Was Bristol Palin raped?

People have offered anecdotal evidence in the interests of fairness, pointing out that sometimes (even if rarely) women DO lie.

Sayin that one does not automatically think that Bristol was raped, especially as she doesn't say so, still does not equate to saying that women are lying bastards and men smell of flowers. It's just plain silly.

MrsReasonable, you have to have a lot of women all saying the same thing before they are believed before the man when it comes to rape. John Worboys and Kirk Reid were allowed to attack dozens of women before anyone actually believed what the women were saying.

MrsReasonable, if you go by the "innocent until proven guity" route, that automatically makes most women who report a rape "liars"

Yeah, I'm sure I'm not the only one who has a problem with that

karmakameleon

"for some reason"

That reason is a pretty fundamental principle of our legal system.

That's not what I said Riven.

I said that women rarely lie and make false accusations. The evidence backs that up, and most people on this thread seem to agree with this (despite all the anecdotal evidence of women lying that has been offered).

If women rarely lie, then logic dictates that the men that they say have raped them probably are lying, given that we don't have lots of men going round admitting to forcing women to have sex. Let's face it, accused men have a lot to gain from lying but for some reason we must never doubt their version of the truth.

So we are agreed, all women tell the truth and all men ate lying rapists. I think ive got it.

To lighten the mood, here's Levi Johnston Blues by Ben Folds (lyrics by Nick Hornby)

The problem with tales of women who have "lied" about rape is that these tales manifest themselves. Now, I don't remember who posted it, but someone said a couple of weeks ago that false reports of death to insurance companies are more common than false reports of rape. I don't have a source, but let's take the usual stats of around 6% of crimes being falsely reported.

Now, bring in the low rate of rape reports. Around 20% of rapes get reported. I can't remember exact stats, but a small minority go to court, and an even smaller amount see a guity verdict. Yet we see more reports of false allegations. It's a small number that possibly lie. But then, unless we're in the bedroom when the act takes place, how can we be sure that they are lying? What if the stigma forces some women into claiming they lied, to avoid the stigma associated with being a rape victim in our society? Or because they're threatened by their attacker, and do so out of fear? You can never be sure, unless you're the victim yourself.

Reality, then why are we talking about women who lie and insinuating that teenage girls don't always tell the truth?

Why are we talking about the men accused of rape who lie (and there are plenty of them) and why they lie about what they have done?

You're saddened because people are quick to dismiss your story, but you equally quick to dismiss women who say they have been raped. The hypocrisy is astounding.

The fact is that very few women lie about rape.

HRH, why should we believe you, when you are so reluctant to believe other women?

The man I spoke about upthread lied too. He sexually assaulted me and then told everyone that nothing had happened while we were outside.

Men who sexually assault and rape women lie all the time.

Reality, I'm not being funny, but how do you know whether there have been women who have actually lied about rape.

Society believes all women are liars and they are treated as such. MAybe all the women you think have lied about rape might not have actually.

Riven I remember reading (on here, I think) a woman saying that her partner was an abusive rapist and she was with him for years before she got it together to get out. Anyway, what she said was that the times he coerced her into sex because she knew he would sulk if she didn't were in some ways worse than when he just raped her. It sounded like she was saying that she still felt she was being raped, but she had "consented" because she couldn't deal with the repercussions of not consenting. He might have raped her anyway, of course.