Prudence or Cowardice?

Maybe a little bit of both.

Earlier this week, my company had a guest visitor over to chat with us about sexual assault and rape. His presentation was chock full of the usual victim-advocate-industry talking points, namely “90% of rapes go unreported”, “590,000 sexual assaults occur each year in the USA”, and “4% of rape accusations are false”. The message was that rape is a huge issue, that victims are all around us, that false accusations are rare events (but we should treat each accusation as if it was true, on the off chance that it was) and that we should all do our part to stamp out rape and sexual assault of the women in our lives. Noble goals all.

Yet I contend that the dual effort to support real victims and stamp out this crime is weakened by playing fast and loose with the facts. People don’t like being lied to, and the rape advocacy industry’s questionable credibility sloughs off on the victim-accusers they advocate for. For instance, we know that the “90%” statistic isn’t grounded in real facts. It is an upper bound (based on antiquated data) on an estimated number of unreported rapes based on some activist's gut feel. More recent and hopefully more reliable figures churned out by the rape advocacy groups themselves peg the number at a much lower 60%. In addition, the 590,000 sexual assault number is more than two times the 2007 data (the data itself is an estimate that I suspect is extrapolated--based on the "60%" underreporting rate), and I could nowhere find any data to support the 4% figure. What I did find in that domain were several references to Brownmiller’s long-since-discredited 2% figure as well as numerous citations that locate the actual rate of false rape accusations at around 10% [wiki, Slate article]. Eugene Kanin’s false rape accusation research that suggested a 40% false accusation rate was widely critiqued/debunked for reasons related to methodology and small sample size.

One common theme I noted while listening to the visitor presentation and in reading the rape victim advocacy literature is the presumption that the accuser is telling the truth, that a real rape, not just a difference of opinion or a blatant lie was told, and that therefore each accusation is true. Putting aside the fact that this intellectual sloppiness implies that those accused are automatically guilty by virtue of being accused by another who has motive to do so, this theme magically converts each accusation of rape or sexual assault into a rape/sexual assault that actually happened. From there, it is a fast ride to arrive at fantastic facts, such as the “15 of 16 rapists walk free” canard highlighted in the image inset to the right.

Something else that disturbed me greatly about the rape-prevention workshop I was compelled to attend, and the rape advocacy literature as well, is the collective yawn both seem to offer when confronted with the very real problem false accusations and what happens to the men who are falsely accused. Pierce Harlan et al at False Rape Society have made a whole blog out of this phenomenon, but for some reason our society seems to think that a 10% false rate of accusations is somehow insignificant. Put into perspective, that means that out of 250,000 reports of sexual assault, 25,000 were false on their face. 25,000 legally unimpeachable men were thrown into the law-enforcement meat grinder, their reputations irrecoverably besmirched, their bank accounts drained. This stands in stark contrast with the fate of the accuser, who has a well-funded army of people just waiting to back her, to console her, to support her. That’s an awful lot of guys faced with fighting to prove their innocence against the entire politicized machinery of law enforcement, all alone with no one to support them other than family and friends.

This 10% number represents judicial terrorism inflicted on innocent men falsely accused of sexual assault/rape. Unfortunately, it is regarded as simply collateral damage, instead of a dagger poised at the heart of the integrity of the anti-sexual violence law enforcement process. Worse, this Napoleonic legal prejudice is a men’s problem, rather than an issue of feminine integrity. As an example, I again give you the workshop facilitator who, after noting that 4% of rape accusations were false, went on to put the burden on men to protect themselves from false allegations, saying (I am paraphrasing here) that “if a woman has had even one drop of alcohol cross her lips, guys, run, not walk, the other way”. I bet this sort of advice is repeated all over the country in similar forums. Message? Here’s one: “Men, if you value your freedom, don’t take her yes as a yes if she has had anything to drink.” And here’s another: “Women, you can get as freaky as you want, as sloshed as you want, as hentai as you want, but if you regret what you did the next morning, you have carte blanche to place responsibility for your actions on the man”.

After nearly an hour of embellishment and lies, it was this final message that very nearly made me stand up and speak out. But in the end, I wimped out. Instead of a public challenge, I settled for pulling the facilitator off to the side after his presentation was complete and challenging his facts. Why? I was in a room with more than 100 other people, nearly half of whom were women. I sensed employment-reducing effects if I spoke out publicly, the lone fellow to object, surrounded on all sides by women and men conditioned to think that women don’t lie about rape and that men are dirty dogs who’ll take it by force if they can. I saw no tangible benefit to me for opposing the party line, and very real consequences if I had done so.

Was I a coward? Maybe, depending on who you talk to. Prudent? I certainly think so. Part of warfare is to pick battles that you can win, and avoid or run from battles you can’t. Live to fight another day, on more favorable terrain.