FREQUENT FABRICATION OF RAPE ALLEGATIONS: A PARANOID FANTASY

I am the daughter of a man who believes that most rape allegations are fabricated.  I think part of his belief is good ol’ fashioned fear of being vulnerable to a woman.  But his attitude derives in large part from his experiences in the military police more than forty years ago-- experiences that he had never examined from the woman’s perspective, at least not until I got done with him.  One of his jobs was to assist in the investigation of crimes on military bases, including rapes. 

According to my dad, if a woman on a base claimed to have been raped, the lead investigator, would sit her down for an interview.  The lead investigator was my father’s Superior Officer, whom I will refer to as “S.O.”  S.O. was an elderly, “courtly” gentleman with a “just folks” sort of manner.  S.O. would start off the interview by telling the woman, “You know, we’re here Lula Mae, because we want to get to the bottom of what happened, and it’s important because you’ve alleged a serious crime that should be severely punished if it really happened.  But we’re also talking about a young man here with a bright future ahead of him, and you wouldn’t want to see a young man like that punished unjustly, would you Lula Mae?”  (When my dad retells this story, he always gives the woman some ridiculously stereotypical, “redneck” sounding name.) 

S.O. would then ask “Lula Mae” a series of questions along the lines of: “So you invited Tommy in for a cup of coffee and a piece of pie, huh?  And, I’ll bet you really missed your husband at that point, isn’t that right, Lula Mae? I understand that it’s gotta be awfully hard being all on your own when your husband’s off in training. Were you wearing a pretty dress that day, Lula Mae?  You probably wanted Tommy to think you looked pretty in that dress, didn’t you? It’s only human, right? You’ve always thought Tommy was a good lookin’ boy, haven’t you? I mean, who could blame you. It’s okay, Lula Mae, but it’s important that you tell me the truth: were you flirting with Tommy?”

Anyway, it goes on and on until whaddya know-- Lula Mae tearfully admits that she had cheated on her husband with Tommy and “cried rape” when she realized what a terrible thing she had done.  And I grew up hearing this story repeatedly when I was a little girl and a teenager, and I believed it.  I thought, gee, I guess most of these stories are fabricated.  How could I deny my father’s experience of having seen so many women recant their allegations of rape?  Even when I became a prosecutor, I was prepared to examine the rape cases that crossed my desk with plenty of skepticism because I knew (or so I thought) that most allegations were suspect.

But then I met actual rape victims, including victims who not only provided very credible testimony but whose allegations were corroborated by physical evidence or a confession by the rapist. 

Virtually every rape victim I met was tormented by self-accusation regarding what she might have done differently to avert the rape.  Thoughts like, “I was complicit because I wanted him to think I was hot . . . I was wrong to flirt so much,” are all too common. (Even though I’ve never been raped, I can relate to those guilt feelings myself -- I’ve certainly beaten myself up for “making” a guy like me.  I’ve even felt guilty for just taking pleasure in the fact that a guy I didn’t want to date was attracted to me.)  Virtually every rape victim faced censure from her own family and friends for “causing” the situation and potentially “ruining” the man’s life.  I’ve seen cases where teenaged victims are viewed by their own mothers as little Lolitas.  As one mother said to me, even though she actually didn’t know any of the details about what her daughter was alleging, “You know how these young girls are . . . and how they like to flirt with older men.”

The easiest thing in the world is to talk a rape victim into abandoning her case. Even today, rape victims are typically subject to so much skepticism, that why the hell would anyone want to go through all that.  In the story my dad likes to tell, the S.O. made it clear as a bell to “Lula Mae” that: (1) his main concern was the welfare of the “young man,” (2) that he certainly believed she was complicit in what had happened, (3) that he was not going to credit her allegations no matter what, and (4) that she could expect to basically be called a whore if she pursued her case.  Why wouldn’t she recant even a truthful allegation? 

