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.

The post A Voice For Men: willing to publish libel to “prove” points about fake rape claims – part 2, logic and language appeared first on Lousy Canuck.

Brian K. Dalton (aka Mr Deity) has stepped in it bigtime. As a SUBTLE JAB (pfft) at all these issues in the skeptical community with regard to accusations of sexual harassment, sexual assault and general predation, especially the accusations of such leveled against his friend Michael Shermer, he’s slipped into the end post-credits of his latest video (here, starting at 5:24) some interesting parallels. Like all “subtle jabs” predicated on a lack of understanding of a situation, however, they have all the subtlety of a hand grenade in a bucket of paint, and they fall apart under any degree of scrutiny.

Trigger warning for discussion of rape tactics and victim-blaming.

Transcript via John Morales:

I want to take this time today to answer this question I get a lot: why don’t I believe in the gospels.

Um — the first big problem I have with the gospels is that they are anonymous — a lot of people don’t know that, but it’s true.

Um, and no good skeptic, atheist, freethinker should ever accept any anonymous report just offhand; aah especially when we’re talking about something truly awful — I mean, the gospel writers have Jesus doing some pretty ugly stuff. Umm, killing a tree for no reason, which makes him look completely insane; they have him claiming to be God, which would have been a major blasphemy within Judaism at the time; and they have him turning water into wine, which we all know is just a tactic to get the ladies drunk — right? — I mean, no-one turns water into wine for any reason that’s not just completely nefarious!

But if you’re gonna talk [whoopee noise] about someone like that, you can’t do that anonymously — and if you do, what is that? What are we talking about?

That’s nothing more than gossip.

And I think that as good skeptics, atheists, freethinkers, we should all know how absolutely toxic, disgusting and beneath us it is to repeat and or report mere gossip.

[Person with wine bottle approaches wineglass-holding Mr. Deity: “would you like a refill?” “Um, no. Thank you.”]

Now. See how easy that was?

Here’s another little tip: if you find it hard to say no to the refill, you can just leave the glass full! Don’t take another sip!

That’s my friendly little piece of advice to those of you without a backbone, or any sense of personal responsibility!

The other problem with the gospels is that these anonymous reports are made years after the fact; some scholars say decades. Ah, that gives Jesus no opportunity to refute the claims — I mean, there isn’t a decent justice system in the entire world that doesn’t give the accused the right to confront his or her accuser. That’s just basic justice.

And in many cases, even the witnesses of the witnesses are anonymous.

Really?! C’mon! We’re skeptics! We don’t take stuff like that at face value!

The other problem here is confirmation bias: the tendency to see only what we wanna see.

That’s clearly what the gospel writers were doing here; they wanted a hero (or a villain, depending on your perspective), and they found one!
But, as good skeptics, we should all know the power of confirmation bias — I mean, for heaven’s sake, they found witches in Salem, and Joe McCarthy found the communists under every bed — as skeptics, we need to stand up to these anonymous gossipal authors and those who would repeat such gossip and say “have you no sense of decency, Sir! At long last, have you left no sense of decency.”

Of course, if you’re completely divorced from the skeptic community, I don’t expect you to understand these basic principles — but the rest of us should know better!

Remember: “do unto others”

Anonymous reports of extraordinary things, like those found in the Gospels, are in fact untrustworthy because they describe events that would take absolutely extraordinary evidence to prove, and they involve people who cannot be interviewed because they’re long dead.

Reports of rape, on the other hand, describe events that are depressingly common. While the specific people reporting these assaults are anonymous TO YOU AND I, they are NOT anonymous to the people bringing them forward. I explained why I trust the accusers who brought forward the allegations of rape against Michael Shermer, via PZ Myers — because PZ is measured enough to verify that his trust in the people coming forward is not misplaced, and he has a lot of reputation at stake if he trusts the wrong person with a grenade like that. AND, it’s not like PZ’s account is the only one we have on record — there are no less than five accounts given by five separate people so far.

Given that the outcome of this is not likely Shermer behind bars, but rather the public understanding that it’s well possible that people’s trust in Shermer is misplaced and they no longer drink around him, I have no problem with trusting that these rapes likely happened on balance of probability of the perfectly ordinary claim, and that women should likely be warned in advance. But that’s not to say legal action against him should happen, unless it could be proven beyond reasonable doubt in a court of law.

And that’s where it’s different from the gospels, which describe implausible scenarios as truth and demand that you believe it and take drastic action accordingly, despite lack of evidence. Rather than tentatively trusting the gospels and verifying before taking action, you’re expected to go all-in. And if we were asking for extraordinary drastic measures to be taken against Shermer, for him to be put behind bars over this, and if we were doing so with significantly less evidence than what we already used to establish a pattern of behaviour by Shermer, then yes, it would be a good analogy. But we aren’t, so it isn’t.

As for his side-swipes at drinking, and on not “having the backbone” to stop drinking, thus getting drunk enough to be raped, I have to point out that there’s some serious misunderstanding in this discourse about the risk factors for being raped, and that Dalton is well guilty of these misunderstandings.

Drinking alcohol inherently comes with some risks. Some of these include impaired functionality, impaired judgment, vomiting, blackout periods, and long-term damage like liver and kidney functionality issues. Acute intoxication could lead to poisoning, and death.

