A Voice For Men: willing to publish libel to “prove” points about fake rape claims – part 2, logic and language

This one’s gonna be REALLY long. Sorry folks. May want to skip this one altogether, in fact. It’s just me mud-wrestling with someone who doesn’t deserve the attention, because I have a stake in this particular fight.

Previously, I showed how AVfM, Paul Elam and Birric Forcella must absolutely know that men getting thrown in jail or otherwise having their lives ruined is a mathematically miniscule problem compared to the problem of unpunished rape, using some basic math intentionally skewed to advantage the claims of MRAs. Even with all of the tilts in their favour, I calculated that 10% of innocent men would end up in jail, while less than 5% of actual rapes would result in rapists seeing even a day of jailtime. While those numbers are appalling, the problem of 95% of rapes going unpunished is slightly larger than (the artificially inflated) 10% of innocent men going to jail.

That essentially proves AVfM are fighting the wrong demon, and they must know it. This sort of math is inescapable.

But what’s more is, they’re doing it because they think that feminists are fighting for 100% of rape claims to result in convictions. I know of absolutely no feminist who’s ever said that a person should be damned based on a mere accusation, not even the most radical of feminists, whom I’m sure recognize that such a structure could result in them being thrown in jail by a spiteful accuser out for revenge against them. I’d personally rather have less of ANY sort of crime, either false rape claims or rapes. I’d rather justice be served as close to perfectly as humanly possible, in absence of a sky-daddy to do all the omniscient judging for you.

But you simply can’t fight false rape claims by loosening the system such that it’s impossible for ANY rapes to see justice. Nor, vice-versa — you can’t tighten them to the point where false rape claims land innocent men in jail. The problem here is, there’s precious little evidence that innocent men ARE landing in jail, and there’s plenty of evidence that real rapists are walking all the damn time.

In fact, this idea that feminists are demanding that anonymous claims be believed without any corroborating evidence is the lynchpin of their entire argument — and the event that has gotten them so keen to throw me, a man who experienced a fake rape claim, under the bus is of course exactly the event you’d expect. And I’m the target for exactly the reason you’d expect.

To wit, from A Voice for Men’s libellously titled post, “FreeThoughtBlogs’ Jason Thibeault, confessed rapist”:

Unless you live under a tight rock formation you have probably heard that the feminist and skeptic/atheist communities are in an uproar over a recent accusation by PZ Meyers on his FreeThoughtBlog(s). In short, he is accusing Michael Shermer, one of the very big names in skepticism/atheism, of being a rapist. The accusation is based on the story told by a friend of a friend.

So Birric and AVfM are upset that PZ Myers published the rape allegations against Michael Shermer. And they’re attacking me because I’m on the same blog network as him, and because I believe Shermer’s accusers.

Birric plays fast-and-loose with the facts of this case, and with the assertions I’ve made in my blog post, throughout his own lengthy screed. The fact that he’s fibbed about the nature of the accusations is no surprise. To put things back into proper perspective, PZ Myers published the account of someone he knows personally, which suggests that the fact that Shermer’s name has long circulated among the whispernet might be perfectly founded. To make matters worse, a number of ostensible victims established a pattern of behaviour that Shermer likes to flirt with targets while surreptitiously topping their wine glasses up to the point where they got drunk and don’t even realize it, and a number of people have even allegedly woken up the morning after to find a copy of Shermer’s book, signed, on their nighttables.

There are six such accounts in total that the original accuser knows of. There may or may not be overlap amongst the people who have since come forward saying the same thing. These people MAY all be lying, or they may all be telling the truth, or some admixture thereof. Because neither PZ nor you nor I have any way of ascertaining the truth of the claims, it is impossible for us to say with any certainty that Shermer’s a rapist, nor has PZ made any such claim — in fact, he explicitly stated he could NOT verify that the rape itself had happened, only that the source is someone he personally trusts. The “friend of a friend” comes from the fact that Carrie Poppy, who had made her own claims related to other incidents of harassment in the blogosphere unrelated to Shermer, had put her back into direct contact with PZ. Evidently this person is someone whom PZ knows enough to trust at her(?) word, but who was not then in direct contact with PZ via email or phone until Carrie facilitated it.

Again, PZ trusts her enough to take her at her word, but could not verify the rape itself, though it seemed credible enough that he put his own reputation at risk (of, for instance, legal threats, as Shermer has made) to publicize them. And more people came forward thereafter to corroborate the story.

So the tactic taken by the wagon-circlers has been to throw up chaff, to create accusations against others from whole cloth. Essentially, they want to prove that false rape claims are everywhere, by creating a whole shitload of them all at once. First, Avicenna was accused of rape at a time and place he could not have been at, due to being on the wrong continent, and despite still being pseudonymous and mostly nobody even knows what he looks like. As a result, he lost several days of charity work and almost got frog-marched out of an operating room. PZ Myers had someone copy-paste a rape account aimed at someone else, only with all the instances of the name replaced with “Paul” — though nobody believed that one, because its origin was found quickly.

I’m a different story, though. Slimepitters have long known about my own false rape accusation from almost twenty years ago, when I was 16 years old — I know this, as they’ve brought it up in a few other instances. This time around, it looks as though someone’s given it some traction at other, less third-string MRA sites, like r/MensRights and AVfM, and some very disreputable and dishonest folk are doing their damnedest to pick at my scars and make them bleed in punishment for not toeing their MRA line. Basically, they’ll re-victimize me until either the feminists I ally myself with throw me under the bus as a rapist, or until I… I don’t know… recant my femtheistnazi ways and take the Blue Pill and become an antifeminist alongside them. Or until I just clam up and stop blogging altogether, withdrawing from public scrutiny because their ongoing bullshit is just too much for any one person to have to bear alone.

So now I have to rebut their bullshit. Because it’s all predicated on a lie about feminists.

I’ll be honest, though. Going through this post and rebutting point by point is hard on me, emotionally. I might skip big chunks. Don’t assume anything I ignore in this post is necessarily ceded ground.

FreeThoughtBlogs’ Jason Thibeault, confessed rapist

IF FEMINISTS DEFINE RAPE, THIBEAULT IS GUILTY AS SIN.

The FreeThoughtBlogger Jason Thibeault, also known as the Lousy Canuck, is, by his own feminist standards, a confessed rapist.

Firstly, the title of the post is the only part I consider outright libel. That title, claiming I’m a “confessed rapist”, is clickbait, and it’s even designed to climb up the search engine ranks for either “Freethought Blogs” or my real, legal name, probably to ruin my life as a long-game landmine for some future employer using Teh Googles as their primary research method. That’s longterm real damage, to my reputation and to my potential future employment.

I did not confess to rape.

I, in fact, maintain my absolute innocence with regard to ever having violated anyone’s consent. The fact that they’re willing to post that title, selected by the editor (ostensibly Paul Elam) despite the body of the post contradicting the plain reading of the title, tells me they know it’s libellous — especially with the first comment from Paul Elam, who is editor and founder of AVfM, saying “Karma’s a BITCH”. I believe that demonstrates “actual malice”, especially when combined with the patently obvious motivation of “satirizing” the Michael Shermer allegations.

If AVfM were to change that title, there’s probably nothing else actionable in the piece, regardless of how utterly blinkered and contrafactual it all is. So, a word of advice, Elam: just change the title. You can keep calling me a “rapist by feminists’ standards” if you want. It will put you on the same footing as PZ, with regard to the libel charges that Shermer’s bringing to him, as far as I can tell.

Though that still betrays your misunderstanding of what feminists actually think about accusations. Nowhere will you ever find anything written by me or, I’d posit, by any other feminists at this blog network, who believes that anyone who ever accuses anyone else of rape is, 100% of the time, telling the truth. I absolutely categorize my story as one of a false rape claim. How could I claim that all rape claims are true if the claim against me was false?

