Thread by @MSS3RosaFerreum

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood The paper @MichaelGLFlood presents complains that MRAs in Canada are illegitimately challenging the feminists gains regarding the "affirmative consent" standard for rape. Let's go point for point and see what is reasonable.

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood "Canada has moved towards an affirmative consent standard…. There is no implied consent in Canadian law; silence and ambiguity cannot be taken as indicating agreement to engage in sex; and consent must be active throughout a sexual encounter." @MichaelGLFlood's paper, p. 66.

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood Bill C-51 altered the Criminal Code as follows:

Canadian Criminal Code § 276(2): "…evidence shall not be adduced by or on behalf of the accused that the complainant has engaged in sexual activity other than the sexual activity that forms the subject-matter of the charge…."

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood Canadian Criminal Code § 276(4): "…sexual activity includes any communication made for a sexual purpose or whose content is of a sexual nature."

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood If you record consent, each consent recording constitutes a separate sex act different from the sex act that is charged as a sexual assault (read: rape). Thus, each such consent recording requires special permission to be admitted. This made innocence harder to prove in Canada.

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood Canadian Criminal Code § 273.2(b): "the accused believed that the complainant consented to the activity…, where … the accused did not take reasonable steps, in the circumstances known to the accused at the time, to ascertain that the complainant was consenting."

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood Canadian Criminal Code § 273.2(c): "the accused believed that the complainant consented to the activity…, where … there is no evidence that the complainant’s voluntary agreement to the activity was affirmatively expressed by words or actively expressed by conduct."

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood When one needs to prove that one sought and got affirmative consent by law in order to show that the sex one engaged in wasn't rape, but the evidence of that consent also can be excluded as a matter of law, I, too, would be concerned with the possibility of any false accusations.

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood In such a legal climate where one might reasonably fear that one would be legally forbidden from demonstrating one's innocence, it's entirely reasonable to campaign for women to not falsely accuse men of rape (even if such false accusations were rare since there isn't a remedy).

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood According to @MichaelGLFlood's paper, MRAs in Canada took the entirely reasonable action of encouraging women to not falsely accuse men of rape (using the same visual style that feminists used to encourage men not to rape). If it's good for the goose, it's good for the gander.

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood The only reason can think of that @MichaelGLFlood would offer this academic diatribe (since there's no quantitative evidence therein) as evidence that MRAs are wrong is that @MichaelGLFlood is perfectly okay with sending innocent men to prison as sexual offenders with no defense.

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood For those following along, the relevant part of Canada's Criminal Code (with Bill C-51 already incorporated) can be found here:
laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/

Now let's move on to how rare false accusations are (to the extent that can be demonstrated).

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood On page 67 of the paper @MichaelGLFlood presents, it is contended that "false accusations are very rare" and the paper takes particular issue with the "high police un‐founding rates… and low conviction rates."

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood "At the core of [feminist] discourse on rape is … that 'women don't lie' about sexual abuse. The foundation for such a … statement is … that false accusations of rape are very rare; specifically, …no more than [2%] of such complaints are invalid." 33 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 948.

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood "Even if we assume arguendo that all those convicted are indeed guilty, and
that a full two-thirds of those acquitted at trial were also guilty, we would still wind up with a situation in which one-sixth of those actually tried are really innocent." 33 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 952.

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood "Despite the plethora of … citations, it turns out that there is … only one[] underlying source [for the 2% figure]—feminist publicist Susan Brownmiller's interpretation of some data… of unknown provenance from a single police department unit." 33 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 955–956.

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood "…Professor Deborah Rhode['s] belief that 'two percent false = other felonies' is a consensus fact that… likely comes from having perused numerous … feminist articles and books which …recycle it from… Susan Brownmiller's _Against Our Will_." 33 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 958.

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood "[Feminist] literature advances the proposition that 'women don't lie about rape' as an axiomatic substrate to their proposed policy changes fueled by the purported two percent false claim figure." 33 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 960.

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood "[A]ccording to [feminists], since only two percent of rape claims are false, this conviction rate is radically insufficient to achieve justice for women within the legal system." 33 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 962.

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood "[B]ecause of its axiom that virtually all complaints of rape are legitimate, a …goal of [feminism] is to reform the legal definition of 'consent' in rape… to become more favorable to women, thereby making conviction at trial easier to accomplish." 33 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 962–963.

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood "Problems arise… when the situation is consistent with two opposite meanings… [where] the silent woman is afraid to object… [or] her consent is unvoiced…, [assuming] the woman's complaint is valid…, [but] one could… infer… consent or non-consent." 33 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 964.

