The Internet Hate Machine’s Nuanced Response To The UVA And Stanford Rapes

On Wednesday I wrote a post applauding Stanford University’s response to an accusation of rape on their campus.To my surprise, the comment section of this post quickly became filled with hundreds of people (primarily men) blaming the victim and complaining about the fact that when women falsely accuse men of rape, they aren’t punished the way rapists are.

Holy fuckballs, you guys.

On January 18th, Stanford freshman Brock Turner was caught allegedly raping an unconscious woman by two passers-by. The school barred him from campus, removed him from the swim team (for which he was heavily recruited) and he has withdrawn from the university. I briefly contrasted this reaction to the response of schools like UVA, who are on a list of schools compiled last year by the Department of Education for, “possible violations of federal law over the handling of sexual violence and harassment complaints.” UVA is, of course, also the school that was the center of a recent controversy involving a Rolling Stone article about a UVA student who was allegedly gang-raped. Rolling Stone did some sloppy reporting, the alleged victim “Jackie” was vilified, and rape apologists everywhere got a new go-to story to use to cast doubt on any college student who claims he or she was raped.

Within 24 hours, my post about the alleged Stanford rape had gone viral. It’s not because of the story itself, which can be read about on countless news sites, and it’s not because I had any new light to shed on it. No, it’s because I mentioned UVA as an example of how not to handle accusations of rape. The comments section of that post became filled with men, angry men, making the following claims: 1) “Jackie” was a liar and therefore I shouldn’t have used UVA as an example; 2) that women lie about rape and we should take those false accusations just as seriously as we take rape, and 3) that Turner is innocent until proven guilty. Oh, and also I am an uptight c**t. So, there’s that.

I’m going to address each of these issues today. Well, except for the c**t one — I’m just going to pray for the women who are unfortunate enough to be in those men’s lives.

Angry Man-plaint 1: “Jackie” was a liar.

I got a ton of comments saying that “Jackie’s” Rolling Stone story was proven to be a lie. First of all, this was nowhere near the point of my story. I was comparing the response of one institution to another, I was not comparing the validity of two different rapes. The fact that people immediately went there speaks volumes about how our culture still views victims of rape with suspicion, and, frankly, how much disdain some men have for women. If your reaction to “Jackie’s” story is, “that bitch lied just like other girls who regret one-night-stands,” then you don’t like women very much. Also, you’re an asshole.

Second, the idea that Jackie’s story was proven false is just not true. I am going to quote from an opinion piece Sally Kohn wrote for CNN about this issue, because she lays it out beautifully:

We don’t yet know all the facts behind the now-infamous, poorly fact-checked story in Rolling Stone about an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia. What we do know: Rolling Stone at first blamed the alleged victim, “Jackie” — rather than its own journalistic sloppiness — for so-called “discrepancies” (before changing its callous statement).

And new reporting by the Washington Post does reveal that Jackie’s friends, cited in the story, say they are skeptical about some of the details. Still, they all believe that Jackie experienced something “horrific” that night, in the words of one, and we do know that Jackie stands by her story. Most of the doubts about it were apparently raised by those she’s accusing, including the fraternity and main alleged assailant — whom, I guess, we’re supposed to believe instead.

“Jackie” has not admitted to lying – in fact, she still insists she was raped. There is nothing about Rolling Stone’s retraction or any of the subsequent news stories that says that “Jackie” wasn’t raped. No one knows, and I, for one, choose to believe her. I worked with survivors of sexual assault for about seven years, and I can say definitively that lying about rape simply does not happen as much as some would like to believe. I mean, as appealing as enduring the many hours it takes to collect evidence for a rape kit sounds, and even though most women feel that the appropriate punishment for a one-night-stand is for the man involved to go to prison for a few decades, and as much as every woman wants her friends and family members to think that she has been, let’s say, anally raped, it just doesn’t happen that much. Sorry.

That leads us nicely into number two…

Angry Man-Plaint 2: Women lie about rape and we should take those false accusations just as seriously as we take rape.

The argument that lots of women lie about rape is the kind of thing that the group in power says to discount and dismiss the rage of those who aren’t in power. It’s the argument that, when women lobby accusations against men, they do it for reasons like jealousy, embarrassment, or regret. It is no more than classic victim-blaming: “She wanted it,” “She’s lying,” “She was drunk,” “She was dressed like a slut.” I am always surprised how quickly most discussions of rape try to turn the perpetrator into the victim.

Have women ever lied about being raped? Of course. People lie about everything. But the idea that it happens so frequently that every rape accusation should be cast in doubt is wrong. Does that mean we should also believe every allegation from the word go? No. But when someone says they’ve been raped, I prefer to start by giving them the benefit of the doubt. That’s what we do with people who claim to be victims of other crimes. Does the fact that the majority of rapes are perpetrated by men against women have anything to do with the fact that it is the only crime in which a victim has to prove she didn’t deserve it? Survey says: Likely.

There are also a lot of men out there who are concerned for the reputations of all those men who are falsely accused of rape. On the rare occasions that it happens, I am in full agreement with you. But I would also say that a comment thread about a man allegedly caught raping an unconscious woman in public is an inappropriate place to air these feelings. All that does is make you look callous and self-serving. Go elsewhere.

Angry Man-plaint 3: Turner is innocent until proven guilty.

Dudes. The guy was allegedly found with his dick in an unconscious woman. Can we please just not?

****

Reading the comments left on Wednesday’s post has made me feel angry, sad, and afraid: angry that people can be so uncaring and unsympathetic, sad that there are still so many men out there who feel contempt for women, and afraid for my daughter and other girls who are coming of age in a world that still blames them when they are brutally violated. I’ll never understand the anger that some men feel towards women who say they’ve been raped, but I hope that today…just today…each and every one of them loses his keys, spills his coffee, and gets his penis caught in a car door.

That’ll help.

(Photo: Chameleon’s Eye / Shutterstock)