Accusations of rape when evidence shows the woman was going to have sex with the man

Yes, you will always be able to find an example of a human lying about something.

In the example you gave above, where the men were released. What do you propose we do so that situation turns out different? Should the police not even be able to take people in for questioning when they investigate an accusation against them?

 

Given that many rape convictions are reached on the accuser's word alone, it is likely that a significant percentage of these convictions are false. No one knows how many.

 

I realize that people can be falsely accused by witnesses in many different types of situations, but being accused of rape is really a special case. I think this type of situation happens with much more frequency than other types of accusations (about serious crimes). And, given the nature of rape, or how serious it is, and the negative label it carries and how it will damage a man's reputation for the rest of his life (along with sometimes lifetime restrictions that will apply to him), I think there should be some extra caution used before deciding to convict a man, in this situation.

There can be lots of situations where a woman consensually agreed to have sex, or did not object at the time, but nevertheless she ends up feeling "violated" and "raped", so she ends up accusing the man. It's an easy crime to accuse a man of. Oftentimes the woman might only have felt violated in a very minor way, but some other factors come into play (financial considerations or anger at the man) and it pushes her towards this path.

And a woman can find out things about the sex or sexual relationship afterwards (after the sex has taken place) that can make her feel angry or violated.
She wants the man to be punished but knows he has done nothing illegal. So what type of crime is she going to accuse him of? The one that most closely fits what he did to her and how she feels.

 

1) She says she said no. He says she never said no. Convicting men without corroboration is guaranteed to produce thousands or tens of thousands of false convictions.

2) Most cases without evidence do not result n conviction. Even in New York University System, where the standard of evidence is much lower, in 2019, 4031 students were accused of Sexual Misconduct and 399 students were found responsible. 76 of those responsible were expelled. Here.

 

Couldn't the same be said for the woman?

Why the double standards?

 

Women raping men is very rare.

 

That is not what I was referring to.
I was referring to when a woman puts herself into a precarious position, and then later accuses that man of rape.

If a man and woman are both seen walking into a bedroom together after drinking alcohol, why do you blame the man for doing that but not the woman?

 

Complicating this to the point where a woman can accuse you of rape for consenting acts years later means the Mike pence approach is prudent.

If you think it's sexist for men to protect themselves from false accusations then you clearly are practicing misandry.

 

What is the world coming to?!!

 

No it's not, it's just not considered rape.

Lying to men admit being on birth control is denying a man's right to consent that happens a lot.

If a guy did that "Stealthing" he's seen as a predator.

It's okay to use and abuse men because that's what they are for.

 

It's a problem he doesn't care about because **** men.

 

One quick question-- do you think there are more innocent men, falsely convicted of rape; or more rapists, who get away, due to lack of evidence?

While I do not doubt, that some women, of very poor character, or emotionally stunted, etc., have had sex with a man, and only afterward, decided that they "had been raped." Perhaps she had been expecting it to lead to a relationship, and the man had only wanted a one-night stand, or for whatever reason. It should be stressed, this only applies in a tiny minority of cases; nevertheless, that does not eliminate the injustice, in those cases. But people who study our justice system, in fact, say that something like 3% of those convicted of all felonies, IIRC, are innocent. While I do not regard that statistic as favorably as do some, the point remains that there is no way to prevent all miscarriages of justice.

For the scenarios that you conjure, the solution is simple: greater discretion, on the part of the man. One option, is to not screw around with women, of whose ilk, one is uncertain. If, however, a man is not cut out for dating respectable women of principle, or is unwilling to invest the greater effort, or to put off, at all, the point of his satisfaction, there is another alternative: having a supply of legal paperwork printed up, and then getting each woman to sign a consent form, beforehand. As ridiculous as this might sound, I remember at least one college, using these, in the past. IOW, there is legal precedent, validating this. So you don't need a secretly-filmed sex tape (though, if she consents to it, you could always make a sex video-- just to be "doubly covered").

 

Only one of them can be the rapist. Why would you blame the victim?