Which is the whole point of their argument — if I claim to have been accused of rape, and I’m a feminist, then I must believe I raped the person that I swear I did not rape. Surely that should be a clue that these assertions of yours are wrong, you’d think.

Few seem to notice that Meyers’ claims go far beyond this one case. The feminists are ready to apply this principle universally. Even if in this case the accuser should come forward and Shermer were to be proven a rapist, it would not stop there. Accusations like this would spring up like mushrooms, all covered by the new PZ “ethics.”

Myers, you mean. Hmm… maybe WE’RE all spelling it wrong, considering how many trolls and assholes and “philosophers” like Birric spell it Meyers.

It’s absolutely true — now that the ice was broken by Ashley Paramore talking about her own assault, a surprising number of cases which have apparently been known about throughout the community for a very long time have all come to light, “springing up like mushrooms”. There are a few more names in the whispernet that I have not seen public allegations against, but that’s not to say they won’t, eventually, see the light of day. (And no, I’m not counting any name named at the anonymous Tumblr, because those are unsubstantiated and frankly easily gamed by people wanting to throw up chaff.)

Of course all would be directed at men. If this new ethics gains traction we will all be in deep trouble.

Funny you should say that, when I personally know of a few men who’ve been harassed, like Sasha Pixlee. Yes, that’s a female name, but he’s a maybe seven foot tall refridgerator of a man. And yes, in his case, he was harassed by a man, but it could as easily have been a woman (*ahem*).

In this context, a friend of ours was approached by an ardent feminist friend who had evidence that one of the FTB guys – The Lousy Canuck, Jason Thibeault – was a rapist himself, by feminist standards[…] She is scared to death because she has good reasons that going public will result in threats and severe retaliation. She is very much afraid for her life. FTB doesn’t deal kindly with dissenters. Obviously, she is also afraid to publish on any other feminist website.

So, in her desperation she approached our friend and gave him the story. It was a whopper of a story. However, our friend saw that it was all based on pure facts that Jason Thibeault had disclosed himself right there on FTB. Her arguments are standard feminist arguments and should convince anybody on the feminist side.

So… a feminist repeated the story about me, unsourced, having not read it themselves, but your intrepid MRA infiltrator plant recognized it as the story I’d told myself? Gee. I wonder if this is supposed to be a “parody” of the Michael Shermer thing, considering the addition of the extra layer of abstraction (which is not, you’ll note, ACTUALLY present in PZ’s case).

This also doesn’t read as it did originally on being posted, but has since been altered, where before it merely mentioned that it was a comment by Birric on my blog. Now it’s been “updated”:

The following piece was – with slight variations – submitted as a comment to the Lousy Canuck blog. Needless to say, it never made it through his “moderation.” Jason Thibeault had every chance to answer it. He chose silence.

Update: In the meantime 5 other women have come forward to accuse Jason Thibeault. They also have good reason to assert that he is a rapist, given the evidence. They demand that accusers be believed. Surely, more women will come forward.

I could easily post the original, as I still have it. It even includes the “proudly thinking with both heads” signature that tells you you’re dealing with a SERIOUS PHILOSOPHER in Birric. It says all of everything in the AVfM post, only using the twisted illogic Birric used in the post, sans the framing story of the feminist friend of an MRA friend which is being used to loosely and contrafactually parody PZ. And it definitely doesn’t include the “other five women”, which is interesting, because actually, in the original story, the first accuser included the suggestion that she(?) knows of five other victims — this was not added in an update, as far as I can tell. Everyone else who came forward since has suggested that he has a pattern of behaviour with regard to booze, sex and leaving books on the nightstand. The funny thing is, there are apparently witnesses for this behaviour out there. The fact that these accounts are credible and the ones that Birric and AVfM have invented from whole cloth are not, I can only attribute to motherfuckin’ miracles.

Trigger Warning: Truth

No. More like “Trigger warning: Logical fallacies, assuming the consequent.”

At this point let us only mention that the “lie” concerns the claim by the girl that she defended herself with a screwdriver stabbing his chest. He feels exonerated by the fact that he showed his chest unwounded apparently many weeks later (by his own statement) to his friends. Not only is it possible that the young girl misjudged how deeply she had stabbed, but it is equally likely that the wound had completely healed by the time he bared his chest.

Absolutely possible that she misjudged stabbing me. Absolutely possible that I healed without a scar.

Also absolutely possible that she didn’t stab me at all.

Additionally, since that detail was relayed to me through a third party, it’s also possible that she never claimed this as part of her rape claims. This is something I did not cover, because I assumed that the person relaying it relayed what most of the other folks in my school had heard. My using it as a leverage point to stop some people from judging me was referred to retroactively, and damningly, as “manly”. Bear in mind that even when writing that post, I was questioning the gender binary, and I have since very strongly decided that the gender binary — with its judgments on who’s “manly” and who’s “effeminate” — are entirely bullshit.

It’s no surprise that these are the facts that the antifeminists have decided to question — where in every account of a rape allegation, they question the facts that damage the claim that someone was raped, in the case of a feminist with a false rape charge, Birric is more than willing to question only the assertions that exonerate me. Not the validity of any of the rest of the claim, mind you — even though, from his perspective, I could have made the entire thing up from whole cloth.

So, we know that he was accused of rape. That is a fact he admits. Now what about his response/excuse? Here’s why it won’t/can’t fly among feminists:

First, a simple statistical consideration. Feminists believe that less than six percent of rape accusations are false.

Not necessarily. We believe the best statistics we have say that 6% of accusations brought to police are dismissed as “false”, for flexible meanings of the word “false”, while your side believes that somewhere between 99% and 100%, give or take, of all rape claims are false in toto. I mean, as far as I can tell. It’s how you’re arguing, at least! Forgive me if you’ve given me a false impression of your beliefs on the matter.

Also, 1, 2, or 3 out of 4 women are raped in their lifetime, depending on the (supposed) research you quote. In his earlier post Canuck says that she made one more rape accusation about another guy.

Again, relayed to me through a third party — this could have been entirely false, or it could have been entirely true, or it could have been completely made up. I make no truth claim assertions about the second accusation. HOWEVER, as I’ve said elsewhere, the rape accusation she made against me was shitty for my life, damaging to me psychologically, but might not have been followed up on at all by the people who count. Sure, there was one group of vigilantes who believed her, but maybe they were just looking for an excuse to punch up a NERRRRRRRRD that they already hated. I wasn’t exactly universally beloved in school, mostly because I was that brainy kid who didn’t fit in all that well.

And that psychological damage is pretty shitty, yes, insofar as it resulted in almost twenty years of wrestling with that one raw spot on my psyche where I wonder if maybe, just maybe, I DID do something to deserve that treatment, and so I’ve been exceptionally careful about consent since. Honestly, this is not a terrible outcome. My sex life does not supercede someone else’s safety. Period. My hand always consents.

Now, the chance that she was REALLY raped at some point in her life is huge (according to the above statistics) and she would certainly have made an accusation in that case – she isn’t shy about these things.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why even liars should be able to report a rape and not have it dismissed out of hand. Likewise with people who were drunk, people who have mental illnesses, or any other condition that might cause a police officer to dismiss a rape claim out of hand.

What happens thereafter is that the claims will likely be dismissed on lack of evidence. Most rape charges seem to be, after all.

From the above numbers it is clear that there is a 50/50 chance that the encounter with the Canuck was the real rape. We only have his word for it that it wasn’t. Do we trust him? That’s the crux of his post. From his own words and contradictions we can’t trust him.

No, the 50/50 is entirely statistically wrong. Just like lightning can in fact strike somewhere twice, someone is well capable of being accused more than once, or of making more than one rape accusation, since a false rape accusation — even assuming that every false rape accusation hits a police desk — is a 6% chance out of the whatever-percent chance that someone’s been raped multiple times. And people do get raped multiple times.

