikely to achieve anything, but suggest other resources to help her process and recover. A friend might ask why her story changed–what made her call it a mistake at first and then an assault? A friend might, oh, I don’t know, show some concern for her friend?

   If the LW thinks her friend is lying, why? Does her friend often lie? Does she frequently lie to cover up things she is embarrassed about? If not, why do you think she’s lying now?

   I obviously don’t think that a woman who regrets a one-night stand should accuse someone of rape, but it’s also possible that she didn’t think of what happened to her as rape at first, because she was socialized to believe that drinking = consent. Or think that because she was so drunk she doesn’t remember, she must have consented.

7. Another thing that irritates me about how this and similar “the woman was drunk” narratives are treated is that people assume the woman consented and expressed consent, and that the argument is that alcohol nullifies this.

   I do not think this is often true–sure, maybe she didn’t say no, but it isn’t surprising that someone who is drunk would be less able to express themselves.

   Alcohol–it shouldn’t be a get-out-of-rape free card for rapists.

8. You know why women are raped when they drink? Because fuckwads like Prudie keep women from suing and pressing charges when a rapist rapes them. We continually refuse to enforce the laws against rape when the woman is behaving in a manner we don’t approve making it clear that rape is a-okay if she’s ___.

   In short, society is using rape as a tool to enforce social norms like not drinking and it pisses me right the fuck off to see Prudie doing that in a fucking advice column.

9. Well, if she does complaint, she will have a weak case. The most likely result will be a lot of trouble and anguish for no results.

   I think she would be better off doing something for herself that will really have good results… give up the overdone drinking. Such a habit is never good regardless of context. I dont do it even if I’m a big guy because I hate the idea of behaving irresponsibly.

   The guy may be a scumbag but trying to kick his ass in an ineffective fashion will not make her life better.

   Sorry if that sounds harsh.

   Larry

10. As usual, it seems to come down to people not understanding what consent actually is. GOD I wish people weren’t so freaking programmed to be afraid that enthusiastic consent is just awkward and ruins the mood. And that people actually respected each other, that would be nice too.

11. Well, if she does complaint, she will have a weak case. The most likely result will be a lot of trouble and anguish for no results.

    I think she would be better off doing something for herself that will really have good results… give up the overdone drinking. Such a habit is never good regardless of context. I dont do it even if I’m a big guy because I hate the idea of behaving irresponsibly.

    The guy may be a scumbag but trying to kick his ass in an ineffective fashion will not make her life better.

    Oh dear heavens. If you’re applying for Prudie’s job, you’ll have to come up with something better than that.

12. Sorry if that sounds harsh.

    It baffles me how people on this site insist upon redefining words. Harsh? Did you mean “dumb”?

13. Many rape victims’ initial emotion after the assault is shame.

    This. It took me five years to fully realize that I had been raped. In retrospect, it would have been way more helpful to NOT have internalized all the victim-blaming bullshit so I could’ve taken action. Prudie isn’t helping.

    Oh dear heavens. If you’re applying for Prudie’s job, you’ll have to come up with something better than that.

    Seriously.

14. ^Whoa, sorry about the inverted block quoting. I’m a newb.

15. GOD I wish people weren’t so freaking programmed to be afraid that enthusiastic consent is just awkward and ruins the mood.

    I know. Can’t speak for anyone else, but I’d rather know someone was really and totally into whatever we were doing than have to rely on my poor social skills to read body language. Blah. Far more sexy than over-analyzing every thing.. “Was that a good moan or a bad moan?”

16. I read this article, and looked at the comments, and what really shocked me was how many people agreed with Prudie, and how few defended the victim even to the point of saying we don’t know what happened from the letter. I didn’t see anyone point out that stories of rape victims often change because they don’t want to believe it was rape.

17. Why does it not occur to the majority of people that the reason so many rape victims will have a tough time in court is precisely because people keep believing they will? Because that’s who’s on the jury. If at least all women in the world believed other women, it might make enough of a difference to make rapists think twice about their no-longer-so-easy targets.

18. @15:

    I know that feel, I have yet to have a sexual encounter where I haven’t had my partner tell me “you know it’s really uncomfortable when you keep stopping in the middle to ask me if you can do stuff, lets just feel it ok?”

    Course in contrast my first few times there was no talking at all. And all it takes is 1 good read of some EC writing material to make you feel horrible about any sex you’ve ever had where there was no talking. At one point I ended up calling the people my first few encounters were with after spending 48 hours crying and freaking out just to ask them if what happened was “as consensual as I thought it was”. Thankfully all of them thought I was crazy and said they had a great time but I’ve definitely abstained from MANY encounters since then for fear of my partner having had any alcohol or not have verbally said anything that indicates they want me to be there.

19. “I have seen her very intoxicated on previous occasions, to the point she doesn’t remember anything the next day.”

    so if you are drunk to the point of not even remembering anything at all, you ‘obviously consented’?
    great logic there dude.
    so clear.

    on a similar note:

    ‘Sexist beer’ row: was Kate Green right?
    Kate Green MP objected to having a beer called ‘Top Totty’ sold in the Commons’ bar. The ale’s logo features a pin-up serving beer in her underwear. Was Green right to find it tasteless and call for its removal?

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/poll/2012/feb/03/top-totty-sexist-beer-ale

    vote here:
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree
    scroll down to vote.
    (61% of Englishmen think its both misogynist AND funny as all sh*t.)

20. I’m curious to know if the guy in this story was drunk or sober. If he was sober, or even sober-ish, then it should not even be up for discussion. He knowingly took someone who was clearly beyond the capacity to give consent and violated her. It would be no different than if he roofied her drink.

    Of course, I hold no illusions that the girl in this case has a good shot at justice in our rape culture. The comments in the article prove it.

    (I feel that if the guy was also completely wasted then he is no more guilty than she is in the incident… but from what I understand, usually that is not the case in these situations)

21. What blows my mind is the comments. I’ve read comments on Prudie before, and they’re a mixed bag, but usually there are people calling her out on her shit. Not so much this one. They literally drove me to tears. And I do *not* cry easily over stuff like this, not after years of reading feminist blogs.

    I just have no faith in humanity sometimes. But, nearly $1,000,000 for Planned Parenthood. And they can do whatever they hell they want with it.

22. A marriage can be annulled in almost every state if one party was drunk. No sobriety, no consent. Sex should be treated identically. Prudie, get yer head out of the T-bird bottle.

23. How would a case like hers even be prosecuted? I am asking honestly. I have tried looking for how prosecutors convict date rape cases, what type of evidence is admissible, what types of evidence are commonly used in such cases, etc. And I have found almost nothing. Only that such cases are difficult to prosecute because without violence there is little to go on other than testimony. And victim’s testimony will only get you so far.

    If anyone has good resources on the burden of evidence in rape cases, especially date rape I would be very interested.

24. @Meghan: I’m not surprised you didn’t find anything, because it doesn’t really exist. I’ve gotten into circular conversations with cops before that go something like:
    Cop: She says she woke up naked, but she doesn’t remember anything.
    Me: Since she doesn’t remember anything, she was obviously incapacitated and couldn’t consent.
    Cop: But she doesn’t remember anything, so even if I find the guy, it’s he said she said.
    Me: But she says she doesn’t remember anything, so she couldn’t consent.

    It usually ends with me and the cop agreeing that whether or not the investigation can lead to prosecution, she believes something happened and therefore a referral to sexual assault services is necessary.

    Unfortunately, that’s all we get. Even when officers are really good on this issue, they’re still limited by whatever the local prosecutor is willing to take on.

25. Well… I’ll say, cautiously, that I sympathize a bit with Prudie because she’s responding to a letter writer who says what happened.

    I said, I sympathize *a bit*. Not a lot, just, you know… wow, sometimes I listen to what a person says, and don’t think about the implications, and then say something stupid, and wow, I feel like an idiot when I miss something big – make that “incredibly fucking *huge*” – like “sometimes, people who’ve just undergone a traumatic experience, are in denial or simply confused (or, well, lots of stuff – doesn’t have to be denial or confusion).

    One thing that’s started to frost me a bit about these discussions: People have such limited imaginations, sometimes.

    Yes, one can imagine that she just had sex, and decided that since she was drunk, her consent wasn’t cleanly given.

    One can also imagine that he decided she’d already consented, and that it was irrevokable, and if anyone had witnessed what had happened, they’d call him a vicious rapist, a monster.

    And one can imagine all kinds of scenarios in between.

    So why do so many people imagine only the first? (That’s only semi-rhetorical.)

26. @Opheelia

    That’s pretty much what I found. Does anyone know of any cases that have been successfully prosecuted? Or other countries that have a better system?

    I look at the principles of our legal system, specifically the “beyond a reasonable doubt,” and I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to successfully prosecute these rapes. Whether or not the victim remembers the rape, many times there is only the victim’s testimony as evidence. Are there other crimes that are prosecuted solely on the victim’s testimony without any physical evidence?

27. Meghan @22:

    That’s pretty much what I found. Does anyone know of any cases that have been successfully prosecuted? Or other countries that have a better system?

    If you have no independent evidence or testimony then in most of these cases it is probably unavoidable that the rapist walks free. As long as we keep the presumption of evidence in the justice system I think this is the way it must be. (If even the victim does not remember enough to give testimony, what could be done?)

    Yes, one can imagine that she just had sex, and decided that since she was drunk, her consent wasn’t cleanly given.

    One can also imagine that he decided she’d already consented, and that it was irrevokable, and if anyone had witnessed what had happened, they’d call him a vicious rapist, a monster.

    And one can imagine all kinds of scenarios in between.

    So why do so many people imagine only the first? (That’s only semi-rhetorical.)

    Quite a few people assume the second also. I think this is just such an emotionally loaded subject that it is hard to keep an open mind.

28. GOD I wish people weren’t so freaking programmed to be afraid that enthusiastic consent is just awkward and ruins the mood.

    Do you really think that communication failures is the source of much rape? I would assume that in the vast majority of cases it is not a problem of communication but simply that the rapist has chosen to ignore the lack of consent (regardless of how they try to justify themselves afterwards).

    To be honest I have never really understood the whole “enthusiastic consent” movement.

29. A marriage can be annulled in almost every state if one party was drunk. No sobriety, no consent. Sex should be treated identically. Prudie, get yer head out of the T-bird bottle.

    That’s a pretty big blanket there dont cha think? I am much more sexually aggressive after drinking and tend to come home and “go for it” with my typically sober husband. If rape was defined the way you’ve described here, the father of my children and the man who loves me most would be labeled a sex offender and trotted off to jail because I came home drunk demanding sex when clearly alcohol= no consent so I can’t really ever mean it when I express a desire to want to have sex with him, or if I was unmarried anyone because drinking removes my ability to truly know that I want to have sex. I can’t agree with that as something that works for everyone. There are many people who have had and remembers consensual sex with someone they met at a bar/club/lounge after getting dunk. Obviously no one who has passed out from their drunkeness can consent and it is quite possible for anyone male or female who is drunk and initially consent to retract that consent, that retraction deserves respect, being drunk is not an excuse to rape someone. But on the flipside being drunk doesn’t make someone’s sexuality null and void either.

    Can we agree to this:

    If the person is drunk and a stranger regardless of gender the sober person should absolutely not have sex with them. But if they both were drinking, got drunk, neither was drugged, and consent was there on both ends it’s hard to say one person was too drunk to consent was raped if both were too drunk to consent and the only issue of consent was whether or not the person could consent due to their inebriation. It’s like two kids the same age having sex and throwing one in jail for rape because the person they had sex with was too young to consent.

    The woman in the question though says she was raped, therefore she is saying she did not consent to having sex, ergo she was raped. No need for making all drunk people who have sex rape victims.

30. “Yes, I agree that men should not have sex with drunk women they don’t know.”

    Men should not have sex with drunk women, period. The same should go for women having sex with drunk men , but we know how the system semi work.

    “In an effort to regain control of the situation, it’s pretty common for sexual assault survivors to initially construe the situation as a “mistake,” or something that was their fault. Sometimes it takes days, or weeks, or years to process what actually happened.”

    This is true, but is problematic because of the way human memory works.

    ” She spoke to a rape crisis line, and they said even if she was drunk, she couldn’t have given consent so she was a victim of rape. ”

    This open the question abut he been drunk or not. In any case we should start teaching boys about the legal risks of so called “drunk sex” from before puberty.

    I tend to believe her that is was rape. If change her version after her boy friend found out, I will not be so positive. I will also hesitate if she is racist and found out he is jewish or something.

