The Power Of The "R" Word

Rape, that is the R word.

I'm sorry ladies i mean no offense, rape is a terrible thing but so many women now are using this as an attack. A girl gets dumped? She cries rape to destroy the guys life. A guy tells a girl he isn't interested, her ego can't take it, she cries rape. A women gets fired, she can claim rape or assault and no company wants to go through that. A women wants revenge? Then a rape claim it is. The problem is a man can never escape that label, even if he is completely innocent the label will hang around his neck forever.

The really sad part is that many men are in jail for false rape claims, others have been proven innocent and released but it's still a damaging thing to have in your life. I know this is only a small percentage of women doing this, but i think when pushed many women know the power of this little word. A flase claim like this will destroy your life, in and out of court maybe for years trying to prove you are innocent and even then, when found innocent, even if the woman is prosecuted people will still think there is a grain of truth to the story.


As some evidence as to what i mean, i present these links and a video.

news.bbc.co.uk...

news.bbc.co.uk...

news.bbc.co.uk...

news.bbc.co.uk...

Video

news.bbc.co.uk...
Cab Driver Falsly Accused Of Rape


Most importantly i think women should be seriously angry over this because in the end, these false claims invalidate the real ones and may cause doubt in a juries mind.

You seem to be disagreeing with yourself here. Small percentage yet many women? The "many" is a baseless assertion. I am glad they are prosecuting fake claims but they are not the reason rape victims do not come forward or get accused of being liars. These claims do NOT invalidate real ones and should not. I also find the title of this thread extremily offensive as it implies that any woman who claims rape might possibly be on some sort of power trip.

[edit on 22-5-2009 by riley]

Most rapes go UNREPORTED. Especially rapes committed by people the woman knows.

Pulling up a handful of "false charges" pales in comparison to the majority of rapes that are kept secret.

Firstly i am not disagreeing with myself, nearly all of my friends are female and this post comes shortly after a conversation where they were all very frank about knowing the power of that word. One even called it a trump card. They all said they would never use it, but if pushed i wonder.

When i said few women actually use it i was being serious, few do. These are the ones who use it at the drop of a hat just because they're annoyed, check the video of the cab driver to see this exact situation.

If what i posted offended you then sorry, but as a man i find this entire thing very scary. I hope you will see it from that point of view. On top of all of that i again point out that these false claims are damaging the legal system because people consider all rape cases in this light.

I am not claiming that every women is on a power trip when they make a rape claim, i am however, with proof in the articles saying that it can, and does happen. I am saying that the word rape, does havea power that blinds people and has made a mess of the lives of many men. That is empirical data, not my opinino, it has happened and continues to do so when it turns out it was a false claim.

I know all the figures, however this thread was the discussion of what seems to be an increase in false claims. I understand few people will look at this logically, espeically women who will get very annoyed that a man dares to bring up this sensitive topic. However it needs to be discussed somewhere because innocent men have been imprisoned and if you think that is fine and doesn't need discussion then i don't know what to say.

No it claims that some women might be on a power trip.


I never personally had to go through this but at one point my senior year of high school a girl I had sex with claimed , how should i put this, that I " could not get it up" when she knows damn well we went at it for a good 30 min.

I had to basically call her out on it on front of other people, and she tried to deny she said it and then everybody saw she was lying about it and she admitted " I shouldn't have said that"..

But I garauntee some girls still thought I had a " getting it up " problem.

She basically said this because her best friend hates me ( she hates a lot of people), and started talking shat about me in front of some others guys.


The only reason I know she said this was because my best friend was hanging out with her at the time and these other guys so he told me what was said.

I had to embarrassingly explain to my friends that I just didn't finish ( got tired after like 30 min ) and then explained how she made that up...


Some girls/ women make up little lies to make themselves look better in front of people they either don't know or they do know and want to impress.



Not exactly the same as a false rape claim but Still it hits your ego pretty hard at 18 years old to have to defend yourself like that.



These things happen more often then people think.

To add another article, in 2001 the police were so concerned with false claims they started looking for ways to help determine whether people were lying or not

www.guardian.co.uk...

Other stories


www.dailymail.co.uk...

www.kentonline.co.uk...


I would say that many people will fer discussing this topic, because doing so makes them immediately suspect and that in itself is very telling of the power of this word.



[edit on 22-5-2009 by ImaginaryReality1984]

I know what the OP means, I've actually seen it happen twice to people I knew. One of those people died in prison because of some chick he slept with at a party whom he didn't know was 16.
Her parents found out and the girl said he raped her, bang, jail time.

Second time was the dudes girlfriend, her parents found out they were together, he was 19 she was 15 (he wasn't the sharpest crayon), she cries rape. I never saw him again.

The OP isn't saying anything at all about real rape, he's just stating that many of the "rape" cases are false claims made by immature girls for selfish reasons. It happens.

I am going to have to agree a little on this one. I have seen two instances in my life so far where a female was doing something voluntarily and then recanted and said they were forced.