I have no idea what the math would play out like, but someone making false rape accusations is likely to create more false rape accusations, but even so, that doesn’t mean that each shouldn’t be given due consideration based on the evidence at hand because the likelihood that any one accusation by a person is true doesn’t play by those same statistical rules! In my case, there was no evidence at hand. That vindicated me, at least in the eyes of the public who had already judged the case the other way. I wouldn’t be surprised if the other case went something along those lines. But that doesn’t mean that the two cases, in isolation, have any effect on one another statistically, any more than the statistics of any one lightning strike.

This is like those arguments where because a statement is either true or false, it’s a 50/50 chance. It doesn’t work that way. I can’t even begin to explain why it’s wrong, it’s just so fractally wrong.

If it went to a real courtroom today, he wouldn’t have a prayer. Even in a REAL courtroom his defense that she is a serial liar won’t be admitted due to shield laws that serve women well. Her accusation would stand on its own. We hear it was a well-rehearsed story (if it was a story). So it would probably be credible. She’s also under-age. Even in a real courtroom Jason would have a better than 50/50 chance to come away with 25+ years in prison and a permanent spot on the sex offender registry. He would likely be tried as an adult. Let’s remember that these rules exist to protect women.

Blah blah straw justice. The courts don’t work that way and you know it.

But let’s look at a court venue that has been largely shaped by modern feminist thinking – if this comes up on a college/university campus, Jason’s chances would be practically 100% for conviction. His career and his life would be ruined, as it should be for a rapist.

The standard here is “preponderance of evidence.” So it only needs to look like more than 50 percent likely that he did it. Now, everybody in higher education has read the numerous studies that prove that false accusations are (much) less than 6%. From the bat, the evidence preponders against Jason at 94%.

Oh, so NOW you’re taking a single claim by a person as the preponderance of evidence, and that’s 94% likely to be true? Despite the fact that in cases where you can’t prove “beyond a shadow of a doubt” the alleged rapists walk? Despite the fact that 95% of the time, a real rape results in no justice at all?

I’d love to see the statistics about university campuses and rape allegations. Especially the parts about them only being “preponderance”. I strongly suspect a series of lies here.

Next, he can forget about legal representation. Lawyers don’t try to find the truth. Lawyers work to get perpetrators and rapists off. These hearings also don’t have a jury, since juries can easily be swayed by the smug lies of a rapist. He can also forget about cross-examining his accuser. Fortunately, in these hearings it is not allowed for the victim to be re-victimized by the rapist’s badgering. There is also no need for physical evidence. We know that most rapes don’t leave physical evidence. Finally, and most fortunately, the judges will be versed in feminist literature and theory. Most of these judges are wise women who have their own ways of knowing. A rapist can’t pull the wool over their eyes.

So much for Jason’s chances in legal proceedings.

Blah blah more straw justice. It’s like this guy has never seen an episode of Law and Order, much less ever seen how real court cases regarding rape play out. The idea that judges are “well versed in feminist theory” or are willing to convict without physical evidence is laughable, though I suspect this is a hyperbolic dystopian straw-feminist vision of the future designed to encourage us to show our true thoughts on the matter. Either that, or MRAs really think this is how the world works — and that latter possibility terrifies me.

Frankly, physical evidence (and not necessarily of the semen-found-in-vagina variety) should be necessary to put someone away for a crime, though I’d also take a guilty plea. But certainly, the existence of multiply-substantiated allegations should be enough to put someone into the whisper-net warning people who aren’t interested in sex with someone to keep an eye on their drink around them. That’s what the whole skeptic movement is about — warning people about con-artists and shysters looking to take advantage of you, even if they haven’t (yet) done anything demonstrably legally actionable.

So, we learn that Jason started out as a serial liar, lying for exactly the girl that later accused him. He became “extremely adept” and he probably still is.
[…]
in his earlier post it seems rather clear that “everybody’s trust” had been built, at least in large part, on his own lies, covering up for her. But we only hear that people’s trust in HER was eroded. Nobody took him to task for his own lies!

Yes, I said that I did a lot of covering for that first girlfriend when she told fibs about inconsequential things, explaining how she’d misinterpreted, how others had misinterpreted, how it wasn’t really a lie. Yes, I did say that I’d even lied in some instances near the end when she started telling lies about things that involved me too, like where we’d gone, who we were with. I was silent about a lot of it, too, letting her spin her yarns without intervention. The only thing I don’t recall ever doing was calling her on her lies myself, until the big one about me.

In retrospect, I truly hope it was a phase she was going through. I hope that she wasn’t actually manipulative and, frankly, abusive; and that she grew out of it before having kids of her own. I have no way of knowing now, after having cut mostly all ties with just about everyone with any path back to her.

But just so you know, I’m not going to name her, so my saying this does nothing to damage her reputation, and does nothing ultimately except to damage my own reputation by being brutally honest and open about things. I’m basically just handing ammunition to people who would shoot me to pieces for no reason other than blatant self-interest.

In fact, if it does you any good, you could imagine this whole thing is made up, and I’m an entirely unreliable narrator. If you’re going to assume my recollection of the events are in question, by all means, assume it’s all false. I’d much rather that, than you using this instance of one person evidently using actual incremental lies in a pathological manner as an ORDINARY event to shore up your arguments that all women lie about rape all the time because women can’t be trusted. If I became an adept liar as you claim, rather than someone who was quite adept at “covering for” someone else’s lies, as I stated, then surely none of this is true and the origin of my skills at lying must also be in question. Maybe I’m the Joker, and I prefer my history to be multiple-choice!

But I know why you cast these aspersions. It’s because I recognize that my experience, having someone actually lie about rape, is not universal. It might be the exception that proves the rule, even. If we’re going to continue to misuse the statistics about false reports, surely 6% of reports is actually a fairly high number, and the statistical likelihood that one of those folks would be feminist — not unlikely considering how many of us there are — has got to be inevitable.

What about that “eroding anyone’s trust in her.” Well, we only have Jason’s word for that, but we have to remember that this was a long time ago, when all kinds of women’s claims were not believed or belittled. From Jason’s earlier story it is quite clear that it was HE, Jason, who started the eroding.

Nope. That’s not clear at all by what I wrote, and I should know, as I wrote it. And I experienced all the bits I didn’t write, so I think I have the advantage here. I didn’t elaborate much on it, but I have now — she lied about little inconsequential things and others called her on them, and I “covered” more often than I should have, because I was stupid and in love and young and stupid. Her trust with many people was eroded because of those little lies. Not with everyone, mind you — some people were quick to believe that the nerd they hated was someone they had to go beat up. In fact, I’m absolutely convinced the mob that wanted to beat me up was comprised of people who already hated me for being a nerd.

My only part in eroding that trust was taking off my shirt in that hallway.

However, it goes on an on how Jason now gained lots of friends and circles of trust, basically by beating a rape charge.

Nope. By “beating a rape charge”, which was never a charge at all, I stopped getting teased and abused. That’s about it. The gaining friends and building circles of trust came from over a decade of slogging on, being me, acting as I act today, generally treating people with respect, having a strong moral compass despite my godlessness, and being (at times brutally) honest as much as humanly possible. That was, after all, the lesson I learned from the episode, outside of my needing to make sure of absolutely crystal-clear consent to the point of being offputting to some partners.

Why did HIS lies not ruin HIS reputation?

Possibly because of patriarchy. Possibly because my lies were in service of hers, and outside of those, I was not generally in the habit of making shit up for fun. Either way, trust is a repository that you deposit or withdraw on, depending on the nature of each transaction. In my case, my putting all of this out there to serve as a gigantic bulls-eye on my back for asshats like you folks certainly has been an expenditure of my own trust in certain people’s ability to come to my defense, and an expenditure of a number of others’ trust in me as a stewart of ideas they agree with. I suspect I’ll bounce back from it faster than you will for posting a blatant lie in your post title as clickbait.