    Right now I don’t have a reason not to believe her. Of course, I can’t be blind at the possibility that the girlfriend has a very strong case.

    Lov,

    Avida

31. This infuriated me as soon as I read it and I was keeping a countdown to the Feministe response. Until then I could have no relief.

32. @Avida

    Men should not have sex with drunk women, period. The same should go for women having sex with drunk men , but we know how the system semi work.

    How do you mean this? If you have been out partying with your SO, why should you not have sex when coming home? (This seems nonsensical to me, so I assume I have misunderstood your point)

    In general, I do not think drunk sex is a problem unless at least one party is seriously drunk to the point where the ability to give consent becomes unclear. Some common sense judgment is needed instead of the above type of absolute statement.

33. But I think people assume drink spiking really easily. The fact is in there’s usual no direct evidence of spiking, but there is direct evidence of people hitting the booze and we 100% know alcohol fucks people up. Why do people hypothesise spiking so easily, I think the blunt answer is there’s no stigma attached to getting spiked but a lot to not being able to manage your drinking or to admitting an alcohol problem.

34. And you know, filing a criminal complaint does not mean that the man goes straight to jail without passing Go….

    Yes it does. So long as the story has a minimal level of coherence it will give probable cause and this will be usually followed by arrest as a matter of procedure, which will involve time in jail and questioning. It’s just BS to suggest that people only go to jail after a through review of the facts and criminal procedure or that time in jail on arrest doesn’t count.

35. Yeah, the follow-up reader responses to the initial letter were really disappointing, to say the least. It’s depressing to be reminded of what the world might be like outside of the little bubble I like to keep myself in, where pretty much everyone just knows intuitively that having sex with someone who cannot give consent is rape. It’s shocking every time I am reacquainted with some of these seemingly old-fashioned ideas that so many other people have. It’s just more evidence that, YES, feminism is still relevant today.

36. How do we define when someone has had too much to drink? I realize this may sound like a no brainer question and I am sure we all know of a situation where it was obvious but sometimes it’s not. For instance a person may be receptive to going home with someone and only had a few drinks but if the person doesn’t ask they wouldn’t know (and while it is probably wise to do so we all know a lot of people won’t). Or they may have had a lot to drink but again if they are still at the point where they can act like they have not it can be hard to tell. Even asking someone how many drinks they have had may not be much help in some cases as different people have different tolerances. For example two shots of vodka is a lot for me but for someone else its nothing. So if someone tells me they have had like 5 shots for all i know this could be nothing to them. Again this question is not intended for the obvious cases but rather aimed at the grey area.

37. @valentifan69 (32)

    But I think people assume drink spiking really easily. The fact is in there’s usual no direct evidence of spiking, but there is direct evidence of people hitting the booze and we 100% know alcohol fucks people up. Why do people hypothesise spiking so easily, I think the blunt answer is there’s no stigma attached to getting spiked but a lot to not being able to manage your drinking or to admitting an alcohol problem.

    What are you on about? We’re ultimately talking about consent here: it doesn’t have to escalate to date r*pe in order for that to be called into question. If any party has been drinking, s/he legally cannot give consent, period.

    And there is plenty of stigma attached to date r*pe, so don’t try and pretend otherwise. Just like other cases of r*pe, apologists will say you were careless, you shouldn’t have been out at x place doing y or z, etc. Victim blamers rarely waste an opportunity to shame victims.

38. @ Raja,

    I think its just best for people to not have sex with a drunken stranger.

39. This whole idea that we need an absolute objective cut-off point for drunken consent (complete with how-much-have-you-had interrogation) kinda feels like part of the problem. Kinda always feels like ‘hey feminists, can I have a list of definitive rules about how not to rape women?’, as if men are incapable of assessing this shit contextually, using, y’know, empathy and respect and general social awareness and stuff. The point of ‘enthusiastic consent’ as a concept is not to enforce a list of rules, regulations and intoxication limits that must be stringently followed to avoid becoming a rapist (and that’s a pretty MRA-esque rendering of it); the fundamental point is only that if you’re in any doubt that the other person is fully, enthusiastically into it, you should stop, because that would be the obvious, rational, respectful reaction of a non-rapist. When alcohol is involved, that concept doesn’t change. I can’t imagine many situations where it’s so very difficult to tell the difference between someone who’s had a few drinks but still capable of enthusiastically initiating, actively participating and repeatedly confirming consent, and someone who’s only capable of passively responding to your advances. And if, in context, you are in any doubt about where they are on that spectrum, if you have an inkling that they might be drunk enough to not really be aware of what they’re doing, just don’t have sex. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve sure never heard of a woman who really believed herself to have drunkenly given what looked like genuine enthusiastic consent with some poor hapless unaware dude and later considered it rape (apart from invented ones in the MRA-sphere). That isn’t a thing that generally happens, and to act like it does is a complete deflection from the thing that actually happens, which is men thinking it’s fine to go ahead and have sex with an obviously drunk, passive woman just so long as they don’t hear a clear and forceful ‘no’ (and, often, even if they do).

40. WTF is r*pe?

41. @38

    actually, that does happen from time to time, I’ve seen it.

42. This whole idea that we need an absolute objective cut-off point for drunken consent (complete with how-much-have-you-had interrogation) kinda feels like part of the problem. Kinda always feels like ‘hey feminists, can I have a list of definitive rules about how not to rape women?’, as if men are incapable of assessing this shit contextually, using, y’know, empathy and respect and general social awareness and stuff.

    QFT. There is no clear cut definition, you will need to actually use some judgment. Perhaps it is a bit subjective, but it is not really that complicated.

    As I mentioned above I am not really into the whole “enthusiastic consent” thing, but even from my viewpoint it is not that hard to make this judgment.

43. I think you’re going to be pretty hard-pressed to find men who are cognizant of the consent laws who are willing to make a judgment call on what circumstances and what nebulous guidelines constitute enthusiastic consent.

    It’s not that such a thing would be hard to spot, but if there’s even a small chance that it blows up into a huge public scandal or even jail time, most men who know the consent laws would rather not risk it.

    For my own personal story, I went through college never having sex, because every girl on campus was drinking or smoking marijuana or other drugs, which meant even if she gave consent, enthusiastic or not, I would always run the risk of being accused of rape. My only option was to try and find a girl who didn’t drink or do drugs, and I’m sure you know how unsuccessful that is on a college campus.

    Not to mention the internal anguish of agreeing with the consent laws and your only sexual choices are to have sex and have that sex defined as rape by the consent laws you agree with, or monastic celibacy.

44. Pingback: Rape & Superpowers « Anytime Yoga

45. Here in England the rule is that drunken consent is still consent. I think that reflects the reality in most cases. A women must be damn-near unconscious before the man cannot say that she consented. Obviously, “rape drugs” etc. will negative consent.
    There have been moves to say a man must be absle to prove consent – but that ignores the realities of much student / campus / bar social intercourse, let alone sexual intercourse.

    We don’t have all the facts in Prudie’s letter. If the man was very drunk himself, that may actually make it worse – some men get aggressive and violent when drunk and won’t take “no” for an answer, even if they aren’t normally aggressive when sober.

    The short answer is, both men and women ought to be careful with the amount they drink as both men and women can do stupid things when drunk they regret afterwards.

    I don’t see how some people here can convict the man in question – we just don’t have the facts.

46. Unfortunately, that’s all we get. Even when officers are really good on this issue, they’re still limited by whatever the local prosecutor is willing to take on.

    I had a slamdunk case where the drunk suspect was found by a third party attacking the sober victim and trying to pull her clothes off. She was actively fight him off and a third party jumped in and proceeded to monkey-stomp the attacker. Attacker was a known bad-guy with an extensive record.

    Cases don’t get any more “rape-rape” than this, right?

    DA flushed it claiming the injuries to the attacker hurt our case and the fact that the third party had a record blah blah blah. I’m still not sure why the DA decided she wasn’t going to prosecute the case and I made a stink about it. DA wouldn’t give me a straight answer and I went to my boss about it but she was a senior DA and I didn’t get anywhere. I was glad when that DA moved on.

    The only solace was that the attacker got his ass kicked, bigtime.

47. I wrote something a while back, which touched on the issue of men having sex with drunk women. Basic message: be very fucking careful. Most of the responses centered around “Well, what if he’s drunk too? Is that double rape?” (bafflingly, one female commenter went to lengths to tell me how incredibly offended she would be if a man decided for her that she was too drunk to have sex – as though him withdrawing his consent, for any reason, justifies her being offended).

    Perhaps if we changed the perspective a bit – why isn’t anyone challenging the guys self respect, for sleeping with a drunk woman?

    I’m uncomfortable with the whole “Well, its understandable that he’d push the bounds of acceptable behavior, because he’s a guy and they’re all horny bastards who will take what they can get.” I think I’d prefer “Yeah, hooking up with drunk women is a scumbag thing to do.”

48. WTF is r*pe

    Rope, clearly. Or maybe ripe.

49. But seriously, I’m wigged out by the idea that there needs to be a clear guideline as to when it’s okay to have sex with a drunk person. If you are unsure if the consent is genuine, don’t do it.

    It’s not like you’ll never have sex ever again. Hell, backing off when consent is unclear may increase ones odds of future consensual sex with said person, having proven oneself not a douchebag rapist. It’s no guarantee of course, but it can’t hurt.

50. Drew: “bafflingly, one female commenter went to lengths to tell me how incredibly offended she would be if a man decided for her that she was too drunk to have sex – as though him withdrawing his consent, for any reason, justifies her being offended”

    Well, yes. One of the things complicating this is that our society doesn’t exactly give men a way to say no to sex with a woman, and if he does it’s likely that she’ll think it’s because she’s not sexually attractive enough because according to our social norms men are meant to always be sexually available. So not only are men expected to be able to judge whether a woman pestering them for sex is too drunk to actually consent even if they’re equally drunk themselves, they’re expected to deal with being treated like utter assholes for saying no and still continue to refuse despite this.

51. The things that really bothered me about Prudie’s answer were the tropes about ruining the guy’s life and making it harder for “real” rape victims to bring charges. In rape culture world, being accused of rape is worse than anything, including—rape? And, there are no “real” rape victims, because in every case there is some twisted (in Prudie’s words) “way her behavior could be construed to be consensual.” Like that 11 year old in Texas who led all those older boys on, as discussed by the New York Times. So, if you’re a female victim of rape, you should just shut up about it, because you don’t matter—you probably did something to bring it on and you’ll be RUINING SOMEONE’s LIFE by accusing them (the state of your life is, of course, irrelevant). If you’re a male victim of rape, you’re invisible because rape only happens to women and then the former applies. And if you can’t easily be classified as male or female then that’s your problem right there—no one is responsible for violence done to you because of trans panic, which is totally reasonable. If people would just remember their proper places, everything would be so much easier. SANTORUM 2012!

52. Prudie calls herself Prudie for a reason. I don’t understand why anyone would want her advice about anything, but she does live up to her name.

53. Here’s Prudie’s response to a commenter at almost diamonds:

    I am ardently against rape. I am sorry for your situation.
    But if a woman allows herself to picked up at a bar, goes home with a guy, and appears to consent to sex, her regret about her behavior is not enough to charge someone with rape.”

    Yeah, when you have to tell, not show…..

    To anybody who’s arguing that OMG it’s so mysterious what women want when they’re plastered: If you aren’t sure, you don’t have consent. And if you aren’t sure, you’re a lousy fuck, too. Seriously, enthusiastic consent is not hard at all to understand. The fact that so many people betray that they don’t understand enthusiastic consent reveals way too much about their sex lives—-and the fact that they look not for consent but for moments of opportunity.

    Consent is not some treacherous narrow tightrope—–unless, of course, you depend on plausible deniability and complete sexism to get away with rape. Consent is a wide open highway. What we’re dealing with are the guys who search out women who are vulnerable.

54. Dammit, the blockquote should have ended after the first paragraph before the sentence about telling, not showing. Can a mod fix that?

55. I think the consent area can get murky. Not every drunk person who is raped was in a daze. Some of them were actively engaged in what was going on, the problem is that they were too drunk to consent to being actively engaged in anything other than going home and sleeping it off. If they were asked to walk a straight line, a person who is too drunk to consent to sex probably couldn’t do that on their own.

56. makomk:

    One of the things complicating this is that our society doesn’t exactly give men a way to say no to sex with a woman, and if he does it’s likely that she’ll think it’s because she’s not sexually attractive enough because according to our social norms men are meant to always be sexually available. So not only are men expected to be able to judge whether a woman pestering them for sex is too drunk to actually consent even if they’re equally drunk themselves, they’re expected to deal with being treated like utter assholes for saying no and still continue to refuse despite this.

