To not automatically support my male friend (potentially triggering!)

[User14356]

Agh this is keeping me up tonight, sorry if it’s a bit rambly

My very close, male friend (totally platonic) picked up a woman last weekend at a club. I had left earlier in the night, from what I was told, they were drunk, she had a screaming argument with her friend and then he took her home. Things were done but they didn’t have full sex.

Cut to today and I get a worried message from my male friend saying he has been contacted by this girl saying he took advantage, he is a sex offender and that she’s going to go to the police. This text message was sent at 4am and badly spelled so the assumption is that she was drunk.

I want to believe my friend, but I’m now massively morally split, between not wanting to call this girl a liar, but then not being there for him if the accusations are blown out or false. For now, I’ve been supportive. Is there any way to manage this situation without taking sides- AIBU to have doubts about my friend?

Dozer

I'm happy to be corrected here but I thought the 'We Believe You' thing was a movement to encourage women to come forward and report assaults and rapes knowing that they would be listened to in a non-biased or judgemental, safe environment.

I didn't think it was about mindless and non-critical support of any and every allegation, regardless of facts or circumstance.

The first one sounds sensible and long overdue, the second sounds crazy.

The point about victim blaming in the thread is that we still haven't identified if there even is a victim. On the information we have so far, it's impossible to tell. Other posters are simply stating that.

“I don’t want to be part of a community that dictates who the victim is in a given situation without any investigation, but based on what genitals they were born with.”

Then you are not a supporter of We Believe You, which MNHQ is promoting, and are ignorant about or deliberately ignoring womens far, far higher risk of being sexual assaulted, and that the vast majority of assailants are men, who are usually not punished by the law.

Is this meant to be some kind of advertisement for the reasonableness of the We Believe You campaign?

I don't need a thinking filter, even if the modern fascist left would like to force me to use theirs.

The OP has posted once since starting the thread, so is it just a DM article in the making?
I don't think she should be friends with the man in question and he shouldn't be friends with her. If she is so considering that he may be guilty why is he showing her the texts, he deserves better support than what is being offered by the OP.
I find it incredible that people are saying drop him like a hot potato - are we not innocent until proven guilty?
Maybe people need to reassess what friendship is. There's no need to take sides, but she has had a friendship with her friend for a length of time, but does not know the woman at all. He needs better friends.

Dozer Actually there have been a lot of people - including plenty of women - on previous threads saying they are happy with the rationale behind the "campaign" but are not happy with the choice of words and the inference that can be taken the other way.

m happy to be corrected here but I thought the 'We Believe You' thing was a movement to encourage women to come forward and report assaults and rapes knowing that they would be listened to in a non-biased or judgemental, safe environment.

Thats my understanding

Yes, that's a reasonable definition of We Believe You.
Some people like to yell about it actually being a matter of insisting that every man ever accused of assault should be executed on the spot and that no one is allowed to doubt a woman's word, even if she is a spiteful bitch/drunken trollop/embittered and lonely because the man dumped her. Maybe they think it would be a good thing if women's words were just... not believed, too much (ie at all). Good for whom, I wonder.

Popping back here briefly to correct something I said earlier in the interests of accuracy - legal aid IS available for appeals, but not for the work of applying for leave to appeal, such as aquiring new evidence, finding grounds to appeal or getting a transcript of the original trial/judges summing up, which can amount to thousands of (unaffordable) pounds. Apologies for that and I hope it doesn't call everything else I said into question. (Tiptoes quietly out of thread backwards.)

@quickerthanavicar

OP here, I just had to respond to your post. Firstly, I'm not a DM reporter but congrats on being the first person to suggest this on the thread. I posted two nights ago when I couldn't sleep, I didn't expect it to become a huge thread and I've been busy, so shoot me. Also, much of the discussion doesn't actually really relate to me, so it hasn't warranted a personal response

Secondly, I haven't "dropped him like a hot potato" and I don't really understand why I'm a shit friend? Its not like I'm benefitting from believing this woman who I don't even know, I just feel morally obligated to at least consider the possibility that she may have been assaulted considering I can't be 100% sure my friend is innocent. I am supporting him, hence why he's shown me the texts and we have had conversations about it.

So please take your attitude somewhere else.