And I haven’t even described the half of what rape victims often undergo.  Many victims with whom I worked faced public disclosures about their most intimate personal lives.  In one case, a defendant claimed that his ex-girlfriend had fabricated the rape allegation against him because she blamed him for allowing her to get an abortion.  Her abortion therefore became front page news.  In another case (also involving an ex-boyfriend-and-girlfriend), the defendant’s attorney tried to introduce into evidence sex toys and pornographic videos that the defendant and the victim had used in their prior consensual relationship.  Although there was virtually no chance that the jury would be allowed to see this evidence, which had no relevance whatsoever to the allegations, I still had to sit down with the victim and tell her that the defense attorney, judge, court reporter and I had examined all of these items, had them marked as potential evidence, and that they could potentially be shown to the jury.  Oh-- and don’t forget the rape kit exam -- the lovely procedure in which the victim, assuming she reports the crime quickly enough, lies naked on an examination table with her legs in stirrups while a nurse combs through her pubic hair and examines every orifice of her body to collect potential evidence of the rape.  And, finally, a crucial part of the process in every rape case is the requirement that every victim systematically recount the rape step-by-step in all of it’s physical details: on videotape for the police in the initial interview and, if there is no plea agreement, again for the prosecutor perhaps several times during witness preparation, and finally on the witness stand in a courtroom.  Typical questions I might ask a rape victim might include such things as: “How were your legs positioned when he inserted his penis into you?”  Unfortunately, it is often necessary to establish the physical steps of the rape in excruciating detail to show the jury how the rape could have happened. 

Now, I’m not saying that we should do away with zealous defense attorneys, rape kit exams, and the grueling process of having to answer numerous questions about one’s rape. Because it is important that we have a system in which accusations of rape (as well as other crimes) are proven beyond a reasonable doubt.   

What I am saying is that bringing a rape allegation in criminal court ain’t a bed of roses.  It’s not like a woman can simply “cry rape” and bam-- the man’s life is ruined.  So the common defense theories that a woman brings the rape allegation because she has been “scorned” (as in “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”) or because she felt guilty about having sex or for some similarly petty reason make no sense.  A person would have to be pathologically vindicative to put herself through all this crap just because she’s mad that he didn’t call or some such thing. 

Let me make it clear what else I'm not saying: I am not saying there are no false accusations.  I am not saying that rape allegations should not be examined carefully and critically before charging or convicting someone.  And I do want to reassure people that there are support systems in place for rape victims and a ton of education for investigators and prosecutors such that (I hope) we do not see too many guys like the S.O. in my dad’s story anymore.  Despite the bleak picture I have recounted, I pray that as many as victims as possible will pursue their criminal cases.  I can't blame anyone who chooses not to make a report to the police: but I am grateful to those brave women who do come forward and go through the process so that others may be protected from their rapist. 

My main point, however, despite this rambling is that in light of all the burdens and pressures placed on victims (some an appropriate by-product of the presumption of innocence, some mere cultural prejudice), the notion that women frequently make this stuff up and stick to a false story all the way through trial is a paranoid fantasy.  One of my favorite moments was a few years ago, when my dad had retold the story of Lula Mae and the S.O. for the millionth time, and I was able to turn to him and say, "Dad, S.O. was an A__H____ - and here's why."

(I have written previously -- and with more brevity! -- about the issue of he said/she said cases here.)

Comments

[Will]

To be clear, I do not believe that most rape allegations are fabricated. The vast majority of criminal warrants, including rape, were valid. I believe the conviction rate is probably in the high 80 percent range.

I'll let my other posts speak for themselves, but I wanted to be clear about that.

[Will]

To be clear, I do not believe that most rape allegations are fabricated. The vast majority of criminal warrants, including rape, were valid. I believe the conviction rate is probably in the high 80 percent range.

I'll let my other posts speak for themselves, but I wanted to be clear about that.

[The Happy Feminist]

Oh, I know Will. But I think that there IS a widespread belief in many quarters even today that there are frequent false allegations.

[L.]

I don`t believe it happens frequently, but... I knew a woman who made a false accusation to get her boyfriend back. She thought he would rally to her side, and he did, at first, until her story fell apart.

This was at college (Smith). None of us who knew her, and knew she had serious problems, believed her story.

But the few of us who said this out loud were lambasted for doubting a rape victim. I lost a friend over this -- she said she didn`t want to speak to a callous unfeeling woman who would doubt another woman`s story.

The accuser knew she would be examined after her attack claim, so in order for sperm to be present, she went and had sex with an Amherst friend that night. He came forward, and said that rather than her story of an attack in deserted area by a stranger, she`d really had consensual sex in his dorm room.
Confronted with his statement, she recanted.

But I believe that what she did was extremely rare. She was a very disturbed person.