    Doing the right thing regardless of the fact that someone might think you’re an asshole is called being a grownup. Sex is kind of a grownup thing.

57. I think the consent area can get murky. Not every drunk person who is raped was in a daze. Some of them were actively engaged in what was going on, the problem is that they were too drunk to consent to being actively engaged in anything other than going home and sleeping it off. If they were asked to walk a straight line, a person who is too drunk to consent to sex probably couldn’t do that on their own.

    Yes, but how frequently does it happen that two people partner for casual sex and only interact during the sex part? You usually have at least a little bit of time to figure out whether your partner can walk.

    I will concede one point to the rapist´s advocate crowd: drunk sex is a common scenario. Lots of people like to mix alcohol and screwing, and some people do get seriously wasted before having sex. But very few women confuse drunken hijinks with sexual assault. When someone gets drunk and gets laid, they may wake up embarrassed or unfulfilled, but they don’t generally feel violated. When a woman says she was raped, it’s not because she had drunken sex with another drunk person.

58. How would a case like hers even be prosecuted? I am asking honestly.

    In the few US states where affirmative consent is required for rape (eg NJ), I’d imagine you’d find quite a few more successful prosecutions of rape with alcohol/drug involvement.

59. Er, affirmative consent required to prove it *wasn’t* rape, sorry.

60. i admit i’m always a little touchy in this area- i was falsely accused of a sexual assault by an ex girlfriend several years ago, who eventually admitted freely to making the entire thing up in order to get back at me for (rather callously, I admit) dating one of her best friends. so while i understand this type of thing is rare, there’s a big difference between “this almost never happens” and “this never happens”. for what it’s worth.

    i think what i reacted to in the original post is the spiking of the drink accusation. that accusation suggests a situation far beyond them being drunk and the gentleman not gaining enthusiastic, affirmative consent. Instead, it suggests that he had walked into the bar, illegal drugs in hand, waiting for a victim. (and yes, I realize that does happen). but, there’s a far cry from “now that i’ve digested what happened, i realize this was rape” to “i’m beating myself up over doing something i don’t normally do (paraphrasing the original story), so therefore someone must have actively drugged me.”

    speaking as a representative of the decently large population of men who have both no desire to acquire those drugs and no possible idea how i even could FIND them, it just seems like a lot to say without any evidence of the fact that that happened.

    and, yes, i realize it COULD have happened, but to quote longhairedweirdo (first time i’ve ever quoted anyone named longhairedweirdo, incidentally), and by simply going from the article, i just felt like there are a variety of scenarios that could have happened.

    please don’t fault me for my life experience (first paragraph), but i always get concerned about rushing to judgment, no matter the topic.

61. i think what i reacted to in the original post is the spiking of the drink accusation. that accusation suggests a situation far beyond them being drunk and the gentleman not gaining enthusiastic, affirmative consent. Instead, it suggests that he had walked into the bar, illegal drugs in hand, waiting for a victim. (and yes, I realize that does happen). but, there’s a far cry from “now that i’ve digested what happened, i realize this was rape” to “i’m beating myself up over doing something i don’t normally do (paraphrasing the original story), so therefore someone must have actively drugged me.”

    That’s not an accurate paraphrase, though. To her, her unusual behavior–and, maybe, unusual feelings of disorientation or memory loss or severe intoxication–may be indications that something besides alcohol was in her bloodstream. That’s reasonable; rohypnol is basically a blackout drug.

    And this woman is an experienced drinker, who probably knows how she behaves under the influence. She’s clearly done that part of this scenario many many times, but never alleged sexual assault before, or (so far as we know) blamed other people for her drunken behavior. I think that’s all a point in her favor.

    While drugs involve a certain amount of planning and premeditation–and, probably, some steps that most men have no idea how to take–there’s an option between getting drunk and drugging someone: getting someone drunk. That situation is much more common. Like I said, date-rape drugs are a short cut to extreme intoxication. Cocktails are legal; they sell them right there at the bar. It’s not difficult to home in on a drunk woman and get her drunker.

    That behavior is no different, morally, from drugging someone’s drink. But it’s much more difficult to prove, and easy to camouflage as social drinking followed by consensual drunk sex. If she believes that she was dosed, it might simply make more sense that she was dosed with something besides alcohol. I don’t think it’s a nastier accusation, just more elaborate.

62. I am reading Prudies advice chat from today and she just double downed on her judgement of the woman who may have been raped. Here it is:

    “. 20-Year-Old Drinking: I have a 20 year old son who is a junior at university. He is a good student who works part time as a teaching assistant for a beginning computer class. We switched phones recently since the screen on his phone was only working intermittently. (I don’t need text messaging.) Anyway, on his phone I saw a text message he sent to a friend talking about something he did not remember saying when he was drunk. I don’t have other evidence of him drinking but I am not naive about college student drinking. I am mostly concerned about him being drunk and not remembering. Do you have any advice about if I should talk to him and what I should say if I do talk to him?

    A: College students drink. But what’s disturbing is the culture that teaches them binge drinking is the only way to imbibe. I think you should talk to him, but in a low-key way. Say you understand most people drink on campus, but your concern is about drinking until you’re no longer responsible for your own behavior. You could show him last week’s chat with the letter from a woman who, following a drunken one-night stand, started rethinking what happened and concluded she was raped. A young man who is doing things he is not aware of doing could end up on the wrong side of such an accusation. Tell him that if he stays close to sober, he will be able to see the truth of the fact that people who lose control of their faculties get themselves in all kinds of trouble, and that’s a lesson better learned from observation than experience.”

    I’m speechless….

63. the_leanover

    This whole idea that we need an absolute objective cut-off point for drunken consent (complete with how-much-have-you-had interrogation) kinda feels like part of the problem. Kinda always feels like ‘hey feminists, can I have a list of definitive rules about how not to rape women?’, as if men are incapable of assessing this shit contextually, using, y’know, empathy and respect and general social awareness and stuff. The point of ‘enthusiastic consent’ as a concept is not to enforce a list of rules, regulations and intoxication limits that must be stringently followed to avoid becoming a rapist (and that’s a pretty MRA-esque rendering of it); the fundamental point is only that if you’re in any doubt that the other person is fully, enthusiastically into it, you should stop, because that would be the obvious, rational, respectful reaction of a non-rapist

    This. I keep trying to explain this to some people. And you know, if your first reaction is to LOOK for the exact definitions and rules so you can walk right up to the line, or find a loophole, or whatever, then you are doing consent wrong and I will not trust you.

64. Or what ginmar said in 53.

65. Piny @ 57:

    What if witnesses at the bar or bar surveillance shows her walking alright on her own, does that mean we no longer beleives that she was raped? I am asking these questions because although making a hard and fast line may be irritating this is probably a big reason why cases liek these aren’t prosecuted, you need exact lines and definition on what being too drunk to consent looks like. COnsidering that people behave differenly when drunk and have varying alcohol level tolerances these are not easy to conclude for anyone. That is the reason I say it is in the best interest of everyone to just never have sex with a drunken stranger or a drunken associate who didn’t express a desire to have sex with you before until after they had been drinking.

66. Like I said, date-rape drugs are a short cut to extreme intoxication. Cocktails are legal; they sell them right there at the bar. It’s not difficult to home in on a drunk woman and get her drunker.

    That behavior is no different, morally, from drugging someone’s drink.

    That behavior is still immoral of course, but there is still an enormous difference between the women consensually drugging herself and someone else stealthily slipping her drugs. The difference in consent matters in this situation also.

    I am asking these questions because although making a hard and fast line may be irritating this is probably a big reason why cases liek these aren’t prosecuted

    The legal situation may vary but at least here the legal limit is actually somewhat up to the judgment of the court. However, the legal limit is rather high and we are talking about being drunk almost to the point of unconsciousness.

    While discussing this it is important to acknowledge that just because something is legal does not mean that it is moral. The moral limit of when you are unfairly taking advantage of someone else is something that will be reached before the point of illegality.

67. I think I’d be more guilty about denying a woman her agency by determining what I judge as her having too much to drink and then robbing her of her opinions in order to “do the right thing.”

    Which do I do? Affirm her consent acceding control over her sexuality, or take over the situation, trampling her decisions based on a male paternal judgment call?

    @Andie

    “Hell, backing off when consent is unclear may increase ones odds of future consensual sex with said person, having proven oneself not a douchebag rapist.”

    Or she could end up grossly insulted that you are calling her a liar, think you’re a weirdo Fundie Christian Moral Guardian, and never speak to you again, all for protecting yourself from violating sex consent laws that you agree with.

68. What if witnesses at the bar or bar surveillance shows her walking alright on her own, does that mean we no longer beleives that she was raped? I am asking these questions because although making a hard and fast line may be irritating this is probably a big reason why cases liek these aren’t prosecuted, you need exact lines and definition on what being too drunk to consent looks like. COnsidering that people behave differenly when drunk and have varying alcohol level tolerances these are not easy to conclude for anyone. That is the reason I say it is in the best interest of everyone to just never have sex with a drunken stranger or a drunken associate who didn’t express a desire to have sex with you before until after they had been drinking.

    I’m sorry, but this is all specious. This isn’t how we deal with impairment and permission in other situations; it’s not really where we’re at with sexual violence, either. And although I know you’re trying to ensure that no rapist walks free, the exact standard you’re trying for is really much more beneficial towards rapists than women.

    Plus, giving consent earlier in the evening has nothing to do with giving consent later on.

69. Of course it is hard to read all these hypothetical scenarios.

    “How drunk is really drunk…?” “What if they are both drunk…?” “Is blackout drunk the only kind…?” “And since most people don’t have blood-alcohol tests handy, aren’t we often just talking about after-the-fact impressions and memories…?”

    These kinds of questions can make the stomach crawl, as if we are patrolling the borders that distinguish rape from just plain-old sex.

    But the trouble is, no matter how much we want that clear bright line, I think that most people would be somewhat uneasy with a direct, objective definition too. Hence the questions.

    Try this set of objective definitions:

    Someone is “drunk” if they have a blood-alcohol content of X (let’s arbitrarily set it at 0.12). Someone who is drunk is unable to consent to sex. Sex without consent is rape. A person who has sex with a non-consenting person is a rapist.

    Therefore, if you have had sex when you have this blood-alcohol rate, then you have been raped. Your feelings or previous actions/decisions have nothing to do with it.

    In addition, if you have ever had sex with anything with this blood-alcohol rate, you are a rapist. Your feelings and intentions have nothing to do with it.

    How many people here are now rapists? How many are now victims?

    More to the point, if you don’t like this definition, what exactly is wrong with it as a matter of principle (not practicality)?

70. Peter, one obvious issue with that definition is you’ve decided that the “victims” feelings on the encounter are totally mooted by BAC — as someone up-thread noted, coming home drunk and trying to take her husband to the bedroom does not make him a rapist — nor her a victim.

    And you didn’t solve the “what if both parties are equally drunk?” hypothetical (or are we assuming that no matter how impaired the male may be, women cannot be rapists? you’ve still got a definitional problem if that’s the case)

    Basically, my issue with that definition is that feelings and intentions have *everything* to do with it — the reason so many rapes are perpetuated on a drunk victim isn’t that the victim’s literally passed-out drunk, but because it’s a whole lot easier to talk a drunk person into doing *anything* — but it shouldn’t be assumed rape, regardless either party’s feelings on the matter, if there was no coercion involved.

    And to whomever it was asking if saying no to the drunk friend/lover/spouse trying to get them in bed was some paternalistic “you don’t know what you want” — I suggest learning the line “sorry, but I’m rather too tired tonight, maybe tomorrow?” I’m a little skeeved out by the implication that the sober partner to a drunk person asking for sex has to consent to the sex, just because the drunk person is drunk. (I rather doubt that’s what you meant, but reverse the genders on the drunk vs sober partner, and my eeeeck factor here should make sense)

71. Oh, and what if the victim has a BAC of more like .10 by the test? Likely if drinking stopped when the sex acts started. (Heck, depending how long the rape lasted, someone who *was* passed out drunk could be legal to drink afterwards)

72. legal to *drive afterwards — sorry for the now triple post >.<

73. Hi Argenti,

    Personally, I agree that feelings and intentions do matter. That is the human factor that you cannot eradicate, although I understand the desire to do so. I think that most people want an issue as heinous as rape to *not* have grey areas — the kinds of grey areas that creep in when you start talking about feelings and intentions.

