Several folks e-mailed me links to this article in which Cathy Young (a woman, most pointed out) is concerned that accusations of sexual harassment (or even outright assault) might go too far. Well, yeah…just as increased reporting of any crime might result in an increase in false accusations. What's the alternative? Keep a situation where the Harvey Weinsteins of the world can keep abusing people because that system discourages and even penalizes victims from speaking up? We don't want that.
Well, maybe some sexual predators do. They should not get that.
I understand why some folks — men more than women — are uneasy about this. In our pasts, many of us have a few incidents of what started as mutually-consensual flirtation but the two parties were not on the same wavelength as to how far it would go. If this were a different kind of blog, I could tell a few tales. Sometimes, consensual sex can become a little less consensual after the fact, like when one party decides they shouldn't have done what they did. There's a lot of lying that goes on about sex and it even includes lying to one's self. It's like Archie and Veronica are both dying to sleep together, "sleep together" in this case being a euphemism for screwing. They do