'It might not have been rape, she might have had sex and regretted it afterwards'

[BravoHopeful]

This statement makes no sense. If you had consensual sex and the next day regretted it, why on earth would you go through the whole horrible experience of reporting it to the police and everything that follows? You would just move on and put it behind you.

It's always trotted out as a likely explanation in 'date rape' type cases. But it makes no sense whatsoever. AIBU?

When people here say 'coercion' do they include telling people you have a different job?

I've name changed for this as I don't want it associated with my usual name.

I was raped when I was 17. 19 years ago. I didn't scream, despite the fact that there would have been people quite nearby. I lay very still and let him do what he wanted to me, because I thought he was going to kill me. Now I wish he had. For 19 years I've carried this and told no-one because I know that people will think it was my fault. When he'd finished with me he called me a dirty slag and spat on me before walking off.

I've had times when I've been able to cope with this, I've had times when it has caused me to try to kill myself. My life has gone anyway, I've never had a relationship and never will. To read people on this thread thinking that it wasn't his fault but mine - I so wish I'd resisted and that he had killed me. It would be better than existing like this.

Scary, no of course not. Coercion within relationships includes the sort of things like refusing to let your partner sleep until you've had sex, sulking for days on end because you haven't had sex, talking about leaving them if they don't have sex. Coercion in one-night stands includes things like psychologically threatening behaviour (like the guy who was on the fringe of my group of acquaintances who chivalrously offered to walk me home because it was late, came into my kitchen then proceeded to tell me things were really bad between him and his girlfriend, he'd had to 'really break her spirit', and he'd like me to be his next girlfriend - he was 6'4" and built like a rugby forward. I managed to talk him out the door, but only just - I can imagine had circumstance been different, I'd have ended up just letting him get on with it for fear of provoking violence, because he'd kindly told me he was being violent towards his current girlfriend). That's what coercion is.

No, we're not imagining hordes of vengeful would-be girlfriends outraged because they thought they'd slept with someone with a six figure salary only to find he stacked shelves in the coop. Really, women do not "cry rape" because a guy lied about his job.

Clearly - I believe you. And it was not your fault. And it's the knowledge that there are people like you out there that keeps me challenging rape myth shit and the rape apologists that peddle it.

That is heartbreaking to hear. Clearly, not your fault. I wish you lots of love and luck in getting the right help to put this behind you and live life as you deserve to.

Clearly I am so sorry that happened to you. It was not your fault. You are brave to have shared how you feel. I hope you can find some real life help.

Oh Clearly that must have been absolutely awful. Please ignore the rape apologist bullshit spouted on this thread. I believe you and I believe that what happened to you was not in any way your fault

People really need to think about what they spout on here. They are talking about real life situations which affect real people every day. Coming up with reasons as to why the victim would be at fault for being raped is beyond crass.

Thank you for the concern, I'm as okay as I get. I just wanted the apologists to think about the effects of their words. No amount of saying 'oh I don't mean your kind of rape' makes it okay to victim blame. It really is like being violated again reading those kind of comments and attitudes like that are why I can't ever tell anyone in real life.

Witty this is good on rape myths

Clearly I believe you and it wasn't your fault. I hope you have had/continue to have someone in RL that you can talk to and some support.

clearly

Notice how since Clearly posted her experience the rape apologist crowd have disappeared.

Given that in 2011-12 for every 161 rape prosecutions (and let's not forget how difficult it is to get a prosecution for rape) there was 1 prosecution for false allegation, it does seem that the focus on women 'crying rape' is massively disproportionate.

I'm really not great with stats but this raises a question for me. I'm not saying that false allegations happen often - that's not what I think. But I'm not sure the figures indicate what they're assumed to indicate.

As I understand it, you're saying:
Prosecutions for rape are very low and should be higher because more men are guilty of rape. It should be easier to get men convicted of rape.
But: Prosecutions for false allegations are very low because women are innocent. Not because it would be notoriously difficult to successfully prosecute a false allegation of rape (similar to prosecuting rape itself). Or because men falsely charged with sexual assault would find it difficult to press charges for similar reasons to victims of sexual assault (which in fact they are, in a sense).