    (And this doesn’t even account for the fact that rape really is a crime that depends upon the mental state — the intentions or the ability to “intend” at all — of at least one of the people involved, usually the victim.)

    BTW, the point of my objective definitions above was that clear and definite parameters sometimes don’t feel so good either — don’t feel true to our own actions, or our own experience of the world.

    We want a formal definition for all the right reasons. Sadly, I don’t think we can get what we want.

74. Or she could end up grossly insulted that you are calling her a liar, think you’re a weirdo Fundie Christian Moral Guardian, and never speak to you again, all for protecting yourself from violating sex consent laws that you agree with.

    But at least zie can’t call you a rapist. If someone takes this stance because you’ve said no (as is also Your right – consent goes both ways) then zie is basically an asshole and you’re better off. I call it a win.

75. Which do I do? Affirm her consent acceding control over her sexuality, or take over the situation, trampling her decisions based on a male paternal judgment call?

    I guess it depends which mistake you’d rather run the risk of making: being a rapist or having a woman be annoyed with you.

76. Peter, I’d actually kind of liked your attempt at a formal definition, other than the hard line definition of “too drunk” and not taking into account that it’s not rape if neither party never claims it to have been rape (though, for legal purposes, I guess that’s moot, there’d never be a case to begin with).

    Therefore, if you have had sex when you have this blood-alcohol rate and say you’ve been raped, then you have been raped. Your feelings or previous actions/decisions have nothing to do with it.

    Regarding what makes for “too drunk” though, you’re probably quite right that any definitional attempt will be stomach-churning.

    Also, what Andie and EG said, I think I failed to make clear what I was trying to say there. I suck at clarity before my coffee, I should know better by now.

77. @Andie

    “But at least zie can’t call you a rapist. If someone takes this stance because you’ve said no (as is also Your right – consent goes both ways) then zie is basically an asshole and you’re better off. I call it a win.”

    Great, now I have to cast a suspicious eye to all women. A date could be going fine until liquor touches her lips or she takes a drag on some marijuana or something. I guess at that point I have to get up from the table and head home, telling her I’d love to consent to have sex later if she wanted, but if I did I’d be a rapist. Yeah, she won’t call me a rapist. Know what else she won’t call me? The day after.

    @EG
    “I guess it depends which mistake you’d rather run the risk of making: being a rapist or having a woman be annoyed with you.”

    Either way reinforces male-dominant power structures. Either I commit rape (and possible go to jail as a douchebag rapist) or I veto her agency (and thus become a patriarchal scumbag.) I’d like the right way to behave, because otherwise it means I can’t ever date anybody who drinks or does drugs, which is basically impossible in college.

    I guess I could carry a breathalyzer around, but I think then girls would think I’m either a “narc” or a weirdo. I want to do the right thing, that celebrates both our sexual choice, maintains her agency, and makes it so that I can’t get accused of rape the next day when she sobers up.

    This is pretty tough.

78. Either way reinforces male-dominant power structures. Either I commit rape (and possible go to jail as a douchebag rapist) or I veto her agency (and thus become a patriarchal scumbag.) I’d like the right way to behave, because otherwise it means I can’t ever date anybody who drinks or does drugs, which is basically impossible in college.

    Bullshit. There is nothing patriarchal or scumbaggy about saying “You know, I’m really into you, but I’m not so comfortable with sex while you/we are so fucked up and out of it. Wanna get some coffee for a couple hours and sober up a little or maybe we could hang out tomorrow?”

    If you think temporarily turning a woman down carries even close to the same amount of moral opprobrium that raping her does, then you are so fucked up I don’t know what to do with you.

79. Great, now I have to cast a suspicious eye to all women. A date could be going fine until liquor touches her lips or she takes a drag on some marijuana or something. I guess at that point I have to get up from the table and head home, telling her I’d love to consent to have sex later if she wanted, but if I did I’d be a rapist. Yeah, she won’t call me a rapist. Know what else she won’t call me? The day after.

    Wow. I haven’t seen this much of a strawman since the last time I watched the Wizard of Oz.

    Yes. Clearly this is what I meant. You should probably make sure she’s not taking any cold medication as well. Because rapist. I’m definitely not talking about erring on the side of caution if someone’s state of mind might be questionable. No, I certainly meant that any woman who has even sniffed a beercap is just waiting to call you a rapist if you do have seemingly consensual sex, or call you a patriarchial agency denying asshole if you don’t.

    It must be hard to be you.

    How long before someone invokes ‘lack of social skills’?

80. @Clarance: Try, not saying no, not saying yes, and just make it clear you won’t stop her. Or make a token protest, but make it clear you won’t stop her. If she’s the kind of person who thinks you are an asshole for refusing I suspect she’ll take “I won’t stop you” as a yes.

    Then its definitely not your fault for anything that happens.

81. P.S. Although the other people are still right that you should really do something like tell her you prefer to sleep with sober people. Its the best thing to do in the situation. I just wanted to point out that if she is truly pushy, you aren’t obligated to fight back or stop her.

82. Is this the same Clarence who’s been trolling various feminist blogs lately?

83. More than one person has the name Clarence, ginmar. It’s a common enough first name that when you see another Clarence, it might not be the exact same person that you saw before.

    I also don’t get wings when bells ring. 😛

84. Bullshit. There is nothing patriarchal or scumbaggy about saying “You know, I’m really into you, but I’m not so comfortable with sex while you/we are so fucked up and out of it. Wanna get some coffee for a couple hours and sober up a little or maybe we could hang out tomorrow?”

    Seconded. As someone who HAS, in fact, turned down sex for similar reasons.

    In fact, I have a three-part guideline that I try to follow.

    1) Don’t have sex with someone the first time you meet them.
    2) Don’t have sex with someone for the first time drunk.
    3) If you break guideline 1 or 2 (which happens) then don’t try to turn it into a relationship just because “you’re not the kind of person who does 1 or 2”.

    Yes, there are women who have been annoyed by this. There are others who have respected it. Yes, I’ve broken both #1 and #2 in the past.

    Any hard, fast line is going to be arbitrary. What we’re talking about here is a moral guide. This search for a hard, fast line creeps me out.

85. How does it take away a woman’s agency for a man to decide he’d rather not have sex with her because she’s really drunk? Both parties have to consent, and just because she’s consenting doesn’t mean he has to. The worst thing that happens if she’s not too drunk to consent but she’s too drunk for him to feel comfortable having sex with her is that they don’t have sex.

    Seriously, how hard is it to understand that “drinking” =/= “drunk”? If your date is tipsy but coherent and coordinated, that’s one thing. If she’s slurring her words, stumbling, and drifting towards unconsciousness, having sex with her is not a good idea–especially if you don’t know her well. (Because it does make a difference if you have a relationship history that gives context to her consent.)

    We distinguish between gradations of intoxication all the time in other contexts–whether we think it’s time to cut someone off or put them in a cab, whether we think someone is able to make their way home unassisted, etc. Why is it so unimaginable in this context?

86. Yeah, I am really not getting how “when in doubt, don’t have sex” is somehow sexist. It is how I interact with men, and I am a ladyperson, as it happens. Doesn’t matter whether the doubt is caused by drugs, alcohol, poor communication, tiredness–I do not want to go forward with someone I cannot clearly communicate with–because it may be hard for me to tell what they want, either generally or specifically.

87. Well, if men are really all that concerned about false rape accusations, here’s a perfect opportunity to do something to stay out of situations that they always claim are prime territory for them: don’t fuck intoxicated women. If you’re not sure if you have consent—-you don’t. Anybody who’s whining the day after about how she wasn’t that drunk or she consented then or whatever is just hoping that it will not occur to anyone to ask why he decided to risk it. It’s because there are guys who look specifically for plausible deniability because they understand rape culture very well. I think there’s a substantial group out there who simply does not want consent. They like situations where they’re with a vulnerable woman.

88. The problem with this kind of thing is that there is really no logical solution that will satisfy everyone.

    It comes down to matters of burden of proof, or reversing it. As long as the burden of proof is on proving the rape, nothing will change in this matter, because nothing can change. But reversing the burden of proof is also impossible because no one can prove consent, while the lack thereof can be claimed rather easily.

    It’s a problem we cannot really solve.

89. Sam, while I get your point, I’m not sure it’s a legal change we need, and not a cultural one — plenty of legal cases come down to which theory of events seems more plausible to the jury. The problem is that in rape cases it’s her story that she didn’t/couldn’t consent versus his that, usually anyways, she’s just lying to get him in trouble — and as a culture we find it easier to believe she’d lie about morning after regrets, or to get back at him, or whatever, than to believe that the seemingly charming defendant could be a rapist. I can’t actually think for a moment that a huge part of this isn’t that the vast majority of people, and thus jurors, still think of rape as a stranger in the bushes, and thus date rape has a much higher bar to prove lack of consent.

    Burden of proof may be a “problem we cannot solve”, but I really hope rape culture is a problem we *can* solve. And it seems to me that Ginmar’s “If you’re not sure if you have consent — you don’t.” is a good start on that (and should be on rape prevention PSAs)

90. Sam, in other crimes the victim’s word is just fine. And rape victims get subject to so much bullshit that I think we need to retire all the bullshit about filing false rape accusations for shits and giggles. Furthermore, how many women are falsely accused of falsely accusing rape? Nobody seems to get into that at all, but an awful lot of cop shops just dump a lot of rape complaints as ‘unfounded.’ Sexism, plain and simple.

    Any time there’s any discussion of rape while drinking, people go into hair-splitting mode, while ignoring what they’re seeing in front of their own faces. This guy claims he thought she was sober enough to have sex. Why? Ohhhhhhh…..She didn’t say no. The absence of no is not the equivalent of consent. (Victims can be intimidated or incapacitated, but when it comes to rape, nobody wants to talk about that.) It should be a warning sign. Furthermore, who wants to have sex with a partner so intoxicated that they’re unresponsive or immobile? People who argue that it’s so hard to figure out if women are consenting or not either don’t experience consent at all—-or they just don’t care. It’s very simple—-if they have any doubts, they just say, “Look, let’s wait till we’re both sober, okay?” Unless they’re on the lookout for a victim and fear they’re not going to get another chance.

    Rape is a traumatic experience. Trauma tends to induce protective mechanisms in the brain and the psyche. The victim may not remember everything all at once. This is not changing her story. This is ‘more of her story is coming back to her.’ Some things are just so bad you can’t take them in all at once.

91. Sam,

    So victim testimony is invalid in rape cases? And should continue to be invalid? No way forward?

    Others have said this before me, but, that is complete and utter bullshit.

92. So victim testimony is invalid in rape cases? And should continue to be invalid? No way forward?

    I am not Sam, but will answer anyway…

    No, but the problems with the current situation are well known.

    If you have a basic word vs word situation, you will have a very hard time to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the alleged rapist is guilty in many cases. According to this principle the court must often acquit even when the believe the victim since this is a high threshold to pass.

    While the processes on how to collect testimony and other evidence can be improved there are very basic problems due to the nature of the crime. We have two very unappealing choices:
    1. Relax the burden of proof, or
    2. Accept that a large proportion of rapists escape punishment.

93. According to this principle the court must often acquit even when the believe the victim since this is a high threshold to pass.

    Nonsense. One of the primary functions of a jury is to weigh conflicting testimony and make credibility determinations. If you believe the victim and disbelieve the defendant, you convict. If you have doubts that the victim is telling the truth or you aren’t sure who is more credible, you acquit. Reasonable doubt doesn’t require any particular kind of evidence; it requires only a level of certainty that can be met in rape cases. People are convicted based on the testimony of the victims all the time in other kinds of cases, and the only thing special about rape cases is the cultural baggage that comes with them.

94. Sam,

    We could (slightly) change the law by not presuming consent. Basically, in order to show consent, there would have to be testimony (it could be from the victim, so no fifth amendment problems) that the alleged victim did or said things to indicate affirmative consent. So instead of simply it coming down to zie didn’t say no–the standard for consent could be, zie said yes, zie was responsive and smiling and touching and participating and removing clothes and and–all those things that happen in a normal consensual sexual encounter (with some exceptions, but those are negotiated in advance, y’all).

    Like I have often said to people, including my rather proper mother, who chuckled, when people are describing good sex they do not say things like “and then she totally didn’t say no!”

