I Write Letters

[Content Note: Rape culture.]

Dear People Arguing Overtly or Obliquely That It's a Terrible Idea to Reflexively Believe Survivors:

I see you.

I see you and I hold you in contempt.

Because you purport to care about men who are falsely accused and convicted, but you don't care about the reality that men who have been exonerated after being falsely prosecuted and convicted, virtually always in stranger rape cases where women didn't know and couldn't identify their attackers, are men—often poor black men—who were railroaded by police and prosecutors. Not by survivors.

Because you purport to care about the ubiquity of rape, but care less about a vanishingly small conviction rate than you do about a vanishingly small rate of false reports. Or that many reports deemed "false" were merely unprovable. Or disbelieved by authorities.

Because you purport to care about survivors, and because you make arguments like believing survivors without "proof" makes it harder for other victims, but you aren't listening to those of us who are telling you that believing other survivors, even despite "discrepancies" in their stories, does not make it harder for us; disbelieving them does.

I see you.

Regards,
Liss

P.S. The Costs of Disbelief.