In recent years, I’ve often written about rape, primarily to help inform readers about the realities of competent rape investigation, and to address the insane, politically correct assertions of a campus rape epidemic. Add in accusations that all men are rapists and generally toxic, and it has been a fertile literary field. For the left, little is more important than vindicating their treasured narratives.
Even though a number of notorious rape cases that perfectly fit progressive narratives, such as the Duke Lacrosse hoax and the Rolling Stone University of Virginia hoax, turned out to be crude and easily revealed lies, the progressive rape narrative continues unabated. To find all of my recent articles on the subject, just type “rape” into the SMM search bar. In the meantime, these three may be representative:
12-08-14: The Trivialization Of Rape
03-19-16: Campus Rape And Social Justice: All Men Are Rapists
05-15-17: Campus Rape Facts: Who Yah Gonna Believe?
Perhaps the most persistent progressive rape narrative is women never lie about rape. Yahoo.com addresses that:
Breana Harmon
On Thursday, 19-year-old Breana Harmon of Pottsboro pleaded guilty to four felony charges of tampering with physical evidence and government documents in relation to false reports of kidnapping and sexual assault.
‘She’s very remorseful for what she didand what she said, and that’s why she decided to plead guilty,’ Harmon’s attorney Bob Jarvis told the Sherman Herald Democrat. No suspects were ever identified or arrested in the case. [skip]
On March 8, 2017, Harmon was reported missing to the Denison Police Department after witnesses noticed the door to her vehicle was open with personal items, including a phone and keys, scattered on the ground.
A few hours later, Harmon walked into a church wearing only a shirt, bra and underwear. She said she had been kidnapped by three black males wearing ski masks,according to the Sherman Herald Democrat. Harmon claimed the men assaulted her and that she was raped by two men while a third held her down.
The police quickly discovered the evidence didn’t support Harmon’s story.
Harmon told police two weeks later that she made up the rape and that cuts on her body were self-inflicted.
What?! How can this be possible? Everyone knows women don’t lie about rape!
She told officers that she was upset after she and her fiancé had been fighting, according to the Herald Democrat. Harmon said she cut herself and her clothes, then made up the rape story because she didn’t want her family to be angry with her.
What’s that you say, gentle readers? “So what? It’s only one anecdote, and that doesn’t prove anything?”
Normally I would agree. A single, isolated anecdote is not conclusive proof of any assertion. Even a great many anecdotes aren’t proof, unless such anecdotes are evidence that disprove an absolute assertion, such as “women don’t lie about rape.” In such a case, a single, verifiable example is sufficient to invalidate the claim. Progressives set up the conditions under which their claim may be invalidated, so they have no complaint when it is.
Ms. Harmon’s story is entirely familiar. During my police days, I often dealt with “victim” lies about such things. One way colleges have tried to deal with the cognitive dissonance brought about by the reality that the progressive narrative that women don’t lie about rape is obviously nonsense, is to deny young men due process when charged with rape by campus tribunals. Because the accused can’t question the reliability of the accuser, or even the reliability of any evidence, the left achieves its goal of supposedly eradicating rape, and ignoring the realities of human nature.
Rape is a serious crime, which must be investigated by competent professionals, and if the evidence supports it, prosecuted. However, persecuting the innocent, denying due process, and deluding ourselves about the undeniable fact that people lie about such things, not only damages respect for the law and tears the social fabric, it makes prosecuting actual rapists more difficult.
That doesn’t fit the narrative either.
I dealt with many “rapes” in a former life. One let me know that I could be an executioner with very little remorse if I knew with reasonable confidence the correct men were being executed. On the other hand it seemed the majority of the instances were “buyer’s remorse” or failure to pay. It also amazed me how many times there was no physical threat or injury involved, only a verbal command that was complied with where the victim could have just walked away. Most people truly are sheep.