    On a cultural level, if someone wants to make sure that they aren’t hurting their partner, regardless of whether or not they are legally sexually assaulting them (because I think most of us really don’t want the sex we have with others to be just this side of rape–call me crazy) that is why the concept of enthusiastic consent is so important. If we are always checking in with our partners, and trying to please them, and trying to make sure we aren’t hurting them (I do this and I am a small female with larger male partners) and that they are into what we are doing, the result is better, more ethical sex. The problem with our cultural norms regarding consent is that they are overly legalistic. Consent isn’t really a binary yes/no–as anyone who cares about their partner can understand, consent is also about, is this particular act/position/type of touch working for my partner? If my bf consented to sex, and then I proceeded to touch him really lightly and it tickled him and he didn’t want to be tickled (either then or ever) and I kept it up, I might not be a rapist, but I sure as hell would be an asshat. Our social constructions about sex should be more about being a good partner, and less about, “hey, non-illegal sex!”

    matlun,

    What Katya said. And also, you are assuming that the man and woman contradict eachother if the evidence is only testimonial. This is not always the case. A lot of times, the disagreement is more over the meaning of the words then her saying “I said no” and him saying “she said yes.” Also, if he (assuming the accused is male) chooses to take the stand, he can be cross-examined about that. So she said yes? What else did she do to indicate consent? Did she take off her own clothing? Did she take off your clothing? Did she kiss you? Did she ever stop moving? Did she cry? Did she say you were hurting her? And on and on.

    Like ginmar pointed out upthread, we do use testimonial evidence to convict in non-rape cases. Like, oh, say assault cases. And in those cases, the person who hits first is a felon. Now that is a motive to lie that is absent in rape cases, because having sex really isn’t a felony in most circumstances.

95. Argenti, Ginmar –

    I don’t know if you’ve read this post by Thomas Millar from about two years ago. It addresses the “talking past each other” issue with respect to this problem.

    http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/24/talking-past-each-other/

    And there is a bit of an interesting discussion about it, too.

    Basically, his point is that men who, otherwise, are largely aware of what’s going on with respect to consent are claiming that consent is exceedingly difficult when it comes to this matter. And, being a guy, I can understand why: as opposed to what is often claimed by feminists this is not because rape is not sufficiently socially ostracized, but because it is so heavily socially ostracised.

    About two years ago, I helped a girl – who had started chatting me up and then fell asleep on my shoulder – home to her place two blocks from the club where we had met because her ‘friend’ wouldn’t help her home. She was very drunk. So while I knew I had to help her, I felt the need to protect myself against possible later accusations. So I told her friend my name and told people at the club (where I’m a regular) that I would be back in five minutes after helping her home, and – she actually tried to pull me into her apartment. I took her phone number because I didn’t want to anger her, then I left. We never met again.

    Thing is, you can reasonably claim that *I* was worrying too much about that. That there was no actual reason to worry that rejecting her at her doorstep would anger her to the extent she may want to claim I sexually assaulted her when I was trying to help her home. But rape is such a serious accusation that this was a real concern for me at the point. And I think it is important for people trying to improve the situation for raped women to understand that saying “really, you need to trust women” (as if women never communicate strategically) is not going to go a long way in alleviating the fear that is running the hedging narrative mentioned above.

    I don’t really know what would, but I reckon it would help a lot if feminists who focus on rape culture would accept that there is a *real* and deep running fear of even being accused of being a rapist. I’m not saying that fear equals rape – I’m trying to say that it exists and that it cannot be ignored when trying to understand narratives such as the ones given in the OP.

    I suppose that getting rid of slut shaming would go a long way, because it would remove the notion that women do have an incentive to make up rape accusations because being a victim is a better fit for the female gate-keeper narrative than a woman who actively consented to sex and was emotionally or otherwise disappointed by the person she had sex with. I also think that creating a less violent narrative around male sexuality would help.

    But while I’m totally for creating a yes-means-yes narrative for the world, in every specific case, we will not get around the logical problems of the burden of proof problem…

    (I’m be happy to continue this conversation, if you think it’s worth to do that, but I won’t be online too often for the next days, so don’t expect quick replies…).

    1. Uh, Sam? You were so afraid of a false accusation—based on absolutely nothing—–that you just had to mention this? And gee, those poor men who suffer from a deep fear of accusations of rape? Those aren’t false fears. They know they’ve gotten away with rape, and they fear justice. So acting as if they just have this innocent fear of some evil woman is not the way to convince anybody on this thread.

       The reason there’s a violent narrative about male sexuality is because when the topic of rape comes up, dudes invariably start complaining that the truly tragic side effect of rape culture is not rape but the fact that it puts men under suspicion, which is so utterly callous and insensitive that it proves that women need to protect themselves.

96. #92 Yes, let’s just accept that rapists get away with it, instead of fighting the ignorance that characterizes so much of the discussion about rape, like, for example, the belief that women lie about rape, and that a woman’s word is generally worthless. That’s pretty much what’s at stake here.

97. It seems to me obvious that in most cases, given that the situation is: a woman and a man had sex, no one denies it, the woman claims it was rape and the man says it was consensual — your choices are:

    1. Believe that the woman would choose to falsely accuse the man of rape — which makes her appear to be a potential rape victim (a stigma), advertises that she had sex with the guy (if she’s ashamed of having sex with the guy, that’s embarrassing) and leads her to undergo harsh questioning — for the sake of getting revenge.

    2. Believe that the man would choose to falsely claim he did not commit rape, in order to get away with committing a crime, which he committed in the first place because it was physically pleasurable or exciting for him to do so, or because he wished to get revenge on the woman, either for something she actually did, something he imagined she did, or for being a woman.

    So in the first scenario, the woman has consensual sex, for fun, and maybe she’s embarrassed in the morning or maybe the guy sucked in bed, so… she tells everyone about the sex? And claims it was rape? And tells cops this? And has a rape kit done? And continues to lie about it under oath? Who benefits? What’s she getting out of doing this? If she wanted to avoid the embarrassment of being known to have sex with the guy, she would have been better off keeping quiet, and if she felt humiliated, she’d be better off writing all over the local women’s bathrooms that he’s a crap lover with a small dick.

    In the second scenario, the man commits rape, because he enjoys committing rape, and then he lies about it… why? Oh, right, to avoid jail time and the stigma of being known as a rapist.

    It seems to me that if you know absolutely nothing else about the situation, if *all* you know is that there’s a woman and a man and sex happened and now she’s accusing him of rape… the logical likelihood is that he raped her, because the benefit of making a false accusation is far, far, far lower than the benefit of committing rape and getting away with it by lying.

    I’m not going to deny that it happens. But I’d want character evidence. I’d want something that speaks to motive for a false accusation, besides “she was embarrassed in the morning”, because no, that’s not a motive at all. Keeping your mouth shut is motivated by embarrassment. Telling the whole world you were raped is not. Maybe if she has a past history as a pathological liar. Maybe if she comes from a religious fundamentalist family, *and* someone caught her having sex, so she’s got to make excuses to her family. Maybe if she has a violent boyfriend and the guy who she’s accusing is not the same guy, so one could imagine she might be lying to protect herself from the boyfriend.

    There are other factors that could equally suggest that she was more likely to lie *and* more likely to be victimized. What if she were mentally ill? Well, a mentally ill woman is more likely to believe that something happened when it didn’t, but a mentally ill woman is also more likely to be targeted by predators because they know people won’t believe her. What if they were former partners with a bad breakup? Well, a bad breakup might lead someone to want revenge badly enough to make a false accusation… but it also might lead someone to want revenge badly enough to commit rape.

    Factors that cannot contribute to a greater likelihood that she is lying:

    – She has lots of sex with multiple partners. If she does this, odds are, she enjoys sex and is not embarrassed by it; therefore she has no motive to lie to harm a sex partner, even if he was bad in bed and she regrets the sex, because she doesn’t see having sex with a person she no longer respects as something that could destroy her reputation.

    – She was drunk at the time. If she was so drunk that she does not remember giving consent, then she couldn’t have given meaningful consent anyway.

    – She is poorer and less powerful than he is. This isn’t a civil matter; he will not be fined, she is not suing him. She cannot get a financial benefit out of accusing him of rape unless he offers her hush money, and given how many high profile rape cases of famous rich men against poor women have ended with the famous rich men being acquitted, she has to guess that most likely men don’t usually pay out hush money, because they are usually acquitted.

    Now, if there was no DNA evidence of sex, and the man’s defense is that there was never any sex in the first place and he wasn’t even in the same state… yeah. Then there’s strong evidence that he didn’t rape her. But if no one disputes that sex happened, and the only dispute is over whether it was consensual… the cost/benefit analysis of the benefit of making a false accusation, versus the benefit of covering up a rape you committed, makes it really blatantly obvious that he has *much* better possible motivation to lie than she does, and in the absence of evidence that suggests otherwise, Occam’s Razor suggests that the person who had more to gain by lying is probably the liar.

    The only reason we don’t routinely convict men of rape when they are accused, given that the person who stands to get out of jail by lying is more likely to lie than the person who stands to be dragged through an unpleasant court case by lying, is that we just automatically assume that women are more likely to lie than men are… which is just not true. Or that women deserved rape as a punishment for their wicked ways, such as getting drunk in public. Or that getting raped is something you can get over and get on with your life and it’s not a big deal, whereas getting convicted of rape is really bad and will destroy a person, so even if he is guilty he would suffer worse for being convicted than what he inflicted on her. All of these are totally misogynist attitudes and have no basis in logic or reality.

98. Nonsense. One of the primary functions of a jury is to weigh conflicting testimony and make credibility determinations. If you believe the victim and disbelieve the defendant, you convict.

    That depends on what you mean with “believe”. If you judge – on the balance of the evidence – that it is probable that the defendant is guilty but you are not sure beyond a reasonable doubt, then you should acquit. In this type of situation I would say you can easily reach the situation where you believe the woman but should still acquit. That was all I meant above.

    I actually think this is an important point because for many victims who do not get justice in the court room it can be crushing to feel that the court believed that they were liars. That is not really what an acquittal means.

    With just testimony and no supporting evidence at least I think beyond reasonable doubt is a very hard level to reach (unless for example the defendant screws up and gets caught in flagrant lies).

    Legally speaking, then according to Swedish jurisprudence at least some supporting evidence beyond the single testimony is required. (Obviously the situation can vary depending on country).

99. It depends on what you mean by “reasonable.” “Reasonable” does not mean “any possibility of.” The question is: is it reasonable to suppose this woman is lying? If yes, then there is reasonable doubt. If not, no.

    1. Matlun, you cannot dismiss culture with a shrug like that. People do believe that women lie; it’s built into the culture. That is exactly what too many acquittals mean.

100. @EG: I am aware. But it is a higher level than just believing it is the most probable scenario.

     We are devolving into semantics, but for me if the statement “I believe X is probably true” is true, then the statement “I believe X” is also true. Belief does not imply conviction.

     To stay on semantics and the choice of words, the criteria is not exactly whether “is it reasonable to suppose this woman is lying” (It is very seldom reasonable to suppose this). It is whether “there is a reasonable possibility that the woman is lying”.

     1. Until you start including any mention of sexism and rape culture in your reasoning, your arguments are fatally flawed.

101. @ginmar
     I am not dismissing it. There are certainly many tropes and issues due to rape culture making convictions harder, and there are also problems with how the police and legal system treats women who allege rape. (The magnitude of these problems obviously varies between different places, but they are pretty endemic).

     However, even beyond this the issue is intrinsically intractable.

     We need to find the least unsatisfying balance between false convictions and victims going without justice. Both will happen even in a “perfect” justice system as long as it is controlled by fallible humans.

     1. I’m so sick of people who say crap like, “I’m not dismissing it,” and then that’s precisely what they do. Sexism IS the sole reason that rape is such a mindfield.

102. Argenti, Ginmar-
     my reply to you is in moderation (because of a link in it).

103. Until you start including any mention of sexism and rape culture in your reasoning, your arguments are fatally flawed.

     That, and “reasonable doubt” isn’t a semantic argument but a legal one. Please see wikipedia for a quick overview. As reasonable doubt, in legal terms, means there’s not a more reasonable explanation than the one presented, you’re basically saying that it’s entirely more reasonable, in every rape case, that the accuser is lying (for what reason?) than that the accused is lying (very probably to avoid jail) — I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that in every other sort of criminal case, we assume the accused is going to claim innocence, whether they are or not.

     A lack of physical evidence is usually not considered reasonable doubt in other types of crimes, victim testimony is usually assumed true, unless there’s evidence to the contrary — being a rape victim is not itself evidence that the accuser is lying, if anything, given the way rape victims are stigmatized, we should take the accusation as proof of itself.

