Was Bristol Palin raped?

[darleneoconnor]

according to this bristol palin was so drunk when she conceived her son that she doesn't remember having sex.

Sounds like rape to me.

Then she was basically 'forced' to marry her rapist? WTF! Sometimes America sounds more like the middle east!

Quite a few forums are discussing this, with some

disgusting rape myths on this forum

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.

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?

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.

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

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

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.

karmakameleon

"for some reason"

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

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

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.

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.

People are talking about instances of women lying in order to discredit other women and paint a picture that women cannot be believed. Bristol doesn't have a history of lying, but we can discredit her by talking about other women who might have lied.

Levi, on the other hand, presumably lied a lot when he was cheating on Bristol but we can safely ignore that as we must always given men the benefit of the doubt, mustn't we?

No they are not. Why would they want to discredit other women? Are you sure you mean that? They are simply saying that in the case under discussion, one must be careful as one wasn't there, and that to assert, as some posters have done, that women never lie, is as dangerous and misguided as its opposite.

I think you are misunderstanding on purpose and it's really a shame.

People are talking about instances of women lying to counter the strange arguments that seem to be being put forward saying that we must always believe what women say, and if a man and a woman say two different things it is always the man who is lying.