although each particular case is different, and although it puts unfair pressure on victims (for lack of a better word) to demand that they speak up, i think there's a lot to be said for trying to establish a norm that accusations should be made, and made in public. besides the safety issues raised by rushthatspeaks, such a norm can have a lot of other benefits, in particular:
-it benefits people who might be unpleasant or have distasteful attitudes about sex, or who just happen to hit it off badly with somebody else, but who have not in fact raped anybody. as it stands, every time somebody i know expresses strong-bug-vague distaste for a mutual acquaintance, i'm left wondering (especially if the gender breakdown fits with the standard pattern). i can't imagine i'm the only person who has this reaction. this means that a lot of people end up going through a lot of social interactions with the stigma of being vaguely-suspected rapists, including a lot of actual rapists, but also a lot of people who are basically blameless, but happen not to get along with the wrong people.
-it often benefits the falsely accused. it's true that maliciously false rape accusations are rare (although they're not wholly unheard of, and false accusations based on errors of identification are more common), but this is still not to be underestimated. specific accusations can be met and denied, and conrary evidence can be presented. a vague word that's been put around that so-and-so is kinda sketchy can be much harder to refute.
of course, the fact that such a norm would be desirable doesn't say much about what any individual person should do in the world as it is today, but this point still seemed worth getting out there.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regna
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-18 06:21 pm (UTC)-it benefits people who might be unpleasant or have distasteful attitudes about sex, or who just happen to hit it off badly with somebody else, but who have not in fact raped anybody. as it stands, every time somebody i know expresses strong-bug-vague distaste for a mutual acquaintance, i'm left wondering (especially if the gender breakdown fits with the standard pattern). i can't imagine i'm the only person who has this reaction. this means that a lot of people end up going through a lot of social interactions with the stigma of being vaguely-suspected rapists, including a lot of actual rapists, but also a lot of people who are basically blameless, but happen not to get along with the wrong people.
-it often benefits the falsely accused. it's true that maliciously false rape accusations are rare (although they're not wholly unheard of, and false accusations based on errors of identification are more common), but this is still not to be underestimated. specific accusations can be met and denied, and conrary evidence can be presented. a vague word that's been put around that so-and-so is kinda sketchy can be much harder to refute.
of course, the fact that such a norm would be desirable doesn't say much about what any individual person should do in the world as it is today, but this point still seemed worth getting out there.