     Res ipsa loquitur is only relevant in negligence cases, afaik, but you might want to give the concept a review Matlun — and please read what Alara Rogers said @ 96, I’m not sure I’m making nearly as much sense as ze did. (Also, I am not a lawyer, I just live with a law student XD )

104. Pingback: So, um, JFK raped this woman... - CurlTalk

105. @Ismone:
     “We could (slightly) change the law by not presuming consent. Basically, in order to show consent, there would have to be testimony (it could be from the victim, so no fifth amendment problems) that the alleged victim did or said things to indicate affirmative consent. So instead of simply it coming down to zie didn’t say no–the standard for consent could be, zie said yes, zie was responsive and smiling and touching and participating and removing clothes and and–all those things that happen in a normal consensual sexual encounter (with some exceptions, but those are negotiated in advance, y’all).”
     That’s a terrible idea. For one its tantamount to presuming guilt whenever sex can be shown happened. More to the point it would lead to utterly inane scenarios: For example, person A can’t remember anything, and its shown that A had sex with B. B refuses to testify. The prosecutor brings both up on charges of rape and convicts both because neither can present evidence that the other consented.
     @Alara Rodgers:
     “- She was drunk at the time. If she was so drunk that she does not remember giving consent, then she couldn’t have given meaningful consent anyway.”
     If she is so drunk that her memory has gaps, the defendant can simply say “she coerced me”, or “I never consented”. The defendant doesn’t even need to accuse her of lying, the claim is she just doesn’t remember saying it. Now, you are technically correct that her credibility isn’t impacted here, but she won’t be able to contradict whatever the defendant wants to fit into those gaps.

     “As reasonable doubt, in legal terms, means there’s not a more reasonable explanation than the one presented, ”
     No. To see just how wrong that is, consider this case careful analysis determines one of 99 scenarios happened. Scenario A, had a 2% chance of happening and in scenario A the defendant is guilty. The other 98 scenario’s had a 1% chance each of being correct, and in those the defendant is guilty. Even if we limit to two scenario’s, guilt and innocence, we get exactly the preponderance of evidence level of proof. A level below reasonable doubt.

     What reasonable doubt means is “there is no plausible reason to believe otherwise.” Which means any plausible other scenario torpedoes the case.

106. @Alara Rogers:
     That is perhaps a theoretically attractive argument, but any legal process needs to take into consideration the fact that false accusations are in fact made.

     @Argenti Aertheri
     Did you read the link you supplied?
     What you are describing in your post is “Preponderance of the evidence”. Beyond a reasonable doubt means more than that it is the most reasonable explanation. From your link: “It has been described as, in negative terms, as a proof having been met if there is no plausible reason to believe otherwise.”

     1. Ah, I see Lamech presumes the world is full of MRAs who would be eager to believe the bullshit about ‘they were both drunk.’

        Matlun, in clinging to false rape accusations to prop up your argument, you’re looking more and more like nothing but a troll.

107. Yes Matlun, I read the link I supplied — I also asked if you really think it’s more plausible the victim is lying than the accused, given we tend to assume the accused is going to claim innocence regardless whether they’re innocent or not. Unless I’m reading you wrong, you’re saying that every case, or any sort, without clear physical evidence/multiple witnesses, can never meet the burden of proof, because it’s entirely plausible the victim is lying. It’s an assumption only made in rape cases, despite victims of other crimes being significantly less likely to be blamed for having caused the crime to occur.

     You seem to have beyond *reasonable* doubt, and beyond a *shadow* of doubt, mixed up — the later isn’t used as an actual legal standard, because it can almost never be met, regardless what sort of crime is on trial.

     From the wiki on reasonable doubt — “a reasonable doubt is not a doubt based upon sympathy or prejudice;” — that’s from Canadian jury instructions. The assumption that a rape victim is probably lying? Falls under “doubt based on a prejudice”.

     So yes, sometimes the accuser will lie, in any sort of case, but, in every other sort of case, that’s usually tested by cross-exam and looking for inconsistencies in the statements given — not by things like “but we had sex before, so of course she consented!” — as Ginmar said:

     Until you start including any mention of sexism and rape culture in your reasoning, your arguments are fatally flawed.

     Much as the legal system may wish it made its decisions in a vacuum, it really doesn’t.

108. Lamech,

     There is no reason to presume people are consenting to sex because they simply do not say no. People are not presumed to consent to assault if they do not say no, or to a mugging if they do not say no.

     It is perfectly reasonable to say that instead of presuming consent, there must be evidence of consent. We presume that the absence of a no is consent. That is ridiculous.

     And regarding your ridiculous hypo, how would the DA find out about such a case? And if the two people remember nothing, how would there be evidence of sex even?

109. Very, very, very, very few people lie about getting raped. Why would they? When a person is a rape surviror most people treat zer like shit, so saying one was raped is not a way to gain any sort of advantages or power. It’s far more likely to be raped and say nothing about it than to pretend a rape happened when it didn’t. The only reasons to say one was raped that I can see are that a rape happened and the survivor values honesty, facing the truth, seeking justice, and striving for healing. The idea that all these fake rape accusations are flying around is complete MRA bullshit. Sure, fake rape accusations happen but looking for them and expecting to find them is like expecting to find Halley’s comet in the sky every night. In other words: stupid.

     This reminds me of somethingTim Wise wrote about racism. He talked about how all the racist white people who think that whenever a person of color alleges racism ze is making it up. The idea here is that calling out racism has some magical shaming power that instantly bolsters the accusor’s credibility. But, In fact, pointing out someone is being racist is a fast track to the accusor being mocked, villified, and completely dismissed. So I see a similiarity in that accusations of rape in our society are not taken seriously either. When people points out racism, it is very likely they are being honest because otherwise there would be no point in doing it, given the social stigma toward pointing out racism. The same goes for when people say they were raped. A person isn’t supposed to say ze was raped, so when ze does, it is very likely the truth. (I hope this analogy was not offensive; someone please call me on it if it was).

110. Yes Matlun, I read the link I supplied — I also asked if you really think it’s more plausible the victim is lying than the accused…

     Really? The second part of the above seems to indicate otherwise. You are again talking about which possibility is most plausible/probable. This is not the same as whether there is reasonable doubt-

     Unless I’m reading you wrong…

     You are, but I honestly do not see how I can explain my position more clearly than I already have, so I will give up now.

     very few people lie about getting raped.

     Yes. But very few people report a real rape to the police either, so this by itself does not give that much information about the relative percentages.

     The only reasons to say one was raped…

     There have been many different documented reasons for giving false accusations.

     As to the actual figures and facts, solid data is naturally hard to get. We do know that there are indeed false allegations but the actual proportion can only be estimated. (You have a small percentage confirmed false reports, a larger percentage confirmed true reports, and you can only guess at the rest). Many of the studies are also highly controversial and politically colored by those who want to either minimize or maximize the figures.

     As usual there is a wiki page with a possibly interesting collection of figures from different studies. There are many other resources out there (though you do have to dodge quite a few MRA sites if you search).

111. It is perfectly reasonable to say that instead of presuming consent, there must be evidence of consent.

     That seems to be the legal standard too, as consent is an affirmative defense — to claim the victim consented means the defendant is admitting sex occurred, and it is, legally, on them to prove that. Yet, in practice, we make the victim prove lack of consent.

112. @Ismone
     “There is no reason to presume people are consenting to sex because they simply do not say no. People are not presumed to consent to assault if they do not say no, or to a mugging if they do not say no.

     “It is perfectly reasonable to say that instead of presuming consent, there must be evidence of consent. We presume presume that the absence of a no is consent That is ridiculous.”
     First “presuming that the absence of a no is consent” =! presuming in the absence of proof to the contrary a yes.

     On my scenario: Go to post 24

     ”
     Cop: She says she woke up naked, but she doesn’t remember anything.
     Me: Since she doesn’t remember anything, she was obviously incapacitated and couldn’t consent.
     Cop: But she doesn’t remember anything, so even if I find the guy, it’s he said she said.
     Me: But she says she doesn’t remember anything, so she couldn’t consent.”
     Suppose the cop finds the guy, and he refuses to testify. Neither can provide evidence that the other consented and both go to jail. In fact since she had sex and can’t provide evidence the other person consented they could just charge her without finding the other guy even.

     As for how there would be evidence of sex? Well there is this thing called forensics. It can tell you all sorts of cool things.

113. Well done Sam. That last post of yours was the most textbook example of concern trolling I’ve seen in a while. You should open up an academy for young concern trolls or something

114. Lamech: If she is so drunk that her memory has gaps, the defendant can simply say “she coerced me”, or “I never consented”. The defendant doesn’t even need to accuse her of lying, the claim is she just doesn’t remember saying it. Now, you are technically correct that her credibility isn’t impacted here, but she won’t be able to contradict whatever the defendant wants to fit into those gaps.

     True… but you can make that argument *now*, and yet no one does. Also, men who claim they were raped by women get laughed at, by other men. I kind of think there will never be a huge number of men who will try to use “Actually, *she* raped *me” as a defense against accusations of rape. It’s hard enough for men who are *actually* raped by women to get justice, or even acknowledgement that what happened to them was a crime, from other men… you think a rapist is ever going to manage to convince a jury that he was the one who got raped?

     Matlun:
     That is perhaps a theoretically attractive argument, but any legal process needs to take into consideration the fact that false accusations are in fact made.

     True. For example, I could accuse one of my employees of robbing me because I can’t find a valuable portable hard drive I brought to work, and it becomes a “he said she said” situation where there’s no actual evidence that the robbery even *happened*… and I have a reasonably good chance of getting that employee charged and maybe even convicted. This happens to maids all the time. Somehow, however, whenever anyone talks about the prosecution of robbery, it never becomes a huge big thing to say “but sometimes there are false accusations!”, even though in fact you can convict someone of robbery when you don’t have incontrovertible proof that anything was even stolen.

     The legal process takes into account that false accusations can be made, for *all* crimes… but only for rape does it more or less assume that the likelihood of false accusation is equal or greater to the likelihood of the defendant’s guilt. This, despite the fact that there’s basically no benefit for crying rape whatsoever unless you were caught having sex and have someone in your life who might hurt or ostracize you if the sex was consensual. There’s a benefit to claiming theft — your insurance might cover the loss. But people don’t automatically assume that a person who claims her maid stole her jewelry is just saying so to get the insurance money.

     I once claimed a woman stole my purse. It was true, which was why I said it. I had no physical evidence; I couldn’t even provide evidence I had ever owned the purse, aside from my word, because it was a gift from my mom and I had no receipts or anything. But the cops went out and arrested that woman on nothing other than my word that she stole my purse. Sure, she did in fact steal my purse… but since cops can’t read minds, if the lack of any physical evidence that a crime occurred means that we should assume that the accuser is lying, then shouldn’t the cops have assumed that I was just trying to get that woman in trouble and was maliciously lying about the theft? Plainly, that’s not what happened.

     If we treated rape like we do other crimes, the “presumption of innocence” would not extend to presuming that the accuser is actually guilty of the crime of perjury and false accusation. We would assume that the word of the accuser that a crime occurred is in fact evidence that a crime occurred, and the accused would generally have to produce counter-evidence. It’s true that we will not convict someone in the absence of any evidence whatsoever (unless he’s black, or the cops hate him… but that’s not the topic here), but if you’re accused of any other crime, that *is* evidence of the crime. Only in rape is it assumed that most likely the accuser is lying.

115. I wonder, if a woman were to give men tips on how to avoid false rape accusations, how many men would respond “I shouldn’t have to do anything to avoid them, women just shouldn’t do it!”

116. @Alara Rogers:

     The legal process takes into account that false accusations can be made, for *all* crimes… but only for rape does it more or less assume that the likelihood of false accusation is equal or greater to the likelihood of the defendant’s guilt

     Few people are claiming that the false accusation rate is over 50%. How do you mean “the legal process” assumes this?

     @ginmar

     Matlun, in clinging to false rape accusations to prop up your argument, you’re looking more and more like nothing but a troll.

     If you believe I am wrong, then please make a substantial argument as opposed to ad hominems.

117. Ginmar-
     on mobile, so just briefly. My point was to explain that fear need not nbe reasonable to be a factor, a problematic factor, limiting the possibility of change. Dismissing it as “not realistic”, while possibly true, as in my case, doesn’t seem to be the most productive way of addressing it.

118. I wonder, if a woman were to give men tips on how to avoid false rape accusations, how many men would respond “I shouldn’t have to do anything to avoid them, women just shouldn’t do it!”

