# Enough from the defenders of rapists already

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-from-the-defenders-of-rapists-already/705392>\
**Category:** The BBQ Pit\
**Created:** [November 23, 2014, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-from-the-defenders-of-rapists-already/705392 "2014-11-23T05:26:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 260

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**Author:** ![Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heffalump_and_roo/32/7691_2.png) [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)\
**Post date:** [December 1, 2014, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-from-the-defenders-of-rapists-already/705392/260 "2014-12-01T06:05:08Z")

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> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#):
>
> Due to legal statutes of limitations, the only justice left for Bill Cosby is public shaming. The public seems to be doing a pretty good job of that.

If public shaming serves as justice for rapists who can’t be convicted, should society extend that to other rapists?

First, I’ll just give a bit of the scope of the issue. If the statistic is correct and 4.5% of men are rapists (I don’t know the statistic for women), in 2004 numbers, according to [this blogger](http://amptoons.com/blog/2004/05/05/how-many-men-are-rapists/):

> [@](#):
>
> If you added up every US citizen who was officially unemployed or looking for work in 2001, that would be less than the total number of rapists.  
> . . . . .  
> If you take every doctor and nurse in the United States; and you added them to every librarian, every cashier, every cop, every postal clerk, and every bank teller in the whole country; you still wouldn’t have as many people as the number of rapists in the United States.
> 
> (Think of that a second – think of how often, in your daily life, you’ve seen cops and cashiers and all those other folks. Odds are, you’ve run into rapists more often than that).

There are a lot of rapists out there. If something were done about all of them, it would affect almost everyone in some way.

Below is a thought experiment that I posted in IMHO as an extension to the idea that the Bill Cosby case might be applied to the larger problem.

> [@Can we talk about Bill Cosby?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-talk-about-bill-cosby/705075/460):
>
> Let’s say there’s a place on the internet where people could go and tell their stories and name their rapist on decades-old allegations. No one checks these stories.
> 
> Then a national publication gathers up all the allegations on a periodic basis and prints them.
> 
> If your name shows up in there, everyone can see it. Your reputation could be ruined and employers can fire you on that basis. There’s no way to defend yourself because the allegations can be vague and very old. Even if they’re pretty specific charges, you might not have the resources to investigate or prove anything.
> 
> Would you be advocating that? Because I think that’s a possible extension of what you’re suggesting. I’m not seeing that as an improvement for women’s rights because it might make allegations of rape victims seem less serious when they can be made so casually but can inflict so much potential damage.

To make it more like the Bill Cosby case, I’ll add a few more stipulations. People could go to the story-telling registry anonymously. Bill Cosby has several Jane Does who are not identified by name. Any unwanted contact counts. Bill Cosby has a woman claiming an unwanted kiss. Accusers don’t have to remember the rape, just not have a better explanation for the circumstances. Some of the accusers don’t remember the rape. Registrants don’t have to give a date, just a time frame within a decade. Several of the Bill Cosby accusers have given time frames that span a decade. People could search on anyone’s name on the registry which would be kept as an ongoing project.

When the accusations got to a number that you can choose, the accused would be front page news.

If you think that’s a really bad idea with potentially disastrous consequences, so do I.

If you aren’t suggesting that the process be extended to other rapists, how does the public shaming of Bill Cosby relate to justice for other rapists?

> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#):
>
> As for the people who excuse more than a dozen rapes with the myth of the myth of women always lying, the denizens of this thread seem to be putting a pretty good smack-down on that too.
> 
> As arm-chair internet warriors, we have left the Shagnasty’s and kstarnes holding their own limp dicks on a SFW and logical thread in the pit.

I see that as mostly just message board dynamics. **kstarnes** is already banned.

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