Mike, I don’t know this is what prompted this article, but it’s very timely:
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/it-isnt-all-about-victims-met-police-to-abandon-practice-of-believing-all-sex-assault-complaints-a3803791.html
Of course, there’s already push-back:
https://www.stylist.co.uk/long-reads/rape-trial-statistics-metropolitan-police/198863
This, of course, follows on the heels of #metoo, which elevated even asking a woman out to sexual assault.
Dear Marty:
Thanks!
Women can do enormous damage to a man also by claiming “violence”. Where do you go to get your reputation back?
Dear Susan Harms:
For the most part, nowhere.
You have hit upon a favorite subject of mine. I have read reams of
pages on the subject of false allegations of rape and child abuse.
Let’s just say that I was on the receiving end of false accusations
and leave it at that. This caused me to do a lot of research on
the subject. The problem with college rape allegations is that
there was a six-month hysteria in the media about date rape on
college back in the 90s. The nightly news ran dramatic stories
with titles like “Is your daughter safe in college?” It all boiled
down to four allegations which were later proven to be false.
I was reading high school and college psychology textbooks at 14
just because I was a voracious book whore. This is something I call
the Daddy’s little girl doesn’t do that syndrome. If you are a girl, you
will wind up listening to your parents tell you that “nice girls don’t do
that” for a good 10 years. There is a class of young women who enter
college and toss out their sexual inhibitions. It usually involves a student
getting dressed to the nines in their sexiest clothes and heading to the
nearest jock house, getting crap-faced and winds up legs in the air with
the first handsome jock within hours.
Of course, there is a built-in crutch: “I was drunk and did not know
what I was doing.” In most cases, the guy will have no respect for
her, and when does not call her back or send her roses, out come
the allegations. (See Emma Solkowitz, the Mattress Girl) When was
the last time the justice system punished perjury?
As for the issues of child abuse, I read that in some jurisdictions
where a divorce case includes a custody, 85 percent include
allegations of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse. Statistics
prove that a father in a marital relation almost never sexually
abuses his own own children. Almost every one of the cases
involves the boyfriend de jour of a single mother on welfare.
Every one (and by that I mean 100 percent) of the child
molestation cases in the aftermath of the McMartin case were
later proven false. This witch hunt was the result of a total
hoax, in which radical feminists with zero academic credentials
in psychology read a book by a fellow feminist who connected
child molestations to satanic cults. Key McFarlane, the
Torquemada in the McMartin witch hunt took a two-day
seminar on the subject of child molestation. As it was pointed
out at trial, the only thing she was licensed to do in the state
of California was drive a car.
Manhatten beach (McMartin,) Edenton North California, Miami,
Bakersfield, Wenatchee WA, San Diego, a case in Texas, and
a half dozen other cases were based on false allegations. Two
people in the Little Rascals day care center in Edenton went to
prison for 2 years until a judge threw out the case on appeal due
to a complete lack of evidence. We have no epidemic, what we
have is a problem with radical feminism, which assumes all men
are potential rapists or child molesters. Delayed discovery laws
that allow leftist psychologists to coax “repressed memories of
molestation” are also a problem. Many men were ruined by this
scam. It resets the statute of limitations clock and it allows
unscrupulous “Therapists” to wage war on men using the same
tactics as Key McFarlain did in the McMartin case.
Dear Leonard Jones:
Quite so. I show my kids a highly edited version of “Indictment” every year as a followup to “The Crucible,” to make the point such witch hunts are a consequence of human nature, and not the times.
I have the DVD in my collection. Most of my observations came from
my memories of watching the trial unfold. I started to smell a rat
very early on when I read stories that were so incredible they
seemed like something torn from the pages of a fantasy novel.
Airplane and hot air balloon trips, animal sacrifices on the
grounds of the school, etc. The one thing that stuck in my
mind was in all that time, not one parent arrived unannounced
while all this was going on?
Dear Leonard Jones:
I was an active duty detective during those days, and recognized the hysteria for what it was.