     All of them, unless we lived in a world where men lived in constant terror of false rape accusations and were always being advised on what they should do to avoid it and were told to curtail their career ambitions and their travel plans to avoid false rape accusations and were blamed by family, friends and police for having been the target of a false accusation even *after* they were acquitted, because you shouldn’t have done something stupid to end up being a target, it’s like you were *asking* for her to accuse you of rape!

     Since we don’t live in that world, I’m pretty sure that most men, if women patiently womansplain to them about how men are just so scary and sometimes women can’t help being convinced that the man just raped them even if they didn’t and really, to make sure that that never happens, they should never ever be alone with an individual women, there always needs to be at least two because there have to be witnesses and a woman can falsely accuse gang rape as easily as individual rape so a male witness won’t help you… would respond with “Who the hell wants to live that way? I’m not going to let a ridiculous fear like that ruin my life. Women shouldn’t make false accusations anyway, and it’s wrong if they do.”

     Actually, the only men who tolerate being given advice on how to avoid false rape accusations are the ones in academia, teaching and child care… who really *do* live in fear of such accusations, have been known to quit their jobs and pursue a different career because they feel like it’s too easy for a male child care worker or male schoolteacher to be falsely accused, and are typically blamed if they suffer a false accusation because they got into a situation with a child where there were no witnesses. Those are the guys who, if you tell them “never be in a room with a closed door with a student”, will *do* it rather than arguing that students just shouldn’t make such accusations or that students need to be educated about why they shouldn’t do that. Other men, who do not live in such fear, do not tolerate being told to change their lifestyle and work habits to avoid false accusations.

     Accepting blame for what you as the victim did to make someone commit a crime against you is a thing that people only do when they have been told over and over that the crime in question is damn near inevitable and that they have to shape their entire lives around avoiding being its victim. Women are told this about rape. Men are not told this about being falsely accused of rape, *unless* they work with children.

119. I don’t care about your bigoted fears about women. I don’t care about your sexist fears about women. You want validation for them, you won’t and shouldn’t get them. It’s ridiculous.

120. A little recent item in the news that addresses the idea that a rape accusation inevitably ruins the life of the accused: http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/nypd-boss-son-returns-tv-show-rape-claim-15553986

     From “A tough couple of weeks” to a “ruined life” is a bit of a stretch.

     And for those who would claim that “some people” will always think of him as a rapist now–well, those “some people” probably just think all men are rapists anyway, right? Like me. Hi. I’m the uptight woman who gets all bent out of shape when you try to touch my arm at the bar and won’t give you the sex you think you deserve, and I don’t have any sympathy whatsoever for your plight.

121. Drew, ginmar already gave the closest thing to advice to avoid false rape claims that you’re going to get:

     If you’re not sure if you have consent — you don’t.

     Because yeah, we don’t care about your fears, we care about not getting raped, so sorry if that’s a problem for you >.<

122. Something else, too. What happens when rape comes up on some feminist lite site like Jezebel?“OMG, false accusations!” And then the whining will start about how the true tragedy of rape culture is that it makes women testy with men. Womens’ entirely reasonable fears are dismissed and intensified simultaneously; mens’ self indulgent and sexist fears are coddled.

     If you haven’t done anything you don’t feel guilty for, then the only reason to fear false rape accusations is that you have this incredibly sexist viewpoint of women filing false rape charges for shits and giggles. There is no good reason to be obsessed with this fear. There are only sexist reasons.

123. I wonder, if a woman were to give men tips on how to avoid false rape accusations, how many men would respond “I shouldn’t have to do anything to avoid them, women just shouldn’t do it!”

     I really have no idea how many men would respond in which ways to such a situation. I do know how I personally would respond. I would say, “Hmmm, interesting. Well thanks for those tips. I’m not worried about getting falsely accused of rape, though, because false rape accusations statistically practically never happen. I’d say I’m more worried about getting struck by lightning, honestly. So, thanks for the info, but I can’t imagine how I’d ever need to use it.”

124. Shorter Sam: Y’all can’t even talk about the REAL and LEGITIMATE threat of getting raped on a feminist site without talking about my irrational fear of being falsely accused of rape.

125. Drew, ginmar already gave the closest thing to advice to avoid false rape claims that you’re going to get:

     If you’re not sure if you have consent — you don’t.
     Because yeah, we don’t care about your fears, we care about not getting raped, so sorry if that’s a problem for you >.<

     You missed the point of my post.

     My point was, some men would claim that they shouldn’t have to do anything to avoid false rape accusations, women just shouldnt cast false accusations.

     Which would be ironic, if those same men saw nothing wrong with expecting women to do things to avoid being raped, rather than men simply not raping.

126. I really have no idea how many men would respond in which ways to such a situation. I do know how I personally would respond. I would say, “Hmmm, interesting. Well thanks for those tips. I’m not worried about getting falsely accused of rape, though, because false rape accusations statistically practically never happen. I’d say I’m more worried about getting struck by lightning, honestly. So, thanks for the info, but I can’t imagine how I’d ever need to use it

     Kay.

     1. Drew, stop and check your privilege. Being falsely accused of rape almost never happens, but being raped is common. You cannot compare the two, and you’re coming very close to doing just that. I got a news flash for you: your widdle fee fees being put out of joint over the exceedingly rare instances of false accusations is nothing like the common and realistic fear of rape that women have to deal with.

        So deal with it.

127. Argenti – I have no fear of false rape accusations.

     However, I think it could be useful to juxtapose the prescribed “rape prevention” tips with “false rape accusation prevention” tips.

     Such as: Rape prevention tip: avoid dangerous or suspicious looking men. False rape accusation prevention tip: avoid vindictive or emotionally unstable women. (And when the guy says “Yeah, but how am I supposed to know? Its not like these women come with a sign!”, the response can be “So how are women supposed to know?”)

     RPT: Don’t put your drink down at a party. FRAPT: Don’t be seen near anyones unattended drink.

     RPT: Don’t drink. FRAPT: Don’t be near anyone who is drinking.

     RPT: Don’t dress like a slut, it attracts the wrong kinds of guys. FRAPT: Don’t seem like a guy who wants to settle down – if you have a one night stand and she’s thinking it will turn into a relationship, she could file a false rape report to get back at you.

     FRAPT: Don’t have sex with anyone who may have a boyfriend, or husband, or whose family may not approve of her having sex with you – this can lead to a false accusation.

     Maybe, having it turned around on them, and being told they would be responsible if someone did something to them, might get a few guys to see how ridiculous it is to tell women that they are responsible for protecting themselves from rape.

128. Drew, stop and check your privilege. Being falsely accused of rape almost never happens, but being raped is common. You cannot compare the two, and you’re coming very close to doing just that. I got a news flash for you: your widdle fee fees being put out of joint over the exceedingly rare instances of false accusations is nothing like the common and realistic fear of rape that women have to deal with.

     So deal with it.

     Seriously?

     I’ll say it again: I’m not worried about false rape accusations.

     What I’m saying is I think its funny how many men expect women to be proactive about preventing themselves from being raped, but would be offended at the idea that he should have to be proactive about preventing himself from being falsely accused of rape.

129. ginmar – next time you’re going to make some insulting comments about someones “widdle fee fees” – do yourself a favor and make sure they’re actually saying something you fucking disagree with.

     Or, look like an idiot again.

130. Really – can somebody please show me the part where I said I was concerned about being falsely accused of rape?

     Or where I said something that would logically lead to that conclusion?

     I was comparing where some men put the burden of responsibility in preventing rape (on victims), with where those same men would put the burden of responsibility in preventing false rape accusations (not on victims).

     How that gets turned into “Drews privilege” and “Drews fee fees” is.. beyond me.

131. Drew, I got your point, and I thought Alara’s post @ 120 had answered it, but may’ve been a bit snippy considering just how *absurd* your question was. In current society, if a man asked me for that advice (which I realize you aren’t doing) I’d either laugh at him, or run the other way — because the only people who are actually worried about not being falsely accused are fucking rapists looking to know exactly where the line not to cross is.

     I’m going to devolve into swearing if I try to explain how asking about your hypothetical is itself an example of privilege, and yet, I’m going to try. It’s neither ironic, nor funny, that, if given advice to avoid false accusations, most men would just laugh, when you consider that women are advised how to avoid rape from before we can walk — it’s sick and twisted — that that’s not readily apparent to you is where the request to check your privilege is coming from. The men not laughing, btw, would say something akin to what LotusBen said. But basically, it doesn’t matter if you were asking for advice, or wondering what would happen if someone did, because there’s no advice to give, women don’t go around making false accusations, thus the hypothetical is, at best, laughable.

     Also Drew, this might be news to you, but odds are rather high that people on this thread have been raped and are thus particularly inclined to see red over the question you asked, even as a hypothetical musing of how much society sucks — it sucks in painfully personal ways for many of us — which, I hope, is something you can understand? If so, maybe just drop it?

     And now I’m going to bed, if I’m not making much sense, it’s because I should’ve done that hours ago >.< (In which case, just reread Alara @ 120, ginmar @ 124 and LotusBen @ 125; it's generally a good idea, when told to check your privilege, to sit down and shut up)

132. oops, need sleep badly apparently — I meant *I* may’ve been a bit snippy, not Alara, I think Alara’s comment @ 120 hit the nail on the head, so to speak.

133. Drew, I got your point, and I thought Alara’s post @ 120 had answered it, but may’ve been a bit snippy considering just how *absurd* your question was

     You got the point of my question, which *did not* include me having a personal fear of false accusations…

     yet you say:

     Because yeah, we don’t care about your fears, we care about not getting raped, so sorry if that’s a problem for you >.<

     Even though “my fears” were never mentioned…

     No. You did not get the point. I do not need to “sit down and shut up” when I voice NOTHING about a fear of false accusations and YOU reply with “WE DONT CARE ABOUT YOUR FEAR OF FALSE ACCUSATIONS”.

134. Again: Where did I say anything about ME having a fear of false rape accusations, or anything that could be reasonably interpreted that way?

135. This is typical, sadly, for Feministe: a couple of posters imagine that I have a fear of false rape accusations, and start yelling at me about how much they dont care about my fears (which, um, don’t actually exist outside of their imagination).

     And when I explain that, no, I don’t have those fears – they have to divert to “Well what you said was offensive anyway! Its a touchy subject and just drop it right now or I may have to admit that I read something from your post that was never there in the first place and… this is a feminist space, how dare you?!”

136. @Drew #136–in my experience, misunderstandings are typical whenever people interact–on the internet or in person, in feminist and in other spaces. The fact that you see this as an issue of you being particularly disadvantaged in a feminist space suggests that you probably do have some privilege issues. Maybe feministe should offer some special category for male posters where your posts would be specially highlighted so people could give them extra consideration and you could get special rewards for saying anything that didn’t reek of total sexism. I mean, I know the whole Hugo Schwyzer thing suggests that men can build a career as a feminist expert by saying a few feminist friendly things even though they’re mostly sexist d-bags, but that isn’t something to aspire to.

137. I read Drew’s comment to be pointing out that the same men who will concern troll all day about what a woman need to do to avoid rape, and write columns of advice about it, would be completely unaware of their own privilege if you turned the situation as he wrote.

     In other words I thought Drew was pointing out that it was fucked up and wrong.

138. Drew, in your post @ 130, you said this:

     I’ll say it again: I’m not worried about false rape accusations.

     But, in fact, this is the first place on this thread where you said you were not worried about false rape accusations. I looked back and re-read all your posts. So perhaps in some other venue you have said that you are not worried about false rape accusations. But in this thread, up until your post @ 130, all your comments neither stated you were afraid of false rape accusations or that you weren’t.

     In my opinion, you have a tendency to make oblique and cryptic remarks that are often confusing. This is why people regularly misinterpret what you are saying. It has nothing to do with what’s typical at Feministe in general. It’s typical at Feministe in your case because of how you, in particular, communicate your points. I haven’t seen anyone else here have this continuous problem of being misinterpreted that you have.

     To take just one example, I’ve commented at Feministe a lot over the past three months. And there have been a couple times that I felt people significantly misinterpreted what I was saying. And I took that as an opportunity to learn to become more clear at communicating in a blog comment thread format, which is admittedly a new thing for me. Now, you have been misinterpreted way more here than I ever have, and way more than anyone else here I’ve seen. So, really, I can only conclude that in your case the problem is not that the Feministe commentariat have hair triggers or poor reading comprehension skills, but rather that there is something uniquely ambigious and confusing about your communication style on this website. I am certainly often confused by what you write and will sometimes have to re-read a post of yours two or three times to see if I can tease out the meaning, and still sometimes to no avail.

