w.iOver at Ragnell’s site, she was addressing her loss of love for Dan Slott’s She-Hulk series. She raises some good points about the failings of the series. One point that I kind of agree with and kind of don’t is this:
“Which means we have another fake rape accusation in the pop culture consciousness. In a culture where it already so damned hard to bring a rape to trial because so many people that women are just waiting to make an accusation at the slightest offense. Where I can get into a 45 minute argument at work with men who think that there is actually some sort of gain in going to the police to report a rape,”
Was this a piss poor resolution to the story in She-Hulk? Yes. I don’t think there is any gain in it…So, again, I agree. But I get the impression that Ragnell believes noone has ever lied about rape. The main logic being that there is no benefit to doing it, so no person would go to the police and say they were raped if it were not true.
(Ragnell, please feel free to correct me if I am misreading you)
But the truth is, people do bizarre things that seem to lack gain. To presume noone lies about horrible, tragic, evil and criminal situations is to ignore the reality that on occassion, people do things that make no sense. I know people that have lied about being abused, witnessing abuse, witnessing other crimes and so on. It does happen. People lie about things you would think they would not lie about. We had the Satanic/Sexual abuse scare in daycares across the country several years ago. Most of the involved cases ruined the lives of people who were not satanic child molestors. But their lives were ruined well before the veil of hysteria lifted. I also believe that overall, these are extremely rare instances.
Does this change anything? No. If someone says they were raped? First you take a person at their word. If their claim falls apart? Then you start questioning if they are telling the truth. And should it be used as an easy out in a comic book story? No. That’s in poor taste. But to be upset at the idea that on rare occassion, someone might lie about being raped is to pretend that the human race only does things that make sense.
).
I think what she’s upset about, is the feeling that some men have not that women LIE about rape, but that we think EVERYTHING is rape. :\ That if we claim rape, it was prolly just consensual smex that we regretted, or something. The problem she’s annoyed about I think is when it starts becoming a recurring theme in entertainment to the point where most ppl whose lives just revolve around what they learn from tv/comics/etc, begin to believe that most rape accusations are false.
I rly hate when ppl do lie about rape tho b/c it just adds to this idea