I think we could use a little more moral panic about the actual number of people who are actually raped every year and maybe worry a little less about your proposed miniscule hypothetical
Also, learn to read: https://people.com/tv/kevin-spacey-controversy-timeline/
To replay your own argument: something tells me you wouldn’t be so keen on that if you were the one being accused of a crime you had not committed.
Hahahaha, that’s hilarious. Because I’m actually at extraordinarily high risk of that happening. I’m a nurse. That happens all the time to nurses.
Thorough investigations are done. And no, I don’t worry about it. You know why? Because I’m not a fucking rapist sexual predator and everyone who knows me knows that.
You gotta wonder about people who are sooooooooooooo worried about being “falsely” accused of rape that they think false accusations are worthy of jail time. What exactly are you doing out there in the world that this is a major concern in your life? That you think it’s even possible for your whole life to be ruined over a baseless accusation?
Because this is simply not something I worry about at all.
Also, maybe actually take ten seconds to read about this person. This was not one accusation, it was dozens in multiple countries spanning decades: https://people.com/tv/kevin-spacey-controversy-timeline/
This is way too close to “if you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to hide” logic.
What exactly are you doing out there in the world that this is a major concern in your life?
Making terrible choices in friends, for one. Never been accused of SA, thank christ, but figured out too late that many people live in their own reality, and rewrite history once the friendship ends. Have also known people who have been in that situation, and even if no charges end up being pressed, it’s still a gut-wrenching situation to be in.
The issue of how to handle SA accusations is such a nightmare that it’s practically inevitable that we have both innocent people convicted, and guilty people acquitted at the same time. Most of the time we don’t have the kind of oversight and institutional procedure you would enjoy if accused.
People, for a whole host of reasons, can be and very much are in different situations than you. Some have very little defense against such allegations, and so it should not be very difficult to understand that they could have their lives destroyed in an instant by false accusations.
For instance, if they engage in non-normalized sexual relations (for their area or country, obviously), be that interracial, same sex, BDSM, etc., particularly if they are not “out”. It’s very easy to go from “he tied me up and we had a great time”, to “that guy did me wrong somehow so now I’m going to press charges and claim he tied me up against my will and raped me”. If you don’t think this happens you’re living in a dream land.
The people who have made false allegations in the past are exactly the reason we can’t just believe every victim that comes forward without proof. They are why we can’t have nice things. It’s not about the odds and ratios either, the state putting a completely innocent person in jail is a travesty of the system. The travesties of what we do to each other are the realities of living on a planet with other humans, we are terrible to one another regularly. We must do the absolute best we can to support victims of sexual assault…untested rape kits are a fucking abomination for instance and I’d be fine with tar and feathers for whoever let that happen. But we still must stop short of allowing even one innocent person to be put in jail.