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood "[I]f consent required express verbal speech acts on the part of the woman, there would probably be hundreds of times as many acts defined as rape as there are [in the year 2000]." 33 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 964.

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood "[B]lack men are no more likely to rape than white men. The radical disproportion in rape imprisonment rates can then be seen as a… marker as to just how racist the criminal …process… actually is. [Feminism's] proposal is implicitly racist." 33 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 969–971.

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood "It seems clear that the [2%] false claim figure… has no basis in fact. Since this figure is …unsupported, there is no justification for shifting the burden of proof or redefining consent in rape crimes in accordance with this figure." 33 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 971.

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood The above quotes come from Edward Greer, "The Truth Behind Legal Dominance Feminism's Two Percent False Rape Claim Figure," 33 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 947 (2000).

Available at:
digitalcommons.lmu.edu/llr/vol33/iss3…

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood If 2% is wrong, what is right? The FBI wrote that "[e]ight percent of forcible rape complaints in 1996 were 'unfounded', while the average for all Index crimes was 2 percent" (ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u…, p. 24). However, unfounded and forcible rape, as used here, need to be defined.

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood "Forcible rape… is the carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will. Assaults or attempts to commit rape by force or threat of force are also included; however, statutory rape (without force) and other sex offenses are excluded" (ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u…, p. 23).

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood Forcible rape definition doesn't include rape that is merely against consent according to the FBI (justice.gov/archives/opa/b…).

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood "The 'unfounded' rate, or percentage of complaints determined through investigation to be false, is higher for forcible rape than for any other Index crime" (ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u…, p. 24). Unfounded is proven false which is not inclusive of all false claims.

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood The "unfounded" rate produces a sort of floor to the false rape allegation rate. These are the demonstrably false allegations. Add to this the successes of the @innocence project.

Defendants are innocent until demonstrated guilty because it is difficult to demonstrate innocence.

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood @innocence Assuming arguendo (like Edward Greer at 33 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 952) that all those convicted are indeed guilty, and that a full 2/3s of those acquitted at trial were also guilty, we would still wind up with a situation in which 1/6th of those actually tried are really innocent.

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood @innocence From the @innocence project, we know that not all those convicted are indeed guilty, we just don't know how many have actually been falsely convicted.

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood @innocence Crimes statistics are tricky because you must know whether the crime actually happened to evaluate whether the allegation is false, which is impossible for an outside observer. We use proxies (like inconsistencies) to guestimate false allegations, but those are quite imperfect.

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood @innocence Some witnesses are terrible and don't seem credible despite telling the truth and some some witnesses are good liars who seem credible despite telling a complete falsehood. These phenomena together result in both false convictions and false acquittals, both of which are terrible.

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood @innocence We have to set aside the unknowable and accept that there is some irreducible uncertainty in the figures we are using that no research method can eliminate.

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood @innocence Noting that the @innocence project proves claims false after conviction so even the conviction rate doesn't indicate how many rape claims are true. Overcoming res judicata is hard. Moreover, the FBI indicated a demonstrably false allegation rate of 8% (ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u…).

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood @innocence 69% of the exonerations involving the @innocence project involved eyewitness misidentification and 32% of those cases involved multiple misidentifications of the same person (innocenceproject.org/dna-exoneratio…). There is a reason science doesn't use eyewitness testimony as evidence!

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood @innocence When even multiple witnesses cannot be relied upon to get it correct and when the demonstrably false allegation rate in the case of rape appears to be more than 400% of other crimes, it seems silly to criticize MRAs position upon the purported rarity of false rape allegations.

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood @innocence It again seems (because the paper @MichaelGLFlood presents takes issue with the "high police un‐founding rates… and low conviction rates") that it's @MichaelGLFlood's position that it is appropriate to punish innocent men as sex offenders (given what's been demonstrated herein).

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood @innocence @MichaelGLFlood's position causes dire consequences.

"Abolition [of the reasonable mistake to consent defense] would…, by making sex with one's date a riskier business from the man's standpoint, reduce… the incidence of such sex." Richard Posner, Sex and Reason, 394 (1992).

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood @innocence "By increasing the cost of dating to men, such measures would reduce the amount of dating, and heterosexual women would suffer." Richard Posner, Sex and Reason, 395 (1992).

We are already seeing the rise of MGTOW and the Pence Rule as a result (and the decline in birthrates).

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood @innocence This isn't sustainable!

The legal measures discussed don't reduce the number of rapes (but it does make it harder to demonstrate innocence). Those legal measures don't make society safer; on the contrary, those legal measures make it less safe for innocent men. This must change!

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood @innocence Any thoughts on the above, @Mephitus_Skunk?

@Jovangnr @MichaelGLFlood @innocence @ThreadReaderApp please unroll.