# What Happens When You're Falsely Accused of Rape **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 25, 2015, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-youre-falsely-accused-of-rape/713605 "2015-02-25T20:27:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-youre-falsely-accused-of-rape/713605/21 "2015-02-26T15:13:42Z")
What is your proposed solution? That is where any real discussion is. I mean, crappy stuff happens. I once got robbed and severely injured by a taxi driver in a third world country. It’s totally legit for me to say that people shouldn’t rob each other, or that developing countries should have better police forces. But unless can articulate some kind of realistic change I’d like to see, we don’t have anything to really talk about. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-youre-falsely-accused-of-rape/713605/22 "2015-02-26T15:34:36Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > To be offended by such a comparison would require that you also have a close friend who was falsely accused of rape, giving you some insight into both experiences. Not really. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-youre-falsely-accused-of-rape/713605/23 "2015-02-26T15:36:01Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > What is your proposed solution? That is where any real discussion is. > > I mean, crappy stuff happens. I once got robbed and severely injured by a taxi driver in a third world country. It’s totally legit for me to say that people shouldn’t rob each other, or that developing countries should have better police forces. > > But unless can articulate some kind of realistic change I’d like to see, we don’t have anything to really talk about. Be careful **even sven** , I don’t think you’ve put enough empathy in your response towards the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-youre-falsely-accused-of-rape/713605/24 "2015-02-26T15:44:31Z")
> [@](#): > > The next morning, campus police picked me up for questioning. They asked me what happened between me and my friend. I told them everything. I asked what was wrong. They finally told me what she told them. I was floored. She was my friend. She asked me to dance. She asked me for a ride back to campus. She invited me into her dorm room. Why would she say that? That’s what one of the interrogators asked me. I didn’t have an answer. But they had one. The cops said I confessed to rape. …So, did you confess to rape or not? ---
**Author:** ![Mithras](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Mithras](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mithras)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-youre-falsely-accused-of-rape/713605/25 "2015-02-26T16:07:10Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > The word “rape” has its origins in snatching/grabbing/taking away. For all that to happen to a man on the basis of a false accusation - to have my status, wealth, and freedom forcibly unjustly taken from me - can, I think, be properly regarded as a kind of rape. So if you had a child who was bullied and had their lunch money or phone case or whatever stolen, you’d complain to the school’s administration that your kid was raped? ---
**Author:** ![Honey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honey/32/5074_2.png) [@Honey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honey)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-youre-falsely-accused-of-rape/713605/26 "2015-02-26T16:22:00Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > …So, did you confess to rape or not? I believe that since the OP admitted they had sex, and the woman said it was non-consensual, they took that as an admission of rape. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-youre-falsely-accused-of-rape/713605/27 "2015-02-26T16:24:24Z")
> [@Mithras](#): > > So if you had a child who was bullied and had their lunch money or phone case or whatever stolen, you’d complain to the school’s administration that your kid was raped? OK, calling a false accusation of rape “a kind of rape” was a poor choice of words on my part. However, I maintain that if I were falsely accused of rape and made to suffer an array of social/legal/criminal/educational/financial penalties for it, I would feel pretty goddam violated. If you want to believe that a guy who is falsely accused, serves 5-10 years in prison and then lives the rest of his life with “sex offender” status has an easier time of it than a woman who was raped, that’s your call. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-youre-falsely-accused-of-rape/713605/28 "2015-02-26T16:42:14Z")
But for the OP, the justice system worked. He wasn’t convicted. He didn’t spend 5-10 years in prison. He doesn’t have a “sex offender” status. Yet he compares himself to a rape victim. ---
