# Me Too is BS **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 14, 2020, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-too-is-bs/851737 "2020-04-14T01:13:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2020, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-too-is-bs/851737/41 "2020-04-14T23:04:45Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > It being batshit insane is why I’ve never heard anyone actually advocate this who isn’t already insane. The vast majority of such claims come from the opposition, claiming that’s what #MeToo “really means.” > > The most I’ve seen is that you should believe an accusation of rape _provisionally_, until there is evidence that it is not true. More often, I just see people who think that the system gave too much leniency to the accused, even outside a court of law. > > The idea is that people reflexively disbelieve accusations of rape in a way they don’t with most other accusations of crimes. People are more suspicious of rape accusations than they are of someone stealing, despite lying about not being at all uncommon. > > The idea is just that the balance is out of whack and that we need to counterbalance it. > > One of the most common forms of illegitimate opposition is to make up something someone didn’t say to make them look stupid, or to pick out the > They’re all still variations on the classic strawman fallacy. The phrase “women should be believed” is a really poor choice of words. To believe an accusation literally means convicting the accused. That’s not what “believe survivors” intends. No more than “Black Lives Matter” means “Only Black Lives Matter”. This Vox article does a pretty good job of explaining it: > **[How the Jussie Smollett case became part of a larger controversy around...](https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/2/21/18232219/jussie-smollett-believe-survivors-me-too-empire)** > > The call to "believe survivors" has risen with the #MeToo movement, but it’s sparked a conservative backlash. But there are people who twist that and want to convict people who are accused. We see that behavior on this board, though generally with a political agenda. “I disagree with this person’s political views, and now that someone accused him of rape we know he’s a rapist too.” That hijacking of a very legitimate movement pisses me off. ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2020, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-too-is-bs/851737/42 "2020-04-15T00:27:52Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > In before the lock. > > But it is kind of hard to seriously say we support metoo when we have Clinton and Biden on our side. Ideally metoo should be independent of politics. Ideally. . Don’t forget Harvey. He was on your side too. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2020, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-too-is-bs/851737/43 "2020-04-15T01:18:43Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > The phrase “women should be believed” is a really poor choice of words. To believe an accusation literally means convicting the accused. No, it doesn’t. Not in any reasonable world. My believing the accuser does not in any way result in them being convicted in a court of law. Multiple examples of people that are believed to be murderers or similar have been brought up in this thread, yet none of them have been convicted. And you appear to be the one making it political. You have decided that those who disagree with you on someone being a rapist or not are in fact doing so for political reasons. You use the very strawman that I pointed out does not reflect the actual position of any rape activists, and then twist it to also now be political. No one on this board has ever argued “So-and-so is a rapist because it helps my side politically.” They spend page after page explaining why they think they are a rapist. You are ignoring what they said, and assuming bad faith on their part, that they are lying. The only possibly partisan example I can think of is with Kavenaugh. But, if that were political, then why did those same people say he should just drop the nomination and pick a woman who would vote the same way? They clearly cared so much that they were willing to help you as long as they’d also get the accusation taken seriously. You are falling for what the rape apologists are selling. They try to make it where the rape activists are idiots or malevolent. You’ve let them convince you that at least some of the rape activists here are actually bad people–usually the ones who are most passionate and thus most likely to actually effect change. When I say I’ve never seen something, I am inherently including most of the rape threads on this board. None of them argue that you should just believe the accused despite evidence to the contrary. Hell,that’s why I replied to you. I didn’t want the myth spreading. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2020, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-too-is-bs/851737/44 "2020-04-15T02:25:50Z")
> [@What\_the](#): > > Don’t forget Harvey. He was on your side too. Yup. Hollywood has known about sexual abuse for a long time and covered it up. Ideally it would be nonpolitical. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2020, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-too-is-bs/851737/45 "2020-04-15T02:27:06Z")
> [@Saturn\_Dreams](#): > > Having reservations about #MeToo doesn’t mean they’re for sexual assault. Having reservation doesn’t mean it’s BS and always was, either. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2020, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-too-is-bs/851737/46 "2020-04-15T02:33:32Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > I know “bothsideism” is frowned upon on these boards, but I believe the majority of people on both the right and the left poop out of their butts. > > (Colostomy bags are a real thing but not that common to people of either political philosophy.) While both sides have their sex offenders, the right tends to believe more in things like social dominance, which means belief in social hierarchies and the mistreatment of those low in social status by those higher in social status. As a result of that, the willingness to endorse rape (mistreatment) of women (lower in status) by men (higher in status) would have more support on the right. I mean on the left we have moral quandaries about our sex offenders. I don’t see that on the right, they just deny everything and blame the victims. Kavanaugh was portrayed as a victim by the right. On the left there is more of a question of these things and our role in them by supporting them. I don’t see that discussion on the right. Granted again, ideally the issue wouldn’t be politicized. But philosophies of whether it s ok to mistreat those lower in social status by those higher in social status is going to play something of a role in how much you consider sexual