139. In general this makes sense:

     All of them, unless we lived in a world where men lived in constant terror of false rape accusations and were always being advised on what they should do to avoid it and were told to curtail their career ambitions and their travel plans to avoid false rape accusations and were blamed by family, friends and police for having been the target of a false accusation even *after* they were acquitted, because you shouldn’t have done something stupid to end up being a target, it’s like you were *asking* for her to accuse you of rape!

     Until we are reminded that there are COUNTLESS black men who were beaten, imprisoned and/or killed on the accusation that they raped a white woman, many of whom lied because they cheated and got caught (think Rosewood without the massacre but still mostly in the south) or didnt want to admit they willingly had sex with a black man and they wait until the guy is dead, served many years or was exonerated by DNA evidence (and even then some STILL say it had to be that black guy when the DNA says it was a white male suspect who’s been in the system before). So yeah there are men who are taught in particuar instances on how to avoid being falsely accused of rape.

     As I said generally, women aren’t lying about rape, but speficially racist white women have in the past and continue in the present to say a black man did it (rape) and it’s later proven she was full of shit.

     1. You know, if anybody says any large women lie as a matter of course about rape because they were slutting it up, or ‘cheating’, then they’d be laughed off a feminist site.

        I read of an NAACP study that found that no more than one quarter of lynchings in the South were for crimes against women—-the rest were supposedly against white men, crimes of property theft, and of course, the ultimate sin, some kind of disrespect to the self-appointed oligarchs. Yet somehow, decades later, all people want to talk about is how the only thing that caused lynching were those lying women.

        I found this on Wiki: As documented by Ida B. Wells, rape charges or rumors were present in less than one-third of the lynchings; such charges were often pretexts for lynching blacks who violated Jim Crow etiquette or engaged in economic competition with whites. Other common reasons given included arson, theft, assault, and robbery; sexual transgressions (miscegenation, adultery, cohabitation); “race prejudice”, “race hatred”, “racial disturbance;” informing on others; “threats against whites;” and violations of the color line (“attending white girl”, “proposals to white woman”).

140. Drew, I meant the general “you” not you personally, as in: women do not care about the fears of men. Whether you were asking personally, or posing a hypothetical (I realize you were doing the latter), is moot though, because the world we live in is so far removed from any world in which men would ever ask that question in good faith. Unless they work with kids, which is why Alara’s post @ 120 seems like the one you should be responding to.

     Either that, or they’d reply the way LotusBen did @ 125 — what did your “Kay” in response to that mean?

     and my point about rape victims likely being on thread had little to do with it being a feminist space, how dare you, and everything to do with “know your audience” — that’s a piece of standard advice to writing, I know I heard it plenty in college!

141. Matlun, the Wiki page you cite claims that false rape accusations could range from 45% to 1%. It’s not an ad hom to criticize the way you’re trying to make this about false accusations.

     I can even tell you where the 45% figure—-beloved of MRAs and rape apologists—comes from. It comes from a study where the author studied a small midwestern town, refused to name it or discuss the police methods by which they determined that nearly half the rape victims in their town were lying, with one exception; rape victims were forced to take polygraphs, which is a sure sign of a sexist department.

     No one, needless to say, has been able to duplicate his results.

     As to your obsession with false rape accusations, there’s a tremendous number of rapes that are not reported. Of the ones that remain, you’re whining about the exceedingly tiny fraction of a percentage point that may actually be false—and not the result of police bigotry. I still don’t care. You cannot argue in any way, shape or form that false accusations are as numerous or as important as actual rapes.

142. Wow, my posts actually went through? Since it was a couple of days since I posted them I kind of assumed they wouldn’t.

     Ginmar

     Matlun, the Wiki page you cite claims that false rape accusations could range from 45% to 1%. It’s not an ad hom to criticize the way you’re trying to make this about false accusations.

     Yes, as I said above we do not know with any certainty the actual percentages and if you read my post I did not claim any authority for the wiki link. Since it is basically just a presentation of the results of different studies, could it even be interpreted as making a specific claim?

     But if you believe we are talking about an “exceedingly tiny fraction of a percentage point” you are misinformed. Even the level of confirmed false allegations are in the 2% range so obviously the actual false allegation rate is higher than that.

     And surely it is a critical issue that there are indeed false allegations. Otherwise why would we even have a trial? But they do indeed exist and we do have trials to differentiate between false and true allegations.

     This is all just trivially true and should not be controversial in any way.

     I can even tell you where the 45% figure—-beloved of MRAs and rape apologists—comes from.

     This is not that surprising since the two studies in question are clearly referenced in the wiki article.

     The fact that it is “beloved by MRAs and rape apologists” is neither here nor there. That would be true for any study getting a high percentage result whether the study is good or not.

     And what makes you think I am “obsessed” about this issue?
     You seem to have a absolute phobia against even considering it, but I have just tried to reasonably discuss the simple facts.

143. Jesus Christ already, I’m starting to lose my frickin’ patience with this. If you don’t want people to nail you for hatemongering with the false rape statistics, then try picking a link that doesn’t cite a ridiculously fake stat. How hard is that? To believe and defend the notion that women lie about rape you have to buy into any number of offensive stereotypes about women, among them the notion that women are shallow and vicious and underhanded and will do anything for revenge when scorned.

     It’s really simple. If you don’t want to give the impression you’re a rapist apologist, then don’t cite links that in turn cite bullshit studies that promote rape apology. There’s no shortage of studies that pin the blame where it belongs; on rape culture, sexist double standards, the virgin/whore roles, and on police venom and sexism.

144. If you don’t want people to nail you for hatemongering with the false rape statistics, then try picking a link that doesn’t cite a ridiculously fake stat.

     Do you have a better reference?
     If you believe that wiki page is clearly incorrect, then you might even want to update it.

     To believe and defend the notion that women lie about rape you have to buy into any number of offensive stereotypes about women

     No. You only have to believe that some people are bastards who are prepared to do evil things and that this is true for women as well as men.

     1. No, you only to believe that some people are bastards who are prepared to do evil things and that this is true for women as well as men.

        This is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard somebody try and get away with. You’re just trolling now. Bye.

145. Right. It is a bit disappointing that it was not possible to have a meaningful discussion, but it seems to be time to drop it.

     1. It is not possible to have a discussion with you, because you simply refuse to listen. It’s funny how often that happens with certain individuals who exhibit certain behaviors. I expect you will pop up in other rape discussions, asking the same questions repeatedly, then express bewilderment at how hard it is to have a ‘discussion.’

146. It is not possible to have a discussion with you, because you simply refuse to listen.

     Are you seriously saying that to me?

     I have actually tried staying polite and getting you to formulate at least some cogent argument which could be a starting point for an argument?

     You on the other hand have just been emoting, implying that I am a rape apologist and generally been totally unresponsive.

     Enough. You can just fuck off.

     1. Emoting? Way to hit the troll bingo squares, dude. As for the rest….yeah, thanks for proving my point.

147. “Prudie.. she’s kind of an asshole, no?”

     I concur. Seriously, what the fuck? Whatever happened to solidarity & sisterhood? Nothing hurts worse than having another woman tell you that you’re an irresponsible, alcoholic whore when some guy takes advantage of you after a few drinks.

148. And another thing: does Prudie condone men taking advantage of drunk (and therefore, unconsenting) women that they are acquainted with?

149. “Prudie.. she’s kind of an asshole, no?”

     I concur. Seriously, what the fuck? Whatever happened to solidarity & sisterhood? Nothing hurts worse than having another woman tell you that you’re an irresponsible, alcoholic whore when some guy takes advantage of you after a few drinks.

     That’d require her to admit that she too could be raped without having had anyway to prevent it — the just world theory is hard at work here. (Agreed about nothing hurting worse though) But if the victim’s a whore, and Prudie’s not a whore, then she won’t ever be raped, cuz only whores get raped. So no, I don’t think she condones the rapist’s behavior, I think she sees it more as the victim got what she had coming, because if that’s the case, then good-girls can avoid it.

     (also, seriously, thank you for getting this thread off the rape apologies, that was getting rather old)

150. Ginmar:

     I read of an NAACP study that found that no more than one quarter of lynchings in the South were for crimes against women—-the rest were supposedly against white men, crimes of property theft, and of course, the ultimate sin, some kind of disrespect to the self-appointed oligarchs. Yet somehow, decades later, all people want to talk about is how the only thing that caused lynching were those lying women.

     I would like to see that article. The black men women and children who were killed because someone told a damn lie are worthy of not being forgotten or passed over as collateral damage. Racist people are sick and I wouldn’t add them in numbers when talking about what logical people do in general.

     1. You missed my point. Many charges were used as excuses for those murders, yet today, there’s only one charge and one gender that gets mentioned almost exclusively when lynching is mentioned. I already mentioned that Ida B. Wells found a lower rate than the NAACP study, which I believe happened a great deal earlier. Again, the question is, why do people only talk about rape? How did it go from being a small portion of the accusations to all that everyone talks about? How come only women get blamed for it? Lynching often enabled white men to seize valuable property from the victim, as well as murder rivals and intimidate the whole community. But you cite ‘cheating’—–which, if it were any other subject, would be called slut shaming.

        How about Yale, for now, because I actually am waiting to buy the NAACP report when it comes back in print. Donald Lee Grant—-whose book I am trying to buy—-notes that the newspaper accounts at the time of these murders actually included the excuses given for the mob murders, which also does not bear out the myth that most lynchings were for rape.

        http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1979/2/79.02.04.x.html

        Note: there’s racist archaic language quoted here.

        The causes assigned by whites in justification or explanation of lynching Black people include everything from major crimes to minor offenses. In many cases, Blacks were lynched for no reason at all other than race prejudice. Southern folk tradition has held that Negroes were lynched only for the crimes of raping white women—”the nameless crime”—and murder. However, the statistics do not sustain this impression.

        The accusations against persons lynched, according to the Tuskegee Institute records for the years 1882 to 1951, were: in 41 per cent for felonious assault, 19.2 per cent for rape, 6.1 per cent for attempted rape, 4.9 per cent for robbery and theft, 1.8 per cent for insult to white persons, and 22.7 per cent for miscellaneous offenses or no offense at a 11.5 In the last category are all sorts of trivial “offenses” such as “disputing with a white man,” attempting to register to vote, “unpopularity”, self-defense, testifying against a white man, “asking a white woman in marriage”, and “peeping in a window.”

        Being charged with a crime did not necessarily mean that the person charged was guilty of the crime. Mob victims ware often known to have been innocent of misdeeds. A special study by Arthur Raper of nearly one hundred lynchings convinced him that approximately one-third of the victims were falsely accused.6 Occasionally mobs were mistaken in the identity of their victims.

        The racist myth of Ne****s’ uncontrollable desire to rape white women acquired a strategic position in the defense of the lynching practice. However, homicides and felonious assault, not rape, were most frequently cited in explanation of mob action. Next in importance, from the viewpoint of number of cases, is rape and attempted rape—25.3 per cent of the victims. Concerning this figure, Myrdal states: “There is much reason to believe that this figure has been inflated by the fact that a mob which makes the accusation of rape is secure from any further investigation; by the broad Southern definition of rape to include all sexual relations between Ne*** men and white women; and by the psychopathic fears of white women in their contacts with Ne*** men.”7 Another fact which refutes the fallacy of rape as being the primary cause of Ne*** lynchings is that between 1882 and 1927, 92 women were victims of lynch mobs: 76 Ne*** and 16 white.8 Certainly they could not have been rapists.

        Of course, this study is old enough for it to have Freudian overtones, with its pointing the finger at the psycopathic fears of white women, which came straight from Freud’s theory of womens’ masochism.

        The obvious motivation for white guys was their own subconscious fear that their own unacknowledged rape of black women would be revenged by some black men, in the same way that slave owners gushed about how good slavery was——but feared slave revolts, which in the US, at least, were fairly uncommon. If slavery was so great, who’d revolt, right?

        NO one’s talking about making the victims of lynching into ‘collateral damage’ , passing over, or forgetting. Is the discussion improved by accepting sexist myths that perpetuate one of the most classic rape myths of all? Every time a sexist trope gets used it’s easier to use it on the next woman. Just pointing out the actual numbers does not let guilty women off the hook; it makes sure that white men and the scope of the injustice become even clearer. In basically blaming all these mob lynchings on women, white men are turned invisible, as they always are.

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