What’s even funnier is the fact that nowhere Jason mentions girls. He only talks about the guys and how they believed him. What about her girlfriends? Didn’t they believe her? Or doesn’t that count? Besides his girlfriend, no women appear in his story at all. Maybe women don’t rate.

Now, every feminist should immediately grasp the meaning of the quoted paragraph about her later life. HE IS ERASING THAT WOMAN. She’s a no-good bitch. She gets what she deserves – only, in the earlier post it says nothing about that. In one of the comments Jason lets us know that she was raped again and that her current boyfriend is in jail. Is that her fault? How did that make a wreck of her life?

I also didn’t mention the genders of the vigilantes. Or the gender of my ex’s best friend. I’m not entirely sure and would have to double-check, but I think I may never have even mentioned my girlfriend’s gender outside of the use of the word “girlfriend”, which could easily have been a gender-inversion to protect any nascent homosexuality. (Though that’s unlikely, given that my story didn’t talk about people hating me for being gay, which was likely in a town of 99%-ish Roman Catholics.)

What’s more, I simply don’t buy Jason’s whole 2009 post. It’s a Just-So story.

Oh, NOW you consider me an unreliable narrator. Jeez. It didn’t happen, and also it must have happened differently than he said. He’s a confessed rapist, worth smearing via the headlines and the Google search results, and also totally innocent.

So… I’m guessing it’s a “just so story” in that I am positing a supernatural cause for a natural but unexplained phenomenon? “Just so stories” are more than just stories presented without accompanying physical evidence, you know.

It tells a wonderful yarn about a nerd overcoming odds to become a “manly” man.

Wrong. It tells a tale of a guy who still doesn’t get what “manly” means, and who devalues the word by suggesting that it means being stubborn and reckless and cutting people out of your life when you think they’re toxic. You evidently only have the shallowest of reading comprehension skills.

His father is the right “Cajun” father who can beat gangs of ruffians.

No, Acadian. Same roots. French Canadian heritage from the folks actually descended from the same group of immigrants who eventually split off and became the Cajuns. Completely different culture, ultimately.

And I don’t have the first clue whether or not there was a single punch thrown or landed. All I know is that my father didn’t look particularly beaten up, and I didn’t arrive home to find a lynch mob. In fact, the lynch mob could have been a complete lie on my father’s part. I don’t know the gender makeup of the group he claims to have met, only that some were football player sized. I know of one such guy in the story — the boyfriend of my then girlfriend’s best friend. The same best friend who turned informant to me later.

You’re making stuff up to embellish your own retelling of my story. I don’t much appreciate that, considering outside readers already have to sort through all MY claims about my story. You adding extra twists doesn’t help either of us here.

There is that girl that accuses him of rape and everybody believes her. But whaddaya know, she tells exactly the right lie that’s a cinch for him to “disprove.”

Nope — not everyone. Her parents apparently didn’t believe her, according to her best friend — and advised her not to “do that to [me]” (but you couldn’t have known that, I didn’t tell that part previously). Most of the people who were not already primed to dislike me surely didn’t believe her. The rumour spread pretty far, but it was discarded by most. And I never saw a cop. Not a teacher. No adults confronted me about this. No counsellors. Nothing. Just the kids who already hated me. The fact that she told a lie that was easy to discredit was fortuitous for me, but certainly not out of character.

When he gets jumped, helpers just happen to pop up and out of stopped cars.

I get out of a bus at a bus stop and start walking home, and one of the other kids who got off at that stop attacks me. A passing car stops and breaks up the fight circle that had formed, spilling out into the street. This is a surprise? It’s an extraordinary circumstance that in a relatively small town, passing cars might stop to break up kids who are fighting?

He gets just the right cape jacket to make him look “sharp” for the dance.

A fake leather jacket is not a “cape”. It was a gift from my father, because he knew how hard of a time I was having. And he’s the one who said I looked “sharp”. It’s not an expression I use, generally, but it’s an idiom I know he’s used about all sorts of things throughout his lifetime such that it barely registered in my mind as something worth considering particularly trustworthy or novel. Though I do agree that I looked more “manly” in that jacket than my skinny nerd frame normally looked.

The post isn’t really about the rape, or any of the other stuff. The post is about him feeling “most ‘manly’” – it says so literally at the end of the story. And, WOW, now he even has a small coterie of drinking buddies (I kid you not – those are HIS words).

Manly? Wait a minute. Callous would be the better word.

You’re right. Being “manly” does mean being callous. Among other things. You should know this, Birric — patriarchy pushes you to be “manly” too, and punishes you for transgressing.

And yes, I talked about my false rape accusation as my coming-of-age story because it is literally when I had my innocence stripped. I learned that bad things could happen to me for no good reason. I learned that though I empathized strongly with others and took their feelings into account before acting as much as I could, others might not do the same for me. And I learned that “manly” is a strange concept. And a potentially damaging one.

15 years later he is still erasing her. She is reaching out to him, but he is proud to rebuff her. That seems odd for a feminist. After all, he goes to great lengths to describe that she, herself was a very damaged child.

“Is” is present-tense. She reached out to me a few months, by my recollection, after the accusation. She’d sent me a note I didn’t read, and called me and I hung up on her after a few curt words. A year before my blog post, some twelve-ish years after the original events, she sent me a friend request on Facebook, which led to me turning off my account shortly thereafter. I reacted possibly too hastily. Maybe she wanted to make amends, to apologize. Maybe I should have expended my energy trying to help her repair the damage.

Or maybe I recognized it was an abusive relationship and I needed to get the fuck out of it and stay the fuck out of it, ASAP. You… DO remember that you’re trying to PREVENT that sort of thing, yes?

And now they are in their thirties. The woman reaches out to him via Facebook. Wouldn’t any empathetic person want to try to find out what really happened? Maybe she is hurting. Maybe she is in despair over that affair. Maybe she deeply regrets the incident.

I just said that.

Jason himself even gives an explanation in his earlier post: “… my first girlfriend accused me of rape in order to preempt any acrimony over her sleeping with someone else…” Why is Jason so callous?

This is, at least, the rationale I could gather after discovering that she’d been seeing someone during a time period overlapping our relationship. It could be wrong. I do know that she saw this person, and that people saw them together before we’d broken up. I know this rationale was suggested to me by others, and that I didn’t come up with it on my own. That doesn’t mean it’s callous of me to point out that it was the most likely motivation.

Jason objectifies her as the evil bitch.

I didn’t say either “evil” or “bitch”. That’s all you, man. All you. And “objectifies” isn’t the word you’re looking for, either.

I could understand it if Jason had suffered trauma from the accusation, but apparently it left him unscathed and helped build and confirm his manhood.

Incorrect. On all counts. You evidently didn’t read the post you’re tearing apart with aplomb — because surely nobody has that poor of reading comprehension as to think that being accused of rape helped prove I’m a manly man. And yes, I did suffer trauma, or I wouldn’t have posted about it for my own catharsis. Why are YOU so callous as to attack the victim of the crime you obviously think is the most prevalent and most heinous crime imaginable, of being accused of rape?

According to him, he gained and grew from it.

Like a rogues’ gallery of enemies hellbent on destroying me, apparently. That took some time to happen though. I did LEARN from it, but it was a hell of a hard set of lessons to learn. The “enemies” bit comes from my taking the wrong lessons from the experience — I was supposed to learn to hate and distrust all women forevermore.

What would he have to lose to reach out to her? This seems like a strange reaction for an empathetic feminist (Always assuming the accusation was false).

I don’t actually know why I cut toxic people out of my life instead of trying to change them. She was the first. My mother was also one of them. I’ve lost all sorts of friends for conflicts involving my philosophical positions, as well. Too many, over the years. Surely, you know what that’s like, Birric?