[wdegraw]

I was a prosecutor for many years in a very large urban area, and prosecuted sex crimes for many of those years. As a male, there was a whole other dimension to interviewing victims alleging sexual assault, almost all of whom were women (there were some male victims, but not many). One that I often tried to overlook - but one certainly not overlooked by the women I was interviewing, often in adversial settings.

That being said, I linked into this post after seeing that you were scolded by the court interpreter. This is a fantastic (for lack of a more thoughtful term, at the moment) post on a very difficult subject.

[Anonymous Lurker]

(I'm only posting anonymously because I like to keep my military status low profile on the Internet)

I just wanted to inform you that the military environment is getting better. There's a reat deal of attention given to prevention here, most bases have hotlines for counseling and multiple ways of reporting. Every squadron in my Wing has a person appointed to ensuring everyong if properly informed about the programs. The last sexual assault briefing I attended featured a video that put forth a remarkably well-thoguht out scenario of "acquaintence rape" where the female had started out attracted to the male in question, had agreed to let him drive her hoem when she'd gotten too drunk (because he kept plying her with double whiskey sours) and several friends stood by and essentially enabled the crime. It went through the motivations and behavior of each of the five characters, and was fascinating. There was certainly no implication that most accusations were false, and a great deal of time was spent on explaining exactly why this crime was harmful, and how Airmen in the "bystander" positions could have prevented it, and the importance of bringing forth even a small piece of corraberating information.

Now, the cops, on the other hand, probably haven't gotten much better. A guy in my office had his car stolen and when he reported it was questioned for several hours and they tried to get him to admit he had faked the crime so can't imagine an assault victim getting much better treatment.

Baby steps, I suppose.

[Richard]

What strikes me as peculiar is prosecutors’ reluctance to admit that innocent men go to prison due to false rape allegations. We get the normal platitudes about them having been very “careful” in their investigation, and how the woman is so “very brave”, but none of them want to deal with the actual statistics and just how uncertain it is that the vast majority of reports are actually rapes. Consider the following Wikipedia “Rape” entry, under the subheading “Over reporting and false reporting” (in its entirety):
________________

A 1997 article in the Columbia Journalism Review dealing with the debate surrounding false reporting, noted that wildly different figures, from 2% to 85% of all rape reports, have been presented:

"... one explanation for such a wide range in the statistics might simply be that they come from different studies of different populations... But there's also a strong political tilt to the debate. A low number would undercut a belief about rape as being as old as the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife: that some women, out of shame or vengeance ... claim that their consensual encounters or rebuffed advances were rapes. If the number is high, on the other hand, advocates for women who have been raped worry it may also taint the credibility of the genuine victims of sexual assault."

In 1994, Dr. Eugene J. Kanin of Purdue University investigated the incidences, in one small metropolitan community, of false rape allegations made to the police between 1978 and 1987. The falseness of the allegations was not decided by the police, or by Dr. Kanin; they were "... declared false only because the complainant admitted they are false." The number of false rape allegations in the studied period was 45; this was 41% of the 109 total complaints filed in this period. In Dr. Kanin's research, the complainants who made false allegations did so (by their own statements during recantation) for three major reasons:

-- providing an alibi;
-- a means of gaining revenge; and/or
-- a platform for seeking attention/sympathy.

Dr. Kanin's small study is widely reported and quoted. In her work, "The Legacy of the Prompt Complaint Requirement, Corroboration Requirement, and Cautionary Instructions on Campus Sexual Assault", Michelle J. Anderson of the Villanova University School of Law states: "As a scientific matter, the frequency of false rape complaints to police or other legal authorities remains unknown". The FBI's 1996 Uniform Crime Report states that 8% of reports of forcible rape were determined to be unfounded upon investigation.
______________

You will have a knee-jerk reaction of dismissing Dr. Kanin’s report for one reason or another, this I know. And this is what concerns me, the apparent complete lack of curiosity about the true number of false reports by those charged with prosecuting rape. When I broach this subject with folks in law enforcement it’s as if I’m challenging some religious doctrine; something deep in their soul is threatened by the very possibility that false reports might be significantly higher than they believe. The possibility for them is off the table, because they are "very careful", the woman have been "through so much", and we are lucky to have such "brave" women "come foreword". That's all I get.