Being around people who rape others also comes with some risks. Those risks include having your bodily sexual integrity violated, including but not limited to non-consensual sexual activities and having orifices penetrated or otherwise violated in various manners with various body parts or instruments.

The means by which they might ply someone into a situation where they might more easily rape them without resistance can include alcohol, used as a date rape drug. Psychological tricks can be applied to keep a potential victim drinking and to keep them unaware of just how drunk they’re actually getting. Keeping them sitting, refilling their glass for them constantly so they never realize they have lost count, keeping the conversation going the whole while so a victim doesn’t realize how drunk they really are til they start to stand up and are wobbly. Or til they fall asleep and are rendered insensible. I seriously doubt any of these tactics involve actually ASKING the person if they want more — and that’s not what the reports suggested Shermer was doing.

But the fact that they’re insensible doesn’t automatically allow for or entail rape. Having an orifice penetrated against your volition is not a side-effect of over-drinking, and damn you for making me use the passive voice in this sentence.

Drinking is a social experience. We choose who to trust with our less-than-sober selves based on our past experiences with a person. Since most rape is acquaintance rape, it involves violating a built-up level of trust which can be used to help put the victim in a state where they cannot legally consent to anything — especially if they’re unconscious.

So, the risk factor for being raped is not alcohol. The risk factor for being raped is being around someone who rapes people. The alcohol, while under normal circumstances an enjoyable social activity, is actually employed as a tool of the rapist’s trade. And the trust engendered by popularity, while normally integral to any social experience in any community, is also a tool of the rapist’s trade.

People like Michael Shermer may very well be “doing unto others” things that they have not asked for consent before rendering them incapable of giving consent. Minimizing this shit is damaging — not only to the victims of rape, but to the fabric of our community, and to the efforts to stamp out this sort of disgusting, unbecoming, predatory behaviour. And my description of such behaviour is crafted without even assuming any rapes actually occured!

In order to prove with some finality that Dalton has completely fucked this one up, I present two comments he reportedly left on Ashley Paramore’s video:

I witnessed this assault, and it was so bold and blatant that I and several other good men stood around because we couldn’t imagine that it wasn’t just the two of them playing around. None of us could imagine that someone would do such a terrible thing in a room full of people. We all felt so bad that we didn’t understand what was happening and stop it. Men, don’t make the same mistake. Until you know otherwise, don’t hesitate to step in. I adore you, Ashley, and I’m so sorry I didn’t do more.

It is good that you’ve recognized that not every terrible act results in an appropriate response. Imagine for a moment how the victim of such an assault might respond. Or imagine for a moment how someone who idolizes a “big name” in this community might react if they are star-struck by the fact that they’re having a long conversation with them and their wine glass keeps magically refilling without them noticing.

Are you getting the impression at this point that perhaps your dismissive comments in your own most recent video were tone-deaf, and if you were aiming for comedy and parody, you skewered not only these alleged victims of assault within our movement, but also everyone who’s ever experienced a similar sort of assault historically? Including Ashley Paramore, whose video got more than its share of argumentation identical to what you just put forth about your friend Michael Shermer. Your account therefore carries no more weight than those of the anonymous-TO-US accusers bringing allegations about Shermer forward.

And given your own revelation that you could hardly believe what you saw, maybe your comments about selection bias — “only [seeing] what we want to see” — are really fucked-up accusations to level against the people who are seeing a morass of sexism and abuse? Why would ANYONE want to see that?

You’re not a mind reader. But you have to admit, that would be pretty damned crazy of me, right? I’ve spent the last seven years building something valuable to me — it’s how I make my living — but now I’m going to risk all of that (including my financial stability) just to lie about some incident for the sake of a cause I’ve shown absolutely no interest in? I’m not just some guy sayin’ x, y, and x. People know me and could ruin my reputation based on this.

PZ Myers built a reputation for being honest to a fault over the past ten-ish years, to the point of being off-putting to many for his bluntness. He is putting the entirety of his reputation on the line over accusations made by people whom he, himself, trusts. Remember, PZ Myers “divorced” the skeptic community, not skepticism, over churlish juvenile behaviour and dismissiveness of serious ethical breaches. I’m absolutely certain he viewed these claims with skepticism and weighed them carefully. He is doing everything you just said you were doing. And you’re calling those accusations that he brought forward “gossip”, “toxic”, and “beneath us”. And yet here we are, with you putting the trust we have in YOU on the line that your account of witnessing Paramore’s assault is true.

Why is it not “gossip”, “toxic”, and “beneath us” to believe you about what YOU say you saw there?

Don’t get me wrong. I believe you. (Provisionally. We’re SKEPTICS, after all.) I’m even going to make a point to put your corroboration on my timeline post. But I also believe other witnesses and corroborations on that timeline just as provisionally, and the numerous instances of predatory behaviour about Shermer came with multiple corroborations.

Maybe you should look over this timeline again. Get a real handle on the scope and breadth of what you’re denying here.

Then come back and apologize to the alleged victims whom you both said were simply “toxic” rumours, and simultaneously “had no backbone” and fell prey to predatory behaviour. And apologize to those people angry about this bullshit for saying that we’re “seeing what we want to see”.

The post Mr. Deity and the Victim-Blaming and Dismissiveness of Serious Allegations appeared first on Lousy Canuck.