I think it's safe to assume that both the number of rapes and false allegations are higher than those that are convicted. Like with any crime I imagine. But does anyone really believe that there's a disproportionate number of women getting away with 'false accusations' and hardly any men getting away with rape? The real figures will still be hugely different.

Even if you wanted to be 100% objective and only look at conviction rates - the number of false allegations vs rapes has an astonishingly wide gap, and tells us that 'women make false allegations all the time' is a horrendous and dangerous myth.

Maybe we should start from the basis women aren't likely to lie and not build on these loopholes.

No. We start from the basis that everyone is capable of lying so everyone must have provision for that in the form of legal protection. The law is not there for what's 'likely' to happen and we can't say women lie any more or less than trans or male. The law is there for what can happen when people aren't playing the game. I'd be glad to see progress towards a better justice system and I don't like the way it's gone with CE but there is no need or reason for progress at anyone else's expense. A fair trial should be fair to everyone.

And there may be reasons for the gap which, in part, are not the reasons you're suggesting, is all I'm saying.

Who tells you that women make false allegations all the time?

Sorry I've just seen what you mean. My first sentence still stands.

The reason I'm suggesting for the gap is that more men rape than women lie about it. Would you say this was not the case?

I haven't heard anyone say women make false allegations of rape often. Never heard it said. Ever.

However, what feeds a myth like that (if it exists) is a sense of vulnerability. Women feel vulnerable in a court of law but it works both ways. Men thinking about being accused of rape and put on trial perceive a similar lack of evidence. They don't see the corrupt justice system that will be loaded against the woman. They see a way that their lives could be destroyed by the whisper of a lie no matter if it's true or not. If the justice system is not perceived by men to be fair to men, rape myths will always flourish because they're scared and defensive.

And yes, maybe some men also scared and defensive because they know that they've had drunken ONS and don't recall stopping to have a little chat about their intentions in the middle of it. There is confusion about consent and that breeds fear. Even the sudden question on this thread from someone wanting to know if lying about his job amounts to coercion highlights that.

I think it's safe to assume that both the number of rapes and false allegations are higher than those that are convicted. Like with any crime I imagine. But does anyone really believe that there's a disproportionate number of women getting away with 'false accusations' and hardly any men getting away with rape? The real figures will still be hugely different.

Yes, this. Obviously it's highly likely that there are women out there who get away with false allegations, and men who get away with rape. But if you look at the prosecution statistics, its pretty unlikely that there are tons of women getting away with false allegations and no men getting away with rape, so we can probably assume that proportionally, the unprosecuted rates are similar as well?

I haven't heard anyone say women make false allegations of rape often. Never heard it said. Ever

You're probably one of few. You don't have to look far to find them.

I also don't understand the 'confusion about consent' argument. Let's not infantilise men by suggesting they don't know the difference between a 'yes' and the absence of a 'yes'.

I missed the poster who lied about his job so will look through the thread with interest! Although My suggestion to anyone who is worried about misleading a woman is to not lie to get them into bed

I haven't heard anyone say women make false allegations of rape often. Never heard it said. Ever.

WHAT???

Yep the law should be designed to protect everyone as far as possible from wrongful conviction. However in the case of rape law it seems to me specific provision is built in because it's assumed women will lie (like the reasonable belief in consent - I assume that's there to protect men from these women that regret it later). These then act as a very high bar to prosecution of rapists because they are designed to put the victims word at a lower level of value than the offenders (his belief being more important than the actual events).
So you end up with these crazy defences hanging on the definition of "reasonable" and coloured by the jury also being steeped in this culture where women lie about regretted sex and men can assume a woman consents without speaking to her.
I am not a legal expert by any stretch but I can't think of any other crime where specific definitions and subclauses are built in assuming the victim might be lying. Why is it assumed a rape victim is more likely to lie than e.g. a victim of theft?
Hope that makes sense, my posts aren't always very clear.