Finally, it would have been instructional if you told us what the accused rapists go through as the result of the accusation, and what their lives look like afterward if they are eventually acquitted. Here in Pennsylvania, as in most of the nation, newspapers follow the wonderfully bias editorial policy of naming the accused, but keeping the accuser’s name anonymous. (How many times did your office ask the press to keep the name of the accused secret?) I’m also interested in how many charges for false rape reporting your office brought when you worked there (or even in the last decade for that matter), and what kind of resources your office devoted to prosecuting false rape reporters. I always find those numbers to be extremely educational whenever I ask.

[Richard]

Follow-up: Took me about 10 minutes to compile the following links. I limited myself to only news stories that have been reported in the last 11 days (since 1/1/06). The list is only a sampling. It is not exhaustive.

Former TU student cleared of rape charge
http://www.advertiser-tribune.com/news/story/0112202006_new01rape0112.asp

Officer Resigns After Being Cleared of Rape Charges
http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2006/01/09/officer_resigns_after_being_cleared_of_rape_charges/

Stroudsburg man cleared of rape charge
http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060110/NEWS/601100323

Sex Charges: York man acquitted
http://www.ydr.com/newsfull/ci_3388361

PROVO, Utah -- Former Brigham Young football player Karland Bennett, who accepted a plea bargain in a purported rape while two teammates went on to trial and were acquitted, has been allowed to withdraw his plea.
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=2281238

INGLESIDE- There's new information on the alleged rape of a 14-year-old girl at Ingleside High School. The suspect in the case, a 15-year-old student has been cleared of all charges.
http://www.kristv.com/Global/story.asp?S=4337750

Man Sues After Rape Charge is Dropped:
http://www.wvec.com/news/local/stories/wvec_local_011106_wm_rape_charge_dropped.696e343a.html

Court Blocks Innocent Man's Lawsuit: Alexander, 37, was charged in four rapes that occurred in 1996. His first trial ended in a hung jury. He was acquitted in one of the three remaining attacks but convicted in the other two and sentenced to 70 years in prison. He was released in December 2001 after a DNA test proved he was innocent of the rape. Alexander sued in June 2002, claiming police officers targeted him because he is black and that he was identified through faulty photo arrays and a suggestive lineup.
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060104/NEWS01/601040472

DA Office Admits Evidence Withheld: The Rensselaer County district attorney's office has admitted withholding evidence at a November 2002 trial that could have affected the verdict of a man now serving 25 years in prison for sodomizing a teenage girl. The admission that the victim had accused another man of rape just weeks before Burton Jeffrey Hunter's trial comes just days before Thursday's scheduled hearing before County Judge Patrick McGrath to determine if a new trial is warranted.
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=436040&category=REGIONOTHER&BCCode=&newsdate=1/5/2006

[Daran]

>>>Follow-up: Took me about 10 minutes to compile the following links. I limited myself to only news stories that have been reported in the last 11 days (since 1/1/06). The list is only a sampling. It is not exhaustive.

Your point? People get acquitted of charges all the time. That doesn't mean that the complainants were false accusers.

[Laurelin]

I think that Happy also demonstrated in her post that there are reasons why women will withdraw rape complaints, and will even say they made them up when they did not. The confusion, anguish and guilt that a rape survivor suffers cannot be overestimated, and I think that Richard has unwittingly shown us the attitude that causes these feelings in survivors of sexual assault.

[Daran]

>>>And this is what concerns me, the apparent complete lack of curiosity about the true number of false reports by those charged with prosecuting rape.

For a start, the "true number" that might possibly interest Prosecutors is not the raw number of false reports, but the number which survive the police investigation. I know of no evidence to indicate that this is not vanishingly small.

In any case, The prosecutor's job is to decide whether there is enough evidence to prosecute the accused. If the answer is 'yes', then the prosecutor has determined that *this* report is most probably true, so the possiblly large number of *other* reports which are false is irrelevent. If the answer is 'No', then the case does not proceed anyway, and it is not important to the prosecutor to decide whether the case was actually false.

[michelle]

>>>And this is what concerns me, the apparent complete lack of curiosity about the true number of false reports by those charged with prosecuting rape.

