it's hard to see why anyone but the most sociopathic women would make false assault accusations.
I’m saying, yeah, he’s more likely to be. And it's not just because he's in a fraternity or that fraternity -- it's also because he was a football player as schools have shown time and again that they protect their athletes from misconduct allegations.
Ironically, he never even had to face a trial.
. . .
It is more clear than ever before that men accused of sexual crimes do not deserve the benefit of the doubt, and I would argue that Patricia so far has not come close to answering for this nor grasping why people expect him to.
Since when do people need an upside to do something? People sometimes do things rashly based on emotions - jealousy, anger, shame, etc.
While a man might sexually assault a woman because he feels he is "owed" something, I believe its entirely possible that a woman might falsely accuse a man (or woman for that matter) because they feel they are "owed something". Imagine a bad breakup.
how could you not tell the Lions at some point "hey, I should mention this thing that happened a long time ago, there's no validity to it, but..." (This is assuming the Lions are being honest when they said they didn't know about it; if Patrica did tell the Lions that, and now they are just trying to cover their asses, I'd be furious if I was him.)
I tend to doubt that the woman in question would have motive to plant a totally false accusation.
Whether you think he did it or not, his response sucks. Crying about "mental torture" and how this is all a big unfair attempt to take him down is tone deaf at best and cold-blooded at worst.
Is your theory that it was this woman's plan was to fake a sexual assault accusation just in case Patricia ended up being rich some day?
This is a selection of lines that... concerned me, let's call it that. They're on both sides of the issue, but, to my mind, they take a decidedly wrong--albeit natural--approach to the problem.
I don't know how much experience each, any, or all of you have in this area, but there are answers to these questions and they are most assuredly not obvious.
Sex crimes are... radical. They exist at the nexus of power, sex, control, love, lust, abuse, guilt, trauma, upbringing, shame... they are intense. Trying to conjecture the motivations of the participants involved in an allegation is at best a fool's errand, and most likely it ends up obscuring a more honest and thorough psychological inquiry.
Think about it. Once there's an allegation, either two things are "technically"m true: Someone commit a crime that most of us like to believe decent people have trouble wrapping their heads around, or someone is falsely accusing that person of same. Both options are unspeakably horrible.
This is not a great area to apply common sense and how you think you might feel.
For example, the weirdest case I've ever been a party to, was what was revealed to be a false accusation inspired by the complaining woman's adoration and idolization of another woman who was bringing charges against a man for rape and her desire to emulate and be like her.
And by no means am I claiming that is the norm. I'm just claiming that you can't figure this shit out the way I think a lot of people want to approach it--frankly, we even as we get used to the issue, we should be reticent to
normalize it precisely because I believe it's important we see this as an area of social life that is not adequately dealt with by our legal system--it has a square peg-round hole relationship with it, if you will--so we should move to investigate how to reconfigure parts of our legal system to address the problem as it is, not as we would make it to be.
I have no great love for Megyn Kelly, but she was right that the key is in the existence of institutions that allow people avenues by which to complain safely in ways that bring about repercussions.
Yet they’re done in vastly disproportionate amounts, and it’s odd that a bunch of dudes are rushing to say “but what if he’s innocent!” We all recognize the possibility he might be innocent. Odds are against it, but it’s certainly possible. Beyond that, unless I missed it, I find his inability to put forward at least the outline of a plausible explanation or alternative narrative makes me doubt his claims of innocence.
I agree with you that it's unlikely a case like this went as far as it did without overcoming the traditionally reticent institutional actors, so yes, statistically, it's not good for him.
As per above, though, I have a lot of concerns about how some people on all sides of this approach it. I know from experience that it's a huge practical problem in guilt adjudication--a room full of people imagining what went down during that 15 minute time span and coming up with... all kinds of crazy scenarios. But I think it also inhibits our ability to address the fact that we should rebuild that whole area of criminal law--sorta like how people are starting to do with family courts, drug courts, etc. and other areas where we've found the existing apparatus to be insufficient to our contemporary understanding of human life, dignity, and flourishing.
Given the nature of these charges, do you think Patricia has an obligation to say who he thinks is doing this to him?
Lord no. That could potentially even be dangerous to the person he has in mind, whether he's right or wrong.
Again, I understand, respect, and admire the passion people have for this issue. But that's also a reason to recognize how much is at stake with it which is why a modicum of discipline is needed in attending to these energies--I mean, sexual violence has traditionally been considered highly energetic, yes?