 

Well first of all, I want to point out that the question worded like that sets up a little bit of a false dichotomy. Probably most of the rapists who get away, the woman had no idea who they were.

So I think you need to reword your question. "Are there more innocent men who get convicted of rape; or are there more guilty men who are specifically accused by the woman but do not get convicted due to lack of evidence?"

I'm going to guess that is what you meant, but there was an important distinction to be made there.

Okay, so a question for you: How many innocent men are you okay with putting in prison for every, say, 10 guilty men that get put in prison?

And do we as a society really truly have any clue what percentage of men who get accused are actually guilty or innocent?
How would we know?

Yes, sometimes police are lucky enough to find evidence proving that the man was guilty, or sometimes police find evidence proving that the man is innocent, but these situations are less common -- I'd guess maybe in only 1 out of every 5 cases, and that's probably optimistic. In some cases the woman herself later comes forward with a guilty conscience and retracts her accusation, but that probably does not happen too often.

Here is one thing we could try. If we start from the assumption that it's just as likely that the police will be able to find firm evidence that man did do it, if he's guilty, as it is that they would be able to find evidence they he did not do it, if he is innocent, then I suppose we could look at the statistics and try to extrapolate.
However, the assumption that the probabilities are the same is probably not completely true, and it's really hard to really know whether they are. Maybe they could conduct mock real life tests with actors and police detectives, in a large study, to try to get some idea of what the probabilities are, see how likely it is police will be able to find evidence in either situation.

 

Your reasoning is going around in circles.

I think you have lost track of exactly what we are talking about.

We are talking about you blaming the man for putting himself in a situation that makes it easy for a woman to falsely accuse him. So then if he gets accused, you are not sympathetic to the idea of giving him the benefit of the doubt, because he might be guilty, but even if he is not you still view him as partly to blame.

To repeat again, you were blaming the man for something which was not the rape.

 

Given that in such cases, there is generally no corroborating evidence, we do not know how common false accusations and wrongful convictions are. I have written a small essay on the subject

Here.

 

Sadly, from the time corroboration was dropped as a requirement in proving sexual assault, many men have been convicted on the accuser's word alone. Most Progressives are willing to sacrifice innocent people's lives for what they see as the Greater Good.

 

I also want to point out that this is not all a black and white thing. Treating the man as if he's either guilty or not guilty are not the only two options.
Society could sentence the man to less time in prison if we think such a man ought to be punished in that situation but we are not entirely sure he did it.
For example, maybe only 2 or 3 or 4 years in prison. Whereas we might have sentenced the man to prison for 15 years if we knew for certain that he did it.
And maybe don't automatically have the law revoke lifetime rights from such a man. For example, if the only evidence was the woman's testimony, maybe have the law direct the judge to have the man only put on the sex offender registry for 4 years after he gets out of prison. And then the man's personal record can contain the fact that there was a rape allegation made against him.

We could also sentence the man for physical assault and bodily harm to the woman, separate from the rape. So she actually has to suffer bodily harm for the man to be punished under this. That way if a woman is going to inflict harm on herself to send a man to prison, she actually has to suffer injuries in proportion to how long he will be in prison.

(Although I did read one story about a woman who suffered injuries in an accident and then immediately had the idea of accusing a man having done that to her)

 

So it would come down to a he said/she said. With our supposed litmus test for jury conviction, "beyond a reasonable doubt," I have to believe that the more prevalent circumstance is a guilty defendant, who walks, due to lack of corroborating evidence, rather than a wholely innocent person, being convicted.

Remember, also, that conviction requires unanimous agreement, among all 12 jurors. Further, I disagree with the impression I get of your & Kaz's possible inclinations, here, to feel that society has turned completely against men, to fully support women; all one should need to recall, is the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, to be dissuaded of that idea. Our society is very mixed, on such issues. And, once again, it only takes one holdout, to prevent conviction.

 

That's not how it works. They say that, they might even tell the jury that, but that is not how it actually works in real life, in many types of situations.

I think this is a common misconception much of the public has, that it works like this (or works like this all the time).

And arguably that is not how it should work all the time.