I'm curious about the lack of curiousity about the number of false reports for other crimes. I'm curious why you ignore the high profile cases where the accused gets off "scot-free" (Kobe Bryant type) or with a meaningless sentence like the Vermont man (http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48219) who was convicted for raping a 7 year old girl for 4 years, and given a 60-day sentence (only the most recent in a long line of such cases). I'm curious why the rare anecdote about a woman who falsely accused trumps the much larger number of personal anecdotes about female acquaintences who couldn't get a justified conviction, or those whispered stories we carry around of the family with the male relative who sexually abused his daughter/niece/cousin girl for years. Whispered because it was never brought out publically, just buried away because that sort of thing doesn't happy in "nice" families. Somehow a rate of false accusations equivalent to the rates of falses on other crimes trumps how many more men don't ever get accused or convicted.

Truly, one never sees this level of concern about possible false convictions for any other crime.

[ceejayoz]

> The falseness of the allegations was not decided by the police, or by Dr. Kanin; they were "... declared false only because the complainant admitted they are false."

Just like "Lula Mae" did?

Go figure - in your haste to cry "look how many false rape claims there are!", you even didn't read the post.

[Richard]

Darin-- Yeah yeah, the old acquitted-but-still-guilty argument (sigh).

My point is that it is extremely easy to find rape acquitals, much more so than other crimes. That may be because the nature of the crime's focus on consent (and therefore intent). Absent strong evidence of contemporanous physical abuse and/or an eye witness, it becomes a he said/she said matter that is very much open to abuse. (In such a case, God help the black man missing his front teeth who is accused by an innocent-looking pretty white woman.)

Your argument that the "possibly large number of other reports which are false is irrelevant" is just the kind of thinking that amazes me. If a certain type of crime is known to be more open to false reporting than other types of crimes, than this is an extrememly important fact that I believe public policy should take into account.

Finally, you say "the 'true number' that might possibly interest Prosecutors is not the raw number of false reports, but the number which survive the police investigation. I know of no evidence to indicate that this is not vanishingly small." ... Do you know of any evidence whatsoever? Absence of eveidence doesn't mean it's untrue. I'm not being smart, I'd really like to know, and I've never seen any numbers either.

[Tara]

Richard, it seems like you're assuming that bringing a rape accusation to trial is easier than other accusations (despite all the evidence from Happy Feminist to indicate otherwise). Furthermore it seems that you're alleging that since it's easier (in your view), women will do it. You admit that we can't really know why they would, except that people (women) do things for strange reasons. Sounds like paranoia+misogyny to me.

Also, even if there is a higher rate of acquittal for rape trials (always remembering that not guilty /= innocent), (and is there? Or are they just more high profile?) your explanation is that this is due to more false allegations? This ignores the cultural and legal context of rape trials in a spectacular way. It also assumes that the police and prosecutor's office all of a sudden become less competent when dealing with rape cases, since the evidence shows that rape is actually falsely reported at the same rate of other crimes.

But, I'm sure that if you really want numbers that 'prove' that women are irrational lying creatures out to hurt men, you'll find them...

[will]

Laurelin:

You seem to imply that false rape claims are virtually nonexistent.

I repeat that I believe that most rape claims are valid. However, that does not mean that false claims are nonexistent.

Our views on this subject are certainly colored by our experiences. I've seen men who were falsely accused. They are arrested, locked up, humiliated. It is a horrible experience. I have also seen women who were raped. They are humiliated, shamed, distraught.

We should neither automatically believe nor automatically dismiss a claim of rape. Instead, a serious and immediate effort should be made to determine what, if anything, happened.

Automatically accepting the complaintant's story is as bad as automatically dismissing her story. The who, what, where, when, how's should be documented and investigated immediately.

There is another aspect that I would suggest needs to be thought about:

1. A criminal defendant is arrested. The defendant is questioned several different ways, often using lies and tricks. Any inconsistency is used to convict him.

2. Do the police write down the exact first story that the complaintant gives? Do they easily let her add details as she remembers them? Often yes. With criminal defendants, adding details is responded with "Are you lying now or then??!!"

The reality is that we often do not accurately and completely tell a story the first time. As we tell a true story, we remember details later.

The system relies on a good, experienced investigator willing to disbelieve the complaintant and a good experienced prosecutor willing to disbelieve the complainant.

People lie to their lawyers all the time. Every single day, they walk into a lawyer's office and lie, even though the lawyer tells them he/she NEEDS the truth. To assume that people do not lie to prosecutors is naivity.