Sure, Jason has a history of being a good guy and fighting for women’s issues and morality and all this splendid stuff. How much should that count? According to Jason’s post, it’s a matter of the trust he has built up. According to most other feminist writers, it shouldn’t count at all – it’s just a smokescreen.

Maybe his buildup of trust was only a cover. Maybe now more victims of his will come forward – possibly having friends of friends finger him. Maybe a number of women will now reassess acts he has done in the past. Maybe those things don’t look so innocent any more. Maybe we need to encourage women to come forward. Maybe we need to tell all the women in his circle(s). After all, the facts of the accusation have been established. He disclosed them himself. It would be unethical not to warn other women.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I have said repeatedly that if people feel they need to protect themselves around me, because of my being open about this episode of my life, they have every right to do so. If people feel they need to guard themselves against the potential that I will abuse their trust, then they should absolutely feel free to do so. If someone takes a different elevator, so be it. If someone doesn’t want to drink when I’m with them, fine. If someone crosses the street, good on them. It won’t hurt my feelings enough to make a difference in my life, and I know — because I have a working sense of empathy — why they’re reacting that way, and I do not blame them one bit.

And if *all of this* — this emotional meat grinder you claim to be trying to protect men from — also results in people taking the accusations against Shermer seriously, then I’m willing to pay that price. People can guard themselves around me just like they guard themselves around Shermer as a result of the accusations we’ve both had brought to light.

If people trust me despite that, so much the better. The friends I have now are closer than any I’ve ever had. And they’d be the first to tell me if I was betraying their trust in me.

Why would Jason mention this affair in his current post where it serves no discernible purpose? Why did Jason post his original 2009 post? What would drive a man like Jason to brag that he has beaten a rape charge? Let’s face it, that’s what it is, basically – narcissistic bragging.

My motivations should be clear. I posted about it openly and honestly because it’s a fundamental feature of my life — it informs much of my decision-making process, my drive toward honesty (yes, I know, you don’t believe anything I say — that much is clear!), and especially my questioning of the gender binary. I don’t see how that’s bragging about getting away with it, when I’m working so hard for feminist causes and have become such a liability to your side that no less than three major MRA hubs have decided I am the enemy. And I linked to it to explain how webs of trust are built, and how they affect decision making processes surrounding serious allegations like rape. Beyond that, it proves that a false rape claim does not necessarily end a person’s life, and that being victim of one does not mean you must necessarily become an antifeminist fucknugget.

And, it helps me illustrate the point — the real “good guys” are willing to take the emotional trauma of women not trusting us in situations where they’ve been trained by society to be on their guard. They won’t be judgmental of that, and they won’t consider their own hurt feelings more important than these women’s sense of safety.

Note that that does not extend to throwing someone in jail because someone, somewhere, made up a baseless and unevidenced accusation.

There’s no narcissism here, except insofar as anyone writing on the interwebs is narcissistic — and you should know, Birric, as you’ve been doing it yourself for quite some time. It’s really strange that you’ve spent as much time as you have being a “philosopher” on Second Life and you haven’t recognized in yourself any sense of narcissism. And you yourself said in your post that you believe ethicists simply want to destroy the things they want to do — evidently, you really want to be a feminist but you find yourself trying to attack feminists instead. Because in Birric-zarro World, fighting the people who fight rape means fighting rape.

The evidence against Jason is in plain sight. And he is a self-confessed “extremely adept” liar.

Let me say it again: Women need to be outraged and take the strongest possible action!

That’s why you’re fighting so hard against me, and trying so desperately to destroy my credibility — both with feminists, and in general. You want to disprove that rape allegations are serious by reopening the wound caused by my own false rape allegation, trying to essentially prove that false rape cases are more prevalent than actual rape by making these false rape claims yourselves. You’re throwing me under the bus you claim to be trying to save men from. And you’re bloody driving that bus, to boot.

That’s just about enough. There’s more bullshit to rip apart here, but cripes on a cracker, with all the blockquotes from the original Gish gallop I’ve pulled so far, and all the responses I’ve had to make so far, this is already at 7500+ words. And frankly, I think I’m pretty much tapped emotionally on this. There’s only so much revictimization you can take at a time, even if it’s in service of something I absolutely without question believe to be true: that people should take rape more seriously, that rape should be punished, and that fake rape accusations shouldn’t be made solely in an attempt at making sure few that ARE punished now, AREN’T.

Maybe I’ll take another swing at the rest some other time. For right now, I’m spent.

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A Voice For Men: willing to publish libel to “prove” points about fake rape claims – part 2, logic and language
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42 thoughts on “A Voice For Men: willing to publish libel to “prove” points about fake rape claims – part 2, logic and language

  1. 1

    That’s one thing that gets me. All these alleged skeptics that are really bad at basic math. We’re talking the equivalent of playing the lottery by finding out which numbers are hot are which are due, all to knock down some straw man that, as far as I can tell they really think feminists believe. Listening is for ingroup members, I guess.

  2. 2

    Jason,

    Whilst it isn’t difficult to emerge from an exchange with avfm as the one with more dignity, decency and kindness, I’d like to congratulate you on your handling of this disgusting episode.

    Basic human decorum is missing from virtually all avfm writings, the hatchet piece on you is no exception.

    Extending to you much respect and compassion.

  3. 3

    Oh Jason! Don’t you know it’s Satire!

    AVfM think that satire means you can say anything you feel like as long as you LOL, JK at the end.

    As I explained it. Satire is sitting on a throne made out of naked women while complaining that the throne is uncomfortable. While wearing an AVfM t-shirt.

  4. 4

    There’s an underlying misunderstanding of feminists and feminism partly or mostly driving this drivel. Feminists claim that women are equal to men. We are neither more nor less likely to be honest or dishonest, virtuous or vicious, nice or nasty, weak or strong, pig-headed or thoughtful than men are.

    Some of us are outstanding pillars of the community, others are horrible people to be avoided at any cost – just as some men can fill either of those niches. The great majority of women are much like the great majority of men, usually responsible and sensible, occasionally mistaken or even criminal.

    This person seems to think that feminists in the real world are like the feminists in his head that will always and everywhere, regardless of context or knowledge of any other people involved accept the word of any woman without question as implicitly and explicitly true, requiring no evidence or other validation – and that we will always and everywhere reject and disbelieve any statement by any man.

    The briefest, most casual reading of online feminist discussions ought to dispel any such nonsense. But checking with reality doesn’t seem even to be on the to-do list.

  5. 6

    The “preponderance of evidence” bit has to do with Title IX and preserving the right to an education of people who have been sexually assaulted or raped. It doesn’t match the standard for criminal cases, because it’s not a criminal case. It has to do with balancing the claims of both the accused and the accuser; thus, preponderance of evidence. More here.

  6. 7

    This is the thing, whilst it’s accurate to say that (the vast majority of) MRAs are driven by misogamy, it misses a few points. As an aside, MRAs, almost without exception, have no understanding whatsoever of feminism, most use it as a instrument to direct their misogyny.

    But back to MRA’s misogyny. AVfM, in particular, is littered with stereotyping of women as “entitled princesses”, Elam himself allows his writings to become sexually charged on occasion. It’s not so much women that are the targets of most avfm writers, rather it’s young, attractive women. To MRAs, they’re the ones false accusing, taking men’s jobs etc. I have no qualification in psychology, but it seems to make more sense that traditionally desirable women are subject to more generalized hate than, for example, older mothers or grandmothers by MRA bloggers.

    Avfm know that they’re offensive, that their “theories” are based on nonsense and that their “base” is a statistically tiny percentage of the population. But the leaders of this “movement” ignore this and press on, with increasingly embarrassing hyperbole.