For example, if a thief steals a very large amount of money, we've identified a suspect, and the evidence suggests a 70% chance that person was one responsible, most people in society are going to believe that person should be given at least some punishment, to try to dissuade anyone from stealing in that type of situation, even though there are inevitably going to be some innocent people who get punished. Otherwise the majority of the time the people who commit the crimes in these situations are not going to get punished. For some types of crimes it's rare to ever be able to find evidence proving they did it with 100% certainty.

 

That's actually a lot easier than many people assume. There is a lot of pressure put on jurors to agree, especially if it's only 1 or 2 jurors holding out against all the rest. The jurors are basically punished if they can't agree, required to sit in a small jury deliberation room for days. Usually being paid only a fraction of the money they would be paid if they were able to make it to their normal job. It's not uncommon for the authorities to keep the jury deliberation room uncomfortably hot or cold to help pressure them. I don't know if you are familiar with the psychology of group pressure and consensus. If everyone else is raising their voice at you and telling you you're wrong, you will have a tendency to start doubting your opinion. And what do you really care? The decision won't affect you. The person might be guilty or they might be innocent, you don't really know. It's easy to just agree with the rest of the group. The other members of the jury are going to blame you if you keep holding out, because they really don't want to be there.

I've heard stories about trials that were so long and boring that jurors started falling asleep or weren't paying attention. (Most real-life trials are not as fast-paced and exciting as what you see on television) Remember, some of these jurors may be elderly people or getting off a long exhausting shift of work. Sometimes the trials might be held in the late evening. If you weren't really paying attention and are very tired, it's easy to just agree with the rest of the jurors. You assume they're more likely to be correct than you, and you really just want to go home and sleep.

Unfortunately, not everyone in society shares a sense of duty and responsibility to their fellow man. Consider that the majority of people try to get out of jury duty. They really don't want to do it and view it as an annoyance.

And then add onto that a huge portion of society is stupid, not really cut out to make good decisions in some of these cases, and are easily swayed by emotion.

The judge often has a lot of other cases going on and a busy schedule, so it can be like justice on a conveyor belt. (In fact if you removed the role of the prosecutor, the court system would screech to a grinding halt because the judges do not have anywhere near the amount of time to pay close enough attention to all the cases)

Also the prosecutors use tactics during the initial jury selection process to try to weed out any jurors they think could be a problem and might hold out, not giving them the decision that they want. So there is also a bit of selection bias at play.

 

You are absolutely wrong-- in your expectation, of how "most people in society," would feel about this; to your believing in the merits of having a sliding scale, in the certainty required for conviction, depending on the crime; to even believing in the practicality of implementing such a system.

I completely object, to your rejection of our long-accepted, foundational principle, that it is of a greater importance, to not imprison an innocent person, than it is to not let a guilty party, go free.

 

Look, it's not that I disagree with you. I just think you do not accurately understand how other people think, or would actually think in these situations.

It can be hard to see important issues in society if you just assume that most other people always think the same way you do.

That is what I discovered over time. I saw these huge injustices, and didn't understand how they could happen. And then when I started asking about it and discussing it with other people I was shocked to discover they held very different views than I did about those things. What I saw as an obvious injustice that didn't make any sense, they saw as perfectly reasonable and normal.

 

First, if you ever want to get out of jury duty, all you need do is share these sorts of opinions, when they are screening you; or just bring a few copies of this post, to hand out to the prosecutor and defense counsel-- might as well have one for the judge, too, and you might get excused, even sooner.

Secondly, my mother absolutely loved jury duty, found it fascinating. And she depicted her entire group being into it. Not only did they bond, but at the end of their stint, the judge took them all out to lunch. So, while the people who just don't want to be there, are part of the mix, I think you have a greatly stilted view, of juries, in general. Many people take this responsibility very seriously. Though not all, of course.

Except you ignore the fact that defense lawyers, also, do their best, to pick a jury, sympathetic to their client, and to challenge any potential jurors who seem as if they would be, well, too challenging, to get a not guilty verdict from them.

 

So a woman can get a guy drunk and have sex with him but a man can't?

Why the double standard?