So, I’ve read your comment in full and I’ve thought about how to respond to this.

This comic, while it does reference a current event with the Cornell 7, also portrays the type of thoughtless and harmful comments victims of rape are forced to endure.

I think you probably already knew your remarks are in line with the type portrayed in the final panel given you felt the need to add a massive text disclaimer and noted yourself that your remarks would “sound unpopular”.

1. You’re trying to justify the type of remarks in the final panel rape victims often end up hearing. Those type of remarks are not “reasonable”.

You start off with “rape, sexual abuse, and other improper sexual behavior … it’s a serious problem we need to address” and then follow it up immediately with a “but”. There is no “but” here. A woman was gang raped for 7 hours and nothing happened to the perpetrators and this type of thing is all too common for women who live through this kind of thing and then are told to “get over it”.

2. You’re downplaying the women who aren’t believed or never see justice.

I understand you went through a similar situation, as did your mother, and that is absolutely terrible. I’m sorry to hear that to both of you and it’s awful that your abuser was never held accountable.

Like I said, I spent a while thinking about how to address your remarks, and it’s specifically because you shared your experience, but I have a feeling that was the intent here and I feel like you’re using your own trauma as a shield for your other remarks.

You bring up an instance on Discord where someone felt uncomfortable from your interactions and then later talked about it in a vent channel. I don’t know the situation, but I do question your use of terms like “simps”.

“I barely managed to be found innocent, but she wasn’t held accountable either,” Dude their Discord mods, what do you want? Take those things to court, not social media mods.

“In the end, she was a woman and I was just a man. Women-are-wonderful effect in action.” And yet if the world worked like that maybe more women would get justice for the crime committed against them.

“And that happens a lot, and even if the statistics are low” this just personal experience bias.

3. Your main argument is just whataboutism. Example: a black man is shot and killed by a cop, people riot. So cops cry “well what about all the cop deaths”. This isn’t about false allegations. This is about a very real rape that happened and something that many women have to deal with.

Your closing remarks are:

“Yeah, you can’t take it back and cry rape everytime you regret having sex with anyone, because you can be the one doing false allegations too.”

“Yeah, sometimes someone can tell that has been raped because that’s an easy way to destroy someone’s life and earn free money from the victims’ help programs, stealing resources from actual victims.”

And you end it with “Support both kinds of victims”

Basically you refute the situation shown here and end it with a “All Lives Matter” type of statement.

So yes, I will be removing your comment as it does not belong here. This is about rape and what victims go through and is not the place for your remarks.

Coming in with the “both sides are actually bad” when talking about the ungodly massive amount of rape that occurs and the teeny tiny small percentage of false accusations that happen is a truly adolescent, apologist, and downright horrible take.

“Won’t somebody please think of the rape gangs feelings!?”

“You can’t take it back” refers to rescinding consent during the act, not after the act. You can agree to something and then back out. That is what consent is all about.

Nobody is saying that false reporters don’t exist, nor are they saying that people who will claim rape after the fact (who agreed to the act but have second thoughts after the act is over) don’t exist, nor are they saying they don’t support the victims of false reporters.

That is not the subject of this comic and is not what is being talked about here.

The absolute best thing to do for all parties involved is to get verbal consent from both parties and to keep seeking that consent throughout the act, and to do such while both parties are sober and know what is going on.

If you want to protect yourself from false allegations, that’s my advice. If you want to protect yourself from sexual assault and rape, it’s more complicated and there are a lot more things you can do and variables to worry about, but that doesn’t mean this advice isn’t good for that too.

This is rape apology that ignores that cases of false accusation are such a small fraction of overall reports of rape that if you actually think critically, which you are saying to do, you will assume every woman who reports a rape is telling the truth.

Rape is not a case by case basis, rape is overwhelmingly undereported and again, the overwhelming majority of those accusations are real. The rate of “false” reports isn’t even as black and white as you think, if you look at a study, see what those study considers “false”.