    Elam said recently that he appeared on 20/20 knowing that it would be a hatchet job. Frankly, I don’t think that he fully realized how unappealing his prose is to virtually everyone. How the segment will be received remains to be seen. But I think the glare of publicity will cause him severe problems. The question then arises:

    Do MRAs have anyone who could actually elucidate their theories to an experienced interviewer?

    I don’t think so. The “popularity” of avfm will rise a bit further, peak, then decline.

  7. 8

    They’re engaging in utterly transparent poisoning of the well with this, and they’re using a team of poorly-crafted strawmen to do it.

    If it wasn’t so schadenfreudelicious to watch them flail about so wildly, it would be embarrassing to see such fail.

  8. 9

    I’m so sorry that you’re being dragged around by them like this. At least it’s really obviously desperate and ridiculous, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

  9. 11

    They keep wanting it both ways. They want to take your word that you were accused of rape but not take your word that you didn’t do it. They want to accept the fact that you are freely volunteering this possibly damaging information but not accept it as honest. They want to accept your account as another example of a false rape charge but not give you any sympathy for it. They want to thoroughly condemn women who make false claims yet they express sympathy for your accuser when you treat her appropriately. That is too big a load of biased stupid.
    Keep up the fight, Jason.

  10. 12

    The problem here is, there’s precious little evidence that innocent men ARE landing in jail, and there’s plenty of evidence that real rapists are walking all the damn time.

    Still reading the OP, but just wanted to get this in before the howling MRAs descend on the post with links to the Innocence Project: the innocent men that are landing in jail are doing so because of A) a justice system that is as racist as it is misogynist and B) misidentification after actual rapes, not false rape accusations.

  11. 13

    Which isn’t to say men falsely accused of rape don’t suffer psychological trauma and sometimes social problems, but there’s precious little evidence of vindictive exes sending innocent dudes to prison.

  12. 15

    What an odious character. I’d actually feel bad for Birric being saddled with such a terrifying, distorted worldview and lack of coherent reasoning ability if the level of internal contradiction and the source didn’t strongly suggest bad faith. Especially the fact that this particular group claims to wish to, in part, defend men against false rape accusations and the damage they can do, while the piece is instead an attack against you, the very sort of person AVfM claims to want to help. Clearly it’s not the group “men” who are of concern, since men who voice pro-feminist stances are targets. Perhaps they should consider a name change to “A Voice for Misogynists” – they could even keep the same acronym.

    As for cutting toxic people out of your life, Jason, I think that’s probably a good call. Abusers tend to exploit the good will and benefit-of-the-doubt granting of both their targets and bystanders in order to be able to continue abusing without consequences. By all means if you (or anyone) wishes to invest the time and energy into trying to help someone who engages in problematic behaviors change, that’s great, but we don’t really owe anyone that effort (except parents owe this to their children – in choosing [acknowledging the fact that not all procreation is voluntary, especially as access to abortion services becomes more and more limited] to create someone who did not previously exist and necessarily has no say in whether ze wishes to exist, parents take on an extra set of responsibilities to care for the well-beings of their offspring above and beyond what we owe our neighbors or random strangers), especially not when it’s personally harmful.

  13. 16

    So a group whose goal is, supposedly, to protect men from false allegations of rape, has decided the best way to do that is-to fling around transparently false allegations of rape. Are they totally lacking in empathy? Utterly clueless? Both? Is this really supposed to convince guys who haven’t jumped on the MRA bandwagon that AVfM is a voice for them? Or are they just trying to silence men who don’t parrot the MRA party line?

  14. Pen
    17

    Ugh! Their goal is to detach a male from a position of supporting feminists either by making his life a misery, praying for them to chuck him out or getting him to willingly leave and join the group he really belongs to. I hope you don’t let them, Jason, but you must be having a pretty hard time. You’re in the wrong place from their point of view but not from anyone’s here, I’m pretty sure.

  15. 18

    Trigger Warning: Truth

    Fuck these people.

    Oh, we are supposed to believe it is clever satire! Making fun of trigger warnings. The amount of victims they implicitly make fun of with this “hilarious satirical line”, all just to defend Shermer? Defend Shermer from what, actually? His reputation is intact, he can still get “skeptics” to donate hundreds of dollars to his legal fund (even though he doesn’t need them).

  16. 19

    It’s not like whites (men mostly? Unsure of that) didn’t use false claims of rape in the past to keep men of color and white women away from each other in the past. Even if both said nothing had happened.

  17. 20

    It seems their goal is the destruction of Jason’s reputation and that of any feminists who appears on their radar. They could have taken the high road and said, “You were falsely accused. Other men are falsely accused. Turn away from feminism and help us help you!” Instead they’re throwing mud and hoping that something will stick.

  18. EEB
    22

    Hey, here’s a thought: let’s not tell Jason how he needs to handle this. He’s a smart guy, I’m sure he knows what his legal options are (especially after the crash course so many of us have gotten, over the last couple weeks, in libel law and blogging!). It’s starting to sound a little too close to: “You should have reported his behavior,” and “You need to press charges,” especially after Jason says:

    …I think I’m pretty much tapped emotionally on this. There’s only so much revictimization you can take at a time…

    Just an idea.

    Jason: this is an incredibly shitty situation. It’s unbelievable that people who call themselves men’s rights activists would be putting you and Avicenna through this. I appreciate all that you’ve been doing and the support you’ve given, right from the beginning. But that doesn’t mean I want you to hurt yourself to do it! You’re more important than blog output. Take care of yourself. 🙂

  19. 23

    By the way, there’s good reason to suspect that “Birric Forcella” is a pseudonym. If the AVfM writer really is the one who has that name on Second Life, it’s likely that the SL ‘nym came first. From what I remember, back then you would pick your avatar’s surname from a given list, and make up a first name to go with it.

    There’s an old saying that on the Internet, no on knows you’re actually a dog. Maybe that’s what we’re dealing with here.

  20. 24

    I can’t even.

    In Sweden we say: “through yourself, you know others”.

    This saying/proverb is usually brought up when someone is attributing agency or motives to someone that are nefarious, weird and alien but in reality the person you are talking about would never act like that – it’s how you, yourself would act.

    So when MRAs swear up and down that rape accusations are routinely used as a weapon by women, my Swedish sensibilities tell me that this is because that is what they, themselves, would do.

    It seems my Swedish sensibilities stood me well in this case. These people simply do not have the tools to understand that the normal thing is not to do that or that it isn’t a weapon their opponent would use. Since they would. Of course, they are also cushioned from the repercussions from their – knowing – lies because A: privilege, B: confrontation is a goal in itself to someone who lacks empathy and has flat emotional responses and C: _their_ opponent strives to be fair, reasonable and truthful.

    Please take care of yourself, Jason. Do whatever you need to feel better and handle this as you see best. I have only read FtB for a very short time and I am in awe of all the contributors, not least you. What you people do here matters so much. That doesn’t mean it’s your job to keep it up in the face of shit like this. It just means that it has all been appreciated and not for nothing.

  21. 26

    Hey there,

    that was quite the read. full disclosure, I came here from AVFM. I am not an active MRA, but I certainly trust MRAs a gazillion times more than I trust feminists.

    Im glad the false rape accusation against you didnt result in any serious legal consequences. That was the best case scenario. But clearly, it had some lasting emotional and social consequences. So, despite the fact that you got off easy, you still bear some scars. That’s how terrible fake rape accusations are, despite you having suffered zero legal consequences, you’re not unscathed by any means.

    Some men are not so lucky as you. Imagine if you had spent time in jail, and that in jail you would have been raped. That would mean that the false accusation against you was even worse than actual rape, because not only it would have resulted in you being raped, you would also have to endure all the rest of the crap that comes with a rape accusation.

    And 6% is a very low number. Some credible studies go as high as 40%.

    You also seem to have an incredibly high faith in feminists. I believe this faith is misplaced.