[Hershele Ostropoler]

Richard, you give me the impression you believe there's an inadvertant conspiracy among the world's women to take down men through false accusations of rape, that accusations of rape are just another weapon in the sex war. Assuming arguendo that a substantial majority of accusations are indeed false, what do you think is the reason all these false accusations are being made?

[The Happy Feminist]

No time to respond in detail until this evening, Richard, but I, an ex-prosecutor, hereby CONCEDE that men in our country in recent years as well as in the past have been falsely convicted of rape (although I don't necessarily concede that the links you have provided, which I haven't yet read, are examples of same). I think that there are false convictions in our system for every criminal charge -- that's a function of human fallibility and the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard, which is not the same thing as "beyond all doubt." I think false convictions are horrifying things, and I pray that I have not been responsible for any.

But that doesn't detract from my main point that all too often there is a RUSH TO JUDGMENT of the alleged victim (ha! I love using defense attorney phrases against defense attoreys!) without a full understanding of rape law or the pressures that victims face. I will also concede that rape can become overly politicized such that no rape charge can ever be questioned in a particular prosecutor's office, and that's a concern too, but I will address that in more detail later. (I've got a new post in my head for tonight.)

[will]

Wow hershele, your statement is a stretch. Richard is not saying that is always happens. I think he and I are responding to the arguments that it rarely, if ever, happens.

What is so hard about agreeing that it happens with more frequency than it should? To me, it sounds like everyone here is saying it happens less than 2 percent.

How often do you think false claims of rape occur? Never? 2 percent? 15 percent? 25 percent? 50 percent? 90 percent?

[will]

"I will also concede that rape can become overly politicized such that no rape charge can ever be questioned in a particular prosecutor's office,"

excellent point HappyF

[Tara]

Will said:"We should neither automatically believe nor automatically dismiss a claim of rape."

I think my problem here is which 'we' you're talking about.

In general, I think that as a woman and friend, I should automatically believe claims of rape (except perhaps in very exceptional cases).

If by saying 'we' you're assimilating yourself to the criminal justice system, then I do agree with you. All criminal allegations should be competently investigated. BUT I think that there is a world of difference between starting the investigation from a place of trust and support for the (alleged) victim (all the while being open to the possibility that it's not true) versus starting the investigation from a place where it's 50/50 the allegation is true and why should you believe *her* anyway.

[Tara]

Will said:"We should neither automatically believe nor automatically dismiss a claim of rape."

I think my problem here is which 'we' you're talking about.

In general, I think that as a woman and friend, I should automatically believe claims of rape (except perhaps in very exceptional cases).

If by saying 'we' you're assimilating yourself to the criminal justice system, then I do agree with you. All criminal allegations should be competently investigated. BUT I think that there is a world of difference between starting the investigation from a place of trust and support for the (alleged) victim (all the while being open to the possibility that it's not true) versus starting the investigation from a place where it's 50/50: the allegation is true or she's a lying irrational bitch out to ruin someone's life.

[will]

Tara:

I agree that it is a very fine line to walk. However, remember the criminal justice system is to punish a criminal. The criminal justice system does not exist to counsel, comfort, and support the woman. Those are extremely important, necessary things for a woman to receive. It is a very difficult job to make a woman comfortable to discuss a difficult, humiliating event while insuring justice.

However, a prosecutor's job is to do justice. A prosecutor's role is not to be the woman's advocate, but to insure justice. Those are two different roles.

[will]

"In general, I think that as a woman and friend, I should automatically believe claims of rape (except perhaps in very exceptional cases)."

Tara, one other thing. As a friend, I understand your comment. But I do not agree with you about "as a woman." Men are not for rape and women against. We should all be against rape and against false accusations. Gender should not impact justice.

[Richard]

Thanks for the help Will. I've been running into some high level zealotry the past few days, the edge of a very extreme side of feminism where people that disagree get fancy labels, like misogynist or idiot, and where you get your address posted online, I suppose as a we-know-where-to-find you form of intimidation. (I’m not talking Happy F. here; she’s treated me extremely well). I wrote a even-headed response on one of the sites that was hammering me, and (surprise) the moderator didn’t let it post. So I’m effectively silenced from the site. I’ve seen this kind of thing before so I can’t say I’m too surprised. It’s a very, very dark and ugly edge of feminism.