Woman who made false rape report no longer a student: Lindenwood University

[liberalhistorian]

151. Thank you! My son's life was damn near

ruined by one of these liars who was angry with him for stupid juvenile reasons and who knew that a claim of rape or abuse is almost automatically believed nowadays. Even after she recanted and admitted she'd made up the whole thing to get back at him, it took years for him to get it straightened out and the charges expunged, even though they'd been dismissed. He couldn't get jobs, he was shunned, etc., etc., and if he'd gone to jail and had to register as a sex offender afterwards, even though he hadn't done anything, his life would have pretty much been ruined. It was beyond traumatizing for him and I'm still furious at the little bitch who thought nothing of playing with his life like that. I'm disgusted at the dismissive attitude many people have of such situations, it's as bad as those who don't believe any rape report and who think all women are lying.

That being said, I realize that such falsities are not common and are nowhere on the same scale as a rape, and that we still have a long way to go in changing the rape culture and in preventing both rape and the horrendously sexist attitudes about it that are all too common. As a child sex abuse survivor, I'm mindful of the toll to victims as well. However, false reports make it worse for both men and women; men, because their lives can be ruined and traumatized and if they're jailed when innocent they may never get out or get over it, and women because it makes it that much harder for genuine victims to be believed and helped and their rapists convicted and jailed, where they belong. As someone who formerly worked in the justice system, I know full well that there are more men than you'd like to think who were falsely convicted and jailed, and that is also wrong. The fact that rape is bad does not mean that false reports of rape that result in conviction and jail are not also bad, one does not cancel out the other.