    You seem to think that feminism is the notion that women are equal to men, a notion which is accepted by >90%. That may have been true at one point, before that notion was mainstream, but not anymore. if you ask most people if they consider themselves feminists, they will probably answer based on that definition of feminism. but feminism already achieved equality, and now instead of becoming idle or retreating, it needs new targets.

    the people who are feminists for a living are way past equality. there is a broad spectra of them, and they range from feminists who advocate for reducing the male population to 1-10%, by means of abortion and other plainly ridiculous ideas, to the ones who still try and maintain a facade of equality but who still advocate for quotas for women everywhere women are under-represented (but never where women are over-represented).

    still, despite this broad spectra, it is no exaggeration to say that reducing normal legal protections for the accused, in cases the accusation is of rape by a woman, is a feminist objective. check out what’s happening on US college campuses and how they deal with accusations of rape. on some colleges, not only is the accused denied right of council, he is also denied the right to speak to a lawyer informally about the accusations. he is denied the right to cross-examine his accuser and to know the full details of his accusations against him. this is the work of feminists.

    we dont reduce legal protections of the accuser for people accused of murder. so, it’s not about the severity of the crime. these legal protections are there to protect the innocent from being falsely convicted. removing them doesnt punish the rapist more harshly or deter future rapes. removing these protections has one objective: to convict the innocent. that is, feminists are working hard to ensure that innocent men are convicted more easily. either that, or they’re just too dumb to understand what they’re up to. in the absence of contrary evidence, I’ll assume they’re evil instead of stupid.

    this is eventually going to reach the “real” court system. you may be deluded about how “real” courts work, and you may base this on your watching of “Law & Order” (please, that reference to L&O was by far the weakest part of this post, real courts dont operate like L&O and real hospitals dont operate like Grey’s Anatomy either). And yes, judges are indoctrinated in feminist theory. Feminists are all over law school, and they actually have courses judges have to take (in Ontario at least) where feminists instruct them how to handle rape and family law cases. Dont take my word for it, read up on it.

    I have no idea why you choose to be a man-feminist. To me its like being a kappo (jews who collaborated with nazis). If it helps you get laid, then by all means go for it. If you think feminism is about equality, you are sorely deluded.

  22. 27

    While those numbers are appalling, the problem of 95% of rapes going unpunished is slightly larger than (the artificially inflated) 10% of innocent men going to jail.

    That depends on one’s morality. Is it less immoral to sentence innocent men to prison for a crime that never happened than it is to allow a criminal to go free? Your argument, along with many feminists, appears to be yes. Ironically, you fail to realize that by sending innocent men to prison, you are still letting the guilty go free. So logically speaking, the greater problem is the 10% of innocent men going to prison because it results not only in their wrongful (or in your opinion justifiable) imprisonment, but also allows actual rapists to continue assaulting people.

    The problem here is, there’s precious little evidence that innocent men ARE landing in jail, and there’s plenty of evidence that real rapists are walking all the damn time.

    Unless one assumes that every case that does not result in conviction involved an actual rape and that every or most accusations are true, there is little evidence that real rapists are “walking all the damn time.”

    Which is the whole point of their argument — if I claim to have been accused of rape, and I’m a feminist, then I must believe I raped the person that I swear I did not rape.

    That is not what they are saying. They are simply applying your own argument to your case. You stated that people should believe women who claim rape. If one does this, there is no reason to assume you are telling the truth when you protest your innocence.

    It’s no surprise that these are the facts that the antifeminists have decided to question — where in every account of a rape allegation, they question the facts that damage the claim that someone was raped, in the case of a feminist with a false rape charge, Birric is more than willing to question only the assertions that exonerate me.

    Birric is simply doing to you what feminists do to other men who claim they were falsely accused. Judging by your response, you do not appear to like it. Now you know what it feels like.

    We believe the best statistics we have say that 6% of accusations brought to police are dismissed as “false”

    That does not disprove the point. The issue is the likelihood that your case is part of that six percent. You claim it is, however, you could be lying. What reason does anyone have to believe you?

    This is like those arguments where because a statement is either true or false, it’s a 50/50 chance. It doesn’t work that way. I can’t even begin to explain why it’s wrong, it’s just so fractally wrong.

    If you are arguing about likelihood, that does not work in your favor. If one agrees with the feminist position that false accusations are exceedingly rare, then it is more likely that you did commit rape than it is that your were falsely accused.

    Blah blah straw justice. The courts don’t work that way and you know it.

    Actually, the courts do work that way. Depending on the severity of the alleged assault, you would likely be charged as an adult. If you were charged with a felony, you could face a minimum 25-year sentence. The girl’s prior history of lying would be inadmissible as a result of rape shield laws and prejudicial concerns. If the girl told the same story to the court that she told to the authorities, that could add to her credibility.

    I’d love to see the statistics about university campuses and rape allegations. Especially the parts about them only being “preponderance”.

    From the article: But the most vigorous criticism has come from civil libertarians, who argue the Obama administration’s guidance undermines the rights of the accused. They’ve focused on the requirement that colleges use a “preponderance of evidence” standard in such cases — essentially a belief that guilt is more likely than not, and a much lower standard than defendants enjoy in criminal court.

    The idea that judges are “well versed in feminist theory” or are willing to convict without physical evidence is laughable

    Here are two well-known cases in which young men were convicted with no physical evidence linking them to the crime.

    Frankly, physical evidence (and not necessarily of the semen-found-in-vagina variety) should be necessary to put someone away for a crime, though I’d also take a guilty plea.

    That is interesting because there is another case of false accusations that resulted in a conviction based on a plea deal.

    And, it helps me illustrate the point — the real “good guys” are willing to take the emotional trauma of women not trusting us in situations where they’ve been trained by society to be on their guard. They won’t be judgmental of that, and they won’t consider their own hurt feelings more important than these women’s sense of safety.

    Note that that does not extend to throwing someone in jail because someone, somewhere, made up a baseless and unevidenced accusation.

    Your comments about how much “empathy” you have for women suggest the opposite. You stated, “It won’t hurt my feelings enough to make a difference in my life, and I know — because I have a working sense of empathy — why they’re reacting that way, and I do not blame them one bit.” That implies that “real ‘good guys'” do not judge false accusers and those women’s sense of safety over their own “hurt” feelings. Nothing in your comments suggests you have any concern for the falsely accused at all.

    Beyond that, it proves that a false rape claim does not necessarily end a person’s life, and that being victim of one does not mean you must necessarily become an antifeminist fucknugget.

    Your experiences are not representative of the falsely accused. At best, you only show that it did not end your life, although it did appear to make you a feminist nutjob who supports imprisoning innocent men and boys if it results in higher conviction rates. Ironically, that is what men’s rights activists accuse feminists of doing, so you actually proved their point.

  23. 28

    Point to a single line — a single word, even taken out of context if you must — that suggests I SUPPORT men being imprisoned falsely. Seriously. Somehow despite my repeated protestations that false accusations are a problem not only because they are themselves a miscarriage of justice which I’d prefer to see far more perfect, but also because they ensure that real rapes go unpunished, you folks still think I WANT more people to go to jail whether innocent or not, rather than that rapes are better tried and that false rape claims disappear as much as humanly possible.

    Besides, I have fairly good evidence that to make false rape claims seem worse than they are, the Manosphere has taken it upon themselves to create or exacerbate them. All to smear those people who dare talk about rape as though it’s something to be taken seriously.

  24. 30

    Ok, my last comment would not make it through and I understand why. So I’ll tackle this one

    “Point to a single line — a single word, even taken out of context if you must — that suggests I SUPPORT men being imprisoned falsely.”

    Ummmm when you said that 10% of men convicted falsely is an acceptable number….2nd paragraph.