The first instance was at a park, and a girl that some of us new was there as she lived near by and came up and decided to show off her upper assets. We didn't ask her to do it, she came up to us and said, "hey, you guy's want to see my boobs?". We said "hell yeah" and just as soon as she lifted her shirt, a parent walked over, and called the police. Just as soon as the police got there, the girl immediately started telling the police we forced her to do it. It took hours of one on one interviews to convince the police we were innocent since all of our stories collaborated and the police decided we were too young to be able to collaborate our story that well and that quickly. If we would have been adults, we would have probably been taken straight to jail and had to get lawyers and fight a rape charge!

The second instance was at a college party. Long story short on this one, girl gets drunk, has sex with my buddy, two days later police are at door to arrest buddy for rape. In the end it was all dropped but what happened was, the girls friend saw my buddy and her go back to the bedroom and decided her friend was drunk and convinced the girl that she had no control of the situation and that she was raped. The girl went to the campus police and pressed charges. The girl finally decided that she was coherant and dropped the charges. But this just shows you how easy it is to scream "rape" in a situation. Not to mention my friend had to sit in jail for 24 hrs. for nothing.

I'm not sure what class of people you hang around with but I have not heared it being abused in such a way.

You said MANY women when pushed know the power of the word. You obviously have a low opinion of women in general if you think "many" women see it as some sort of potential weapon.

As do women and girls who either have been raped or fear being raped.

..or fear being branded a liar in the event they are faced with having to make a report to police.

Sorry to break it to you but people already saw rape cases in that light. The instant a man is accused the woman is accused of being a slut/and or a liar. Going to police would not be an easy thing to do.

Just "many"..

Of course it does.. very rarely. Innocent people get sent to prison for assaults, thefts and murders as well. I think it's less than 10% of rapes end in conviction so it's fairly likely innocent men are in prison for reasons other than false rape claims. Should anyone who reports something stolen be presumed to be a liar then? Insurence fraud happens all the time yet these do not.

..and what about all those women who have report real rapes yet are assumed to be sluts or liars? Their charactors can be detroyed as well.. and thats even when they are found to be telling the truth. The certainly of having your name get dragged through the mud and having your sexual history exposed publically does not sound like much of a "trump card" to me.

Again.. while this does happen it doesn't happen often enough to start presuming most rape claims might be fake.

[edit on 22-5-2009 by riley]

For a very public example of this just look at the Duke Lacrosse scandal. There was a great book written on the case, It's Not About the Truth: The Untold Story of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case and the Lives It Shattered by Don Yaeger. An entire team of players reputation was ruined, death threats sent to them, etc. When in the end there was nothing to it.

Sorry but your friends were having sex with a minors.. they could be charged with rape legally even if they were in a relationship. That is not a false rape claim.

..and immature? 15 and 16 year old girls generally are.

Btw. Many false rape claims are NOT made.. that was the point I was arguing.

[edit on 22-5-2009 by riley]

reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984

---

RAPE!!!

no srsly though, this is incredibly offensive and WRONG.
may you never incarnate as a woman...

Riley this thread seems to have struck a nerve with you. I could assume somebody you know might have went through something like this.


Nobody is saying that most rape victims are liars and sluts. You used those words.

We are saying that this is something men have to deal with and worry about.

You never think a girl could stoop that low to lie and risk your life just for her ego and reputation but they do it.

And if it's not false rape claims then it is instances that i posted above which can also cause havic.


You make great points and i commend you for it but you are acting very defensive when nobody here is trying to offend you.

Your opinion however is welcome and creates balance in this topic. Just understand though that we are not women bashing, simply stating instances which have effected some of us personally or people we know.


And yes a 19 year old dating a 15 year old qualifies that guy as a Douche bag creepo at the least.

Unless of course it took place in some Euro countries where that is more norm than what we have here.

One of my best friends studied abroad in italy last year for 6 months and he said It is more common to see 15,16,17 year old girls with 23,25,30 year old guys then it would be to see a couple who are both 17 over here.

I hang round wwith a perfectly nice group of people, this was just a conversation we fell into. They did not say they would use it, just they knew how powerful it was. I would appreciate it if you didn't insult my friends.




As miost of my friends are women, no i don't have a low opinion of women and the fact you cannot see past such assumptions pretty much proves the point. The R word has such power that even this topic, when backed by evidence cannot be discussed without accusations flying around. I said most women know the power, society hears rape and instantly thinks the man involved is an evil piece of scum. I have seen it in the papers where the guy is accused, the comments on the websites are all for hanging him, then when his innocene is proven the people still think he's guilty. That is the power of that word.




Raped women find false accusations scary? Ones that have been proven false? Or you mean the idea that they may possibly be lying is scary? That is what the law is btw, it is neutral, it has to consider all sides and maybe if the R word didn't have so much power innocent men woudln't have gone to prison. Are you saying we should instantly side with the woman even if some innocent men go to prison?

Lets be clear, rape is a terrible thing and in my humble view the minimum sentences should be raised to life for a predatory rape.




