Its a very scary thing to think that a false accusation can ruin your life. There really is no other situation where an accusation can put you in prison based on hearsay.
It is a very difficult situation all around.
First, the issue of "consent" is largely based on verbal statements and actions. It has been, is, and always will be a very difficult area to navigate, from an evidentiary and legal process standpoint.
Second, guys need to deal with the reality of what women have to deal with when it comes to consent, and we have to be honest that sometimes the "nice charming guy" at the beginning of the night and the "guy in the bedroom" are very different individuals, and that a woman who may have been interested in the "nice charming guy" an hour earlier is not at all interested in (possibly) the over-aggressive guy that she encounters once the activity becomes more intimate. A woman should be able to change her mind and revoke her consent at any point before conclusion, and not be forced to "accept it" just because she was initially attracted to a guy and initially interested in intercourse. We have to acknowledge that there are plenty of valid reasons for women to change their minds AT THE TIME (and, no, I'm not talking about a week later).
Third, over and over again, certain posters want to tell "their stories" or "their friends' stories" which are factually unlike what is being described in the article. So, again, I am not accepting the article as "actual factual" yet, but I can acknowledge that the story ALLEGES that the woman was crying AT THE TIME. So all of your "I know a dude who was accused a week later" stories are not relevant to THIS STORY. AT THIS TIME.
Fourth, some posters want to confuse issues and have separate standards for men and women. Go back and look at things that have been written on this thread alone. Somehow, it is OK to refer to a female as a "known ****" (or, ****, even a woman's sister is a "known ****") and have that mean something (not everything, but at least something) about the woman's proclivity, yet when someone talks about THREE GUYS having *** with the same woman on the same night, somehow we get the benefit of flashing forward 20 years to them hanging out at a bachelor party (in their 40s???) and they are somehow bitter about the situation they found themselves in. Hey, here's an idea, guys who don't participate in running a train on a drunken girl (even a seemingly consensual train) tend not to be accused of rape (falsely or truthfully).
Again, none of these statements are absolutes. IT IS POSSIBLE for people to be falsely accused. It is horrible when it happens. But there are also PLENTY of ways to minimize EVER being accused (falsely or truthfully), and a reduction in the amount of alcohol (for all genders) and a reduction in the number of participants (for all genders) goes a long way to clearing up any prior questions on consent and any subsequent issues of remorse.
It's not that hard to do the right thing. And being bitter in your 40s about being "falsely accused" of sexual assault for that one time (one?) you ran a train on a drunken girl is not a great look, particularly when your life (obviously) was NOT "ruined" by the accusation.
As for the guy whose friend's life went poorly after his accusation, I absolutely have sympathy. And at the same time, there have been hundreds of thousands of women whose lives have similarly spiraled downward after they were raped because (until recently) our justice system has not handled their cases very well, from untested rape kits to unhelpful police investigators to misguided attorneys to not-very-understanding judges and juries.
We have to be honest. There is a lot, A LOT, that happens in life that is unjust and horrible. Most of us try to do the best we can, whether that is looking after ourselves and trying to prevent these situations from ever happening to us, to compassionately listening and helping others who have suffered from these situations.
We don't need to have a snap judgement here. We don't have to "100% believe" every aspect of the woman's story from Minute 1. But we also don't have to haul out every "I know a guy who was falsely accused" cliches when the anecdotal stories do not match the facts of THIS STORY.
Let the case be investigated, prosecuted, and decided. Do your best to respect the verdict, as you cannot possibly know what the jury heard or did not hear in evidence.