**Author:** ![ataraxy22](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ataraxy22/32/307_2.png) [@ataraxy22](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ataraxy22)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-youre-falsely-accused-of-rape/713605/29 "2015-02-26T17:26:32Z")
It sounds like the court of popular opinion failed him. The way society works is that there is an automatic presumption of guilt whenever a woman accuses a man of rape. People need to withhold forming opinions until the facts of the case come out! ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-youre-falsely-accused-of-rape/713605/30 "2015-02-26T17:26:32Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > If you want to believe that a guy who is falsely accused, serves 5-10 years in prison and then lives the rest of his life with “sex offender” status has an easier time of it than a woman who was raped, that’s your call. Being falsely CONVICTED is a different planet than being falsely accused. And given number of actual real life rapists who go free due to the difficulty of proving rape, the chances of serving time on a false accusation are pretty darn small. Not zero, but probably less than your chances of being killed by a falling vending machine. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-youre-falsely-accused-of-rape/713605/31 "2015-02-26T17:34:32Z")
> [@ataraxy22](#): > > It sounds like the court of common opinion failed him. The way society works is that there is an automatic presumption of guilt whenever a woman accuses a man of rape. People need to without forming opinions until the facts of the case come out. I wish you’d been there to share this illuminating fact during the 2+ years it took to get the person who assaulted me convicted. And my case was pretty damned near open and shut. Apologies; I don’t mean to make this about my experience, but that’s the only position from where I can speak. I guess my point is, there is a huge leap from being falsely accused to anything actually coming of it. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-youre-falsely-accused-of-rape/713605/32 "2015-02-26T17:40:39Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > ok well i guess we both have a bias of a sort, my bias is that i am a man and think it would be terrible to be put in that situation, 8% (at least) of accusations are false, yet no one seems to be that concerned about it. I know that you can’t be trying to gloss over the 92% which are not false. You don’t really want to throw 100% of the claims out to save the 8% from false accusations, do you? You must be proposing a new idea… some law that will level the playing field for the 8% without making the 92% too afraid to report the crime. I’d like to hear the solution that you’ve come up with please. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-youre-falsely-accused-of-rape/713605/33 "2015-02-26T17:52:56Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > But for the OP, the justice system worked. He wasn’t convicted. He didn’t spend 5-10 years in prison. He doesn’t have a “sex offender” status. Yet he compares himself to a rape victim. True, his experience was not as bad as someone who was found guilty. As [AHuntrt3 points out in your other thread,](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18164877&postcount=17) both experiences exist on continuums: rape can be anything from an act of mild coercion between long-time partners to a violent gang-rape by total strangers that puts the victim in the hospital, and false accusation can be anything from “she told all our friends I raped her” to “I was tried/convicted/served time.” In the case of the OP, yes, the justice system ultimately prevailed, but justice ain’t cheap. If you accuse someone of rape, the prosecuting attorney is a public servant, but your defense attorney, if you value your freedom, will be the most capable legal expert you can afford. I wonder how much time and money the OP had to spend to present an adequate defense in court. I wonder how it felt knowing that his accuser wanted to put him in jail not because of anything he did, but merely because he was a pawn in some sort of jealous spat between her and her boyfriend. I wonder what kind of stomach-churning, nauseating stress he endured between knowing there would be a trial and the moment the jury finally delivered a not-guilty verdict. I wonder how it felt having random people judge him to be guilty even though the jury did not. I think it’s cruel to say to such a person, “you whiny little prick, at least you weren’t _raped._” ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-youre-falsely-accused-of-rape/713605/34 "2015-02-26T18:09:31Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > I think it’s cruel to say to such a person, “you whiny little prick, at least you weren’t _raped._” No one has said that. The OP himself compares his plight to that of being a rape victim. Which in my opinion is not comparable. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-youre-falsely-accused-of-rape/713605/35 "2015-02-26T18:30:13Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > OK, calling a false accusation of rape “a kind of rape” was a poor choice of words on my part. > > However, I maintain that if I were falsely accused of rape and made to suffer an array of social/legal/criminal/educational/financial penalties for it, I would feel pretty goddam violated. > > If you want to believe that a guy who is falsely accused, serves 5-10 years in prison and then lives the rest of his life with “sex offender” status has an easier time of it than a woman who was raped, that’s your call. At least, he’s alive. Rape victims have been killed by their own relatives as a matter of family honor. Divorces occur and catastrophic social shunning. Though there are ways to lessen the possibility of being attacked, women cannot always avoid dangerous situations in which they are potential victims. Men have it much, much easier at keeping their lives in a state in which there never being enough evidence for them to be falsely convicted of raped. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-youre-falsely-accused-of-rape/713605/36 "2015-02-26T19:02:11Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > What is your proposed solution? That is where any real discussion is. > > I mean, crappy stuff happens. I once got robbed and severely injured by a taxi driver in a third world country. It’s totally legit for me to say that people shouldn’t rob each other, or that developing countries should have better police forces. > > But unless can articulate some kind of realistic change I’d like to see, we don’t have anything to really talk about. I’d propose that everyone involved abandon dialogue and practice that asserts, or is motivated by, a belief that victims don’t lie about getting raped, and abandon any dialogue or practice that applies more skepticism to a claim of rape than it does to a claim of other crimes that involve physical assault. In other words, law enforcement and prosecution should adopt the practice of investigating rape claims professionally, as they would other crimes against the person, bringing neither diluted nor augmented belief to the table. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-youre-falsely-accused-of-rape/713605/37 "2015-02-26T19:09:51Z")
> [@Count\_Blucher](#): > > I know that you can’t be trying to gloss over the 92% which are not false. You don’t really want to throw 100% of the claims out to save the 8% from false accusations, do you? > You must be proposing a new idea… some law that will level the playing field for the 8% without making the 92% too afraid to report the crime. > > I’d like to hear the solution that you’ve come up with please. where did i ever say that we should start throwing out investigations of Rape just because some claims are false??? where did i eve come close to saying that??? ---
**Author:** ![get\_lives](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecb155/32.png) [@get\_lives](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/get_lives)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-youre-falsely-accused-of-rape/713605/38 "2015-02-26T20:25:56Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I’d propose that everyone involved abandon dialogue and practice that asserts, or is motivated by, a belief that victims don’t lie about getting raped, and abandon any dialogue or practice that applies more skepticism to a claim of rape than it does to a claim of other crimes that involve physical assault. > > In other words, law enforcement and prosecution should adopt the practice of investigating rape claims professionally, as they would other crimes against the person, bringing neither diluted nor augmented belief to the table. Sounds great. Good luck getting the money together to give enough cops the right training to do what you’re suggesting. For that matter, you’d need to educate not only police, but anyone in a position of decision-making authority in these situations. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-youre-falsely-accused-of-rape/713605/39 "2015-02-26T20:34:20Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > Until someone steps up and claims they’ve been raped and also falsely accused of rape, and which one is worse, I guess we won’t know for sure. > > Until then, we go on opinion. And the OP comparing his victimhood of being falsely accused to actual rape victims, just doesn’t compare to me. I think both are horrible enough for all practical purposes. ---
**Author:** ![DataX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@DataX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DataX)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-youre-falsely-accused-of-rape/713605/40 "2015-02-26T20:36:58Z")
Just because he wasn’t convicted doesn’t mean it wasn’t traumatizing. I too was accused of a crime I didn’t commit. While it was a victimless crime and doesn’t carry the same stigma as rape - and mine never made it to trial (the eventually dropped the case after I passed polygraphs) - it was a huge invasion of my privacy and forever changed me. I don’t feel any shame for anything, but I’m forever careful of what is thrown away (they tried to use my trash against me) and take other measures that some view as being overly paranoid. People that know about it are going to forever think he got off on a technicality or something. It was pretty long - so I kinda browsed it. That being said - I don’t think it is the same thing as being raped (obviously). But I think it is traumatic - like rape is. (I’m not in any way saying it is equal to or as traumatizing) That being said - I don’t think rape organizations are going to go out of their way to draw attention to this problem - nor should they have to. Rape is obviously a real problem and the CJ system does a good job - and the accused can go after the accuser civilly if he chooses to do so. I understand in the OPs case he wasn’t financially able to. I think the OP needs to realize - that although based in scanning his post - he seems somewhat reasonable - lots of the men posting about this issue are not. It’s not really surprising to me that his calls/emails or whatever we’re not returned. Unfortunately anyone can be falsely accused for anything. While there are legitimate concerns about this, most often the concerns I hear are not based in reality (like “sport star XYZ is good looking - so he doesn’t have to rape”). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-youre-falsely-accused-of-rape/713605.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-youre-falsely-accused-of-rape/713605.md?page=3)