What an absolute load of nonsense. Many rapes go unreported i absolutely grant you that one, but it is in the mind of the women only that they think these things. Society wouldn't brand them as such it is just rape victims tend to blaim themselves. That is actually one of the tests mentioned in the article i linked about detecting real rapes, victims tend to think it's their own fault.

People do NOT see rape cases as women lying, that is quite the opposite of what the public thinks. If what you say here is true then men wouldn't be falsly imprisoned.





Well done on quote mining. I said many know the power, not many use it. Try and calm down and look at this thread again without the obvious emotion that is leading your arguments.



Again you sadly miss the point because you are to emotional about this one. When faced with other offences the police and juries approach it will an equal mind. If i claim someone tried to assault me i better have good proof, the person will be questioned but it will likely end in the complaint being dropped without evidence. However when a rape allegation is made the police will descend upon it with the wrath of god, if proven innocent the man will struggle for many years to recover from the reputation damage.




That is down to the public to decide. It's hard to comment here unless you want to bring up a particular case. If you do i'd happily go through it, although i'd prefer another thread as to not derail the points made here. Your choice of course.

What i would say if that if a women is raped, regardless of sexual history it is still rape.



See i'm sorry but you are again going with your emotion here. I have NOT said anyone should presume anything. I have said that when rape allegations are made people presume the worst, they are immediately on side with the woman. That is what needs to change, that is all i said. We need a fair look, not a biased one either way.

Remember that whole, innocent until proven guilty thing?

Yes because discussing abuses of justice is wrong.


Oh i should point out that i have known two people who have been raped, one of which happens to agree with me on this topic, the other i know longer know. But i guess that isn't important huh.

[edit on 22-5-2009 by ImaginaryReality1984]

Have you ever heard the saying "life just ain't fair"?

Rape is a terrible thing, it ruins lives and destroys families. I have seen this thing from many angles and it is terrible! Yet it is not any different than so many other things in life. Racism is terrible, but some use it as a trump card. Does that invalidate the evils of racism because some play it? NO!

I know people that for the rest of their lives carry the Sex Offender label because some young girl lied about her age, were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and some that damn well deserve it! IT sucks but life ain't fair and some people do get screwed by the system and nasty little girls crying rape. Guess what...a whole lot of women get screwed around by a system that won't believe them....

Life ain't fair, get over it and stop posting inflammatory threads.

You know what they say about assumptions. I think it's a bit tacky for you to be speculating on my personal experiences. Should I not be entitled to just express passionate opinions without having to explain what has formed them? It is not relevent.

Actually he said "many" which means he basically was saying that.

We all have our crosses to bare.. but I do not think many innocent men have been sent to prison for rape so I think this media reaction is not warrented.. or at least should be reported with respect to the actual statistics.

erm.. you told a story about a (high school) girl claiming you couldn't get it up. You also said "not quite a false rape claim". No it's not.. comparing the two is not an argument. Men do not get sent to prison for being falsely accused of impotence. It's a mean thing to say but not comparable.

..and we all know some men have said they've slept with women they haven't slept with. Perhaps those women should be able to have them charged too?

I have seen this more and more in the media and I am seeing possible rape victims gets crucified by the media. The end result? Even less rape victims will come forward.. of course I am going to speak out when I see sterotypical myths being formed.

thanks..

This is a case in point. Every time I see these "false rape" stories people inevitably start talking about 14,15,16 year olds seducing grown men and then the woman bashing starts. Lets be honest here.. you/the OP etc can claim this is an innocent topic but it is already being used to demonise girls who've been (techincally) victims of stat rape. So whats the agenda? Is it against the minority of rape accused that get convicted or is it against the underaged girls who seduce men and send them to prison? Eye on the ball.

[edit on 22-5-2009 by riley]

No sorry this has to stop now. I said few use it but many know the power of it. I know the power of that word as well as a man. You i'm afraid are simply to emotional to realise what was meant by that,you leapt upon it unfairly. I am NOT saying most women have or will claim it, i am saying most know the power of it. Those are two different things and if you continue down this path of taking my quote out of context then you only damage your own arguments.

This is utterly disgusting, you are twisting the motives of this thread rather horrbily. You are trying to deflect arguments by doing this. The agenda or i should say motive because agenda has rather ominous tones (which is why you used that word) is simply to state that men don't get a fair trial with these kinds of cases. Further more they don't even get fair treatment in custody with accusations of rape and furthermore they don't get fair treatment in society even when they are found innocent because of the power of the R word.

As for stat rape i would say this, each case needs to be assessed on it's merits, as with any breech of the law. How about this one, a friend of a frien was in a night club, slept with a girl. Now this is an 18's and over nightclub. He then spent a year or more fighting a legal battle because the girl was actually 15 and had lied and said she was 18. That is technically stat rape. So what should happen there? Should he be imprisoned for years because he didn't ask for ID?

However this thread wasn't about that, you have brought it up, this thread was about how men are badly treated in rape cases, unfairly seen by juries and how men have to be quite fearful of such an accusation ever being thrown their way.

[edit on 22-5-2009 by ImaginaryReality1984]