    For certain

    there are men that rape
    there are women to falsely accuse

    new’s flash both happen….oddly it happened to you as well. It has happened to 5 men I know and 2 women I know of. I’m so happy you are not a Judge.

  25. 31

    My testicles are intact, and in point of fact, I do not require them in order to form opinions about things or write about those things. Testicles are used for reproduction and production of hormones, and that’s it. They are not magic. They do not define your being a “man”, nor do they define your being right about things.

    Grow the fuck up, Greggore.

  26. 32

    I said that 10% of men falsely convicted is a grossly inflated number. The real number is going to be much smaller than that. And I said both numbers are appalling. I don’t want innocent men going to jail, but I’d also like to see an actual number of real rapists going to jail because the numbers for that are absolutely abhorrent. Read for comprehension next time — even divorced of context, what I said did not say what you said it said. Jebus, that ain’t rocket surgery. Try to pullquote a bit harder, will ya?

    As an MRA, you’re a terrible misandrist, by the way, to equate manliness with testicles.

  27. 33

    Setting aside the negative issues I see with some of the more radical versions of modern feminism, some of which are touched upon in replies to your post, I can’t for the life of me understand why a man would be a feminist. The women I know, who are interested in such things are plenty capable of fighting their own battles. Is there some form of Stockholm syndrome going on here?
    Early in your post you speak of 95% of rapes going unpunished as opposed to only 10% of convicted men being falsely imprisoned and use these numbers as “proof” they (those who your post responds to) are fighting the wrong demon. I don’t understand why you believe that because there are bigger numbers on one side of the equation people should all move to that end and not fight the wrong on the smaller end of the equation. Try explaining to the poor sod sitting in a cell whos life is in ruins yet has done nothing to deserve being there, that no help will be forthcoming because the good fight is actually next door because there so many more of them. I guess my point is that you should fight for what matters to you, what relates to you regardless of math or numbers. I believe we are best equipped to relate to that which we know, or is at least knowable to us. Which circles me back to my original point that as a man who has been falsely accused of rape your primary concern is not for others who have lived the horror show you lived through yourself and as you say has scarred you and that you consider yourself a feminist in that the feminine experience is unknowable to you in a personal first person fashion.

    I’d like to post script this with the fact that I am not familiar with AVFM which you quote from and have read no more about this than what you have quoted here but it sounds like they were dicks in the way they treated you and handled the issue. Secondly, I can sympathise with anyone who has been a victim of any type of violence particularly sexual violence.

    Lastly, I’d like to quote the english jurist William Blackstone, and this is the cornerstone on which our legal system is built upon.

    “Better ten guilty men go free than one innocent man be punished.”

  28. 34

    Let me say it again, for the dozenth time, Zigzzagz — the numbers I came up with are artificially skewed to your argument’s benefit, and I explained it all very thoroughly in the Part 1 of this post (Math) — see the link above the post proper. 10% is not the real number — I expect it to be much, much, much lower.

    That doesn’t mean that that 10% isn’t a travesty. It means it’s a significantly less terrible one than the prevalence of rapes that are unpunished, which cause MRAs fight against so strenuously as though it’s a zero-sum game between rapists going free and innocent men going to prison. The goal here is to make more rapists go to jail, and less innocent men.

    To gauge where you are on this issue, I need to ask — If you could increase the number of rapists going to jail without altering the number of innocent men going to jail (neither increased or decreased), would you do it? Because there are many who would, in order to fix the problem of innocent men going to jail, decriminalize rape to make sure it’s impossible to put ANYONE in jail for what we consider today a crime. (Take Paul Elam, Dean Esmay, or John Hembling, for example, all three of whom are big names and all three of whom have argued against rape laws explicitly.)

  29. 35

    And really, is “Stockholm Syndrome” your stock response to male feminists? Because I’ve seen an entire Reddit thread where three dozen antifeminists said the exact same thing as though it was a unique revelation and everyone else nodding sagely.

    You might want to find someone who’s actually suffering ill effects from the ideology they espouse before you claim Stockholm Syndrome. I am not affected one whit by what I advocate, in fact, as I am not a rapist, nor do I advocate for people to be put in jail for being accused of rape without evidence, or else it might actually affect me as I described in this post. You might want to consider that there are positions outside of “put all men in jail on a woman’s word without evidence” before you go slinging “Stockholm Syndrome” accusations. And you might want to actually read for comprehension what I actually advocated, which is right here in the body of the post. It’s not that difficult, dude. It’s plain English.

  30. 36

    Lol, relax dude…. I understand you skewed the numbers. The numbers aren’t relevant to my post, it wouldn’t matter if it were 10^10 and 1. My point is, it’s not about numbers when you say fighting for the 1 is the wrong demon to fight, especially in the eyes of the one. I read very well for comprehension whtn’t try it yourself. I don’t say you want to put men in jail, I wonder why women’s issues burn in you. I could actually understand if you thought of yourself as a rape advocate, activist or w.h.y, Who knows maybe your sister/wife/daughter was raped. Rape is a good thing to hate and understandable particularly if it has touched your life but you refer to yourself as a feminist which is a long road from a rape advocate. It suggests much more…..
    …… Look. Really, I dunno what you have to live with. Maybe your wife is a feminist and your life will be made misery if you’re not one too. I sense you’re a pretty good guy who’s getting a shitty time given him and I don’t want to add to that. So let’s just forget it. By way of an explanation, it put a cramp in my balls that you, a fellow guy, one who has been through what you’ve been through would say, as a man, that those fighting for the falsely accused are fighting “the wrong demon” because math makes it the smaller number, and refer to yourself as a feminist a bunch of times along the way when you yourself could have sat in a cell if things had gone differently by a few percent.

  31. 37

    And no, decriminalising rape is foolish. I’ve never actually heard of it suggested, I really have no investment on either side of this issue. I just kind of bumbled into your post somehow. You pretty much have to cancel out the radical responses on either side of a passionate subject to get any real sense. I expect their counterpart recommends putting anyone accused away without judgement, or castrating us at birth or some such crazy thing. It’s just the way of things be it religion, feminism or whatever.

  32. 38

    The problem is, I’m not seeing any voices for the “extreme” counterparts on our side. Sure, there might BE some, but where are they? And are they considered credible, the way the “extreme” examples of MRAs and other antifeminists are definitely considered luminaries of their causes?

  33. 39

    I sense you’re a pretty good guy who’s getting a shitty time given him and I don’t want to add to that.

    The shitty time I’m being given is by MRAs and antifeminists, for the record. I have zero quarrel with feminists.

  34. 40

    Yeah, I actually didn’t even know what an MRA was until I did some googling on this and other terms to make sense of what I’d read. I also looked up ASFM and noted that one of the first listings for them was their inclusion on the “Southern Poverty Law Site” list of hate websites. I will say though that I did also check out the site in person for about 45 min. reading some articles and whatnot and didn’t see anything directly hateful or overtly radical, which of course doesn’t mean it’s not there. Unfortunately the nature of our tabloid society sees that the radicals often get more press than their conservative counterparts so people can snicker behind their hands at the wing-nuts and feel good about their own relatively sane lives and opinions. This has the unfortunate effect of people tarring both groups with same brush and sweeping any sensible ideas the conservatives have under the rug with the rest of the radical trash. Radicals do no one, and no group any favors in this.

  35. 41

    Oh, actually, full disclosure, I DO have quarrel with feminists — there’s a cadre of gender-essentialist feminists who are absolutely terrible to trans* folk. If you see the acronym “TERf” it means Trans-Exclusive Radical feminists. They’re radical in thinking that the way gender is in society is how it ought to be, and that trans* women are men and pretenders, and trans* men are traitors to femininity.

    You’re right, they do no good to anyone, least of all the feminists they claim to represent. But they aren’t the sort of feminist the average Manosphere denizen calls “radical”. By “radical” they usually mean “feminist who talks about feminism in public.”

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