abuse to be unacceptable or not. [https://psmag.com/social-justice/conservatives-highly-religious-more-likely-to-endorse-rape-myths](https://psmag.com/social-justice/conservatives-highly-religious-more-likely-to-endorse-rape-myths) > [@](#): > > The results: Compared to liberals, both social and economic conservatives were more inclined to accept various excuses for date rape (as well as to believe in the aforementioned rape myths). As in the first study, these attitudes could be directly traced to “differences in moral decision-making,” the researchers write. > > Where does religion enter the picture? Well, an earlier Michael Barnett study published last year found that, even after taking into account political conservatism, “religiosity was positively associated with date rape acceptance.” > > He and his colleagues speculate that highly religious people, “due to their greater attendance and involvement in church activities, are exposed more often to patriarchal teachings.” Of course, traditional religions tend to be based on hierarchy and structure—and church is where many people’s moral compasses are set. > **[Analysis | Liberals and conservatives see sexual harassment claims very...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/12/14/liberals-and-conservatives-see-sexual-harassment-claims-very-differently-this-explains-why/)** > > The values they consider important — their “moral foundations” — are quite different. > [@](#): > > Overall, 75 percent of our sample thought that sexual harassment was a somewhat-to-very-serious issue. However, this figure masked strong partisan differences. On a scale of zero (not serious) to 10 (very serious), liberals rated the issue to be more serious (8.3), on average, whereas conservatives rated it slightly above neutral (6.1). Point being, like it or not in our highly polarized society, even sexual abuse is politicized since sexual abuse involves things like social hierarchies, feminism and mistreatment of those low in status by those high in status, all of which are political in the US. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2020, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-too-is-bs/851737/47 "2020-04-15T03:20:30Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > While both sides have their sex offenders, the right tends to believe more in things like social dominance, which means belief in social hierarchies and the mistreatment of those low in social status by those higher in social status. WHOOSH! Again, all human beings have “shitty asses”. It’s the purpose of the rectum. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2020, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-too-is-bs/851737/48 "2020-04-15T03:23:08Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > No, it doesn’t. Not in any reasonable world. My believing the accuser does not in any way result in them being convicted in a court of law. Multiple examples of people that are believed to be murderers or similar have been brought up in this thread, yet none of them have been convicted. In your mind they have been convicted. Again, some people can give credence to a person’s accusation without declaring guilt automatically. Apparently you can’t. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2020, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-too-is-bs/851737/49 "2020-04-15T22:02:12Z")
> [@split\_p\_j](#): > > It always has been, no matter what Rose or Alyssa say. Now their is one against Biden. Why now? The guys been around for like 40 years, but no now that he’s is the nominee gota a put in that me too. Of course now that it is coinvent for her Alyssa doesn’t believe the woman. What a joke. > > I’m ranting but I’m pissed. Everyone believed Amber Heard, but come to find out, she is the abuser and is facing 3 years in jail. Too late though, she already dragged a mans name through the mud. His reputation ruined. > > I always knew the Cosby thing was BS too. There is no knockout drug, everyone responds differently to drugs. That’s why there are anesthesiologists. If he was really giving women drugs on that scale, some would have died. > > It’s all BS. The #metoo movement started with Harvey Weinstein. It was an open secret for decades, that Harvey Weinstein’s casting couch got a lot of use. And when an actress complained about him, everyone assumed this was yet another case of an actress thinking that sleeping with a producer should turn them into Darryl Hannah. In fact this was the immediate media reaction to Ambra Guttierez, the first Harvey Weinstein accuser. She helped the police get taped evidence of Harvey engaging in sexual assault and admitting to the sexual assault. The Manhattan District Attorney declined to prosecute this powerful political contributor (this was not the only time he declined to prosecute but this is the only one I have a lot of details about). She was labelled an opportunist by several tabloids and she stopped getting modelling jobs. That is how powerful men abuse their power to abuse people. This sort of thing exists on Wall Street, academia, all sorts of places where the abuser is much more powerful and credible than the accuser. We need to stop dismissing the credible accusations of powerless women against powerful men. Of Course that was not the case with kavanaugh and the coopting of #metoo for a case like Kavanaugh was pretty bad. The teenage daughter of rich white folks are not powerless compared to the teenage son of rich white folks. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2020, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-too-is-bs/851737/50 "2020-04-15T22:06:04Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > Just because it wasn’t criminalized doesn’t mean it wasn’t a crime. Just not a prosecuted one. Raping your wife wasn’t a crime at all until very recently either. Suss out for yourself what that proves. There was a time when raping a prostitute required evidence of almost brutal violence. And forget about trying to convict someone of sexually assaulting a prostitute with unwanted touching and groping. If you got them drunk and raped them, it was pretty hard to prove rape. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2020, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-too-is-bs/851737/51 "2020-04-15T22:09:49Z")
