this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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[–] Icaria@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Chetzemoka@kbin.social -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You're being deliberately obtuse and conflating completely different situations, and I think you're doing it on purpose to muddy the waters. An accusation after a breakup that cause a fight among friends is a very different situation from a report to the police. Even a report to the police often doesn't trigger an investigation. And God knows it rarely triggers an actual prosecution. These are simply not things that you need to worry about, if you're not running around the world raping people. If it causes you anxiety that severe, get therapy.

Because it's not the giant boogeyman that internet apologists like to pretend it is, with data:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21164210/

Compared to actual real sexual assault, which IS a huge problem:

https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/sexualviolence/fastfact.html

Because I'm sorry, but losing a few friends is not a terrible enough consequence for me to get worked up about. Shit happens, friends get in fights and stop being friends over all sorts of dumb shit. I see zero reason why that would cause someone to go through their lives in mortal fear that they might be "falsely" accused of a sex crime.

The issue of how to handle sexual assault accusations is not complicated. I told you, we handle them all the time in the medical field. You default to protecting the accuser, you do a thorough investigation, if the investigation turns up no evidence, you move on.

A "he said, she said" situation that never gets formally investigated, but causes the breakup of some friendships is not as terrible as being actually raped. It's just not.

[–] Icaria@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Don't accuse me of being obtuse and conflating different situations when you just attacked a massive strawman. I'm not talking about rumours, more like someone showing up to a party at your place, acting weird from the moment she showed up, locking herself in the toilet, self-harming, then wasting weeks of your life and doing a number on your sanity after going to the police, claiming she was raped. This isn't a hypothetical.

Compared to actual real sexual assault, which IS a huge problem

You repeat some variation of this about 3 times in your reply. This is called relative privation. Two things can be problems at the same time, and it doesn't need to be a competition over which one we're allowed to care about.

The issue of how to handle sexual assault accusations is not complicated. I told you, we handle them all the time in the medical field. You default to protecting the accuser, you do a thorough investigation, if the investigation turns up no evidence, you move on.

Speaking of conflation... most people don't have the luxury of a professional environment with oversight and procedures for handling these situations. You live in a fantasy land if you think this is how actual human relationships play out, or if this is how they're investigated.