> [@split\_p\_j](#): > > It always has been, no matter what Rose or Alyssa say. Now their is one against Biden. Why now? The guys been around for like 40 years, but no now that he’s is the nominee gota a put in that me too. Of course now that it is coinvent for her Alyssa doesn’t believe the woman. What a joke. > > I’m ranting but I’m pissed. Everyone believed Amber Heard, but come to find out, she is the abuser and is facing 3 years in jail. Too late though, she already dragged a mans name through the mud. His reputation ruined. > > I always knew the Cosby thing was BS too. There is no knockout drug, everyone responds differently to drugs. That’s why there are anesthesiologists. If he was really giving women drugs on that scale, some would have died. > > It’s all BS. Wait, has Cosby been exonerated like Johnny Depp? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2020, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-too-is-bs/851737/52 "2020-04-15T22:14:21Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > [The OP is a conspiracy theorist](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=17446314#post17446314) thus unqualified to determine what is and is not BS. That is clearly a bad conspiracy theory. It is not hard to fly a commercial jet into a large target. When I was young I use to do some aircraft finance back when we were still doing DISC transactions and on one business trip, they let us fly the flight simulator for a 747 and it was impossible to land but hitting the airport building was pretty manageable ---
**Author:** ![Commeatus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e68b1a/32.png) [@Commeatus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Commeatus)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2020, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-too-is-bs/851737/53 "2020-04-16T14:33:23Z")
I teach consent and ethics courses, some at festivals. Firstly, the history of substances such as GHB, Methaqualone, and diazepam and their use in sexual assault is well-documented. Denying this is steeped in ignorance that could be dispelled with a simple Google search. Second, as people have said, Me Too is, on its face, an attempt to normalize assault accusations in resistance to the attitudes of skepticism and social shaming historically directed at accusers (“actually wanted it”, “promiscuous”, “why would you say this about someone who has done so much for the community”). Me Too is also an exercise in solidarity. It demonstrated in practice the statistics on how many women are survivors of sexual assault ([https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics](https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics)). Everyone knows someone who has experienced sexual assault. It also paved the way for men to come forward with their survivor experiences. Finally, Me Too is an attempt to curate a better response to assault allegations. Kavanagh is an example of this. Instead of screaming about his fictional sobriety in court, he could have said “I don’t remember this, but I was irresponsible with alcohol as a student and I apologize for any harm I may have done. I have grown a very great deal over my life and career” and cooperated. It would have set a lot of people at ease. See Reid Mihalko’s accountability process. An unfortunate truth is that most activists are suffering from the effects of the things they fight against, and this can make them underprepared, unprofessional, or undereducated. Most activists are, by definition, ameteurs and necessarily bad at the activity, often because of their underprivileged stati and stress from directly and repeatedly confronting ptsd triggers. It’s important to judge activists movements on their overall direction and values, not their competency or consistency of message. ---
**Author:** ![Kovitlac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/2bfe46/32.png) [@Kovitlac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kovitlac)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2020, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-too-is-bs/851737/54 "2020-04-16T15:01:16Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > As a result of that, the willingness to endorse rape (mistreatment) of women (lower in status) by men (higher in status) would have more support on the right. Well that’s certainly news to me and my substantially right-wing family, but okay. My dad is a big Trump supporter and he wants nothing but MORE punishment for sex offenders / rapists. I get what you’re saying, but men abusing power is a both-party issue. Or not even really a party issue at all - it’s a ‘stop being shitty fucking human beings’ issue. Blaming one side over the other, regardless of whether what you’re saying is true or not, doesn’t do a single person any good. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2020, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-too-is-bs/851737/55 "2020-04-16T16:13:03Z")
> [@Kovitlac](#): > > My dad is a big Trump supporter and he wants nothing but MORE punishment for sex offenders / rapists. These two things directly conflict with each other. ---
**Author:** ![TimfromNapa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d26b3c/32.png) [@TimfromNapa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimfromNapa)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2020, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-too-is-bs/851737/56 "2020-04-16T18:52:10Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > I know “bothsideism” is frowned upon on these boards, but I believe the majority of people on both the right and the left poop out of their butts. > > (Colostomy bags are a real thing but not that common to people of either political philosophy.) Trump poops out of his mouth every time he speaks. He can not poop out of his butt. That would be impossible with Mitch McConnell’s nose stuck so far up there. ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2020, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-too-is-bs/851737/57 "2020-04-16T22:11:53Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Yup. Hollywood has known about sexual abuse for a long time and covered it up. > > Ideally it would be nonpolitical. Don’t limit it to Hollywood. Willfully ignorant (at best) Democrats took alot of his money. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2020, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-too-is-bs/851737/58 "2020-04-18T18:50:30Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > These two things directly conflict with each other. Perhaps his father requires conviction before sentencing. ---
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2020, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-too-is-bs/851737/59 "2020-04-18T18:58:24Z")
This “movement” seems like its a movement from one millionaire’s pocket to another millionaire. I have never heard about opening up women’s shelters, etc etc… ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2020, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-too-is-bs/851737/60 "2020-04-18T19:16:31Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Perhaps his father requires conviction before sentencing. So do I – this has nothing to do with the post in question. My point, for anyone who didn’t get it, is that Trump is an admitted (and unapologetic) sexual abuser, and it’s not credible to support an admitted and unapologetic sexual abuser while placing a high value on opposing sexual assault and rape. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-too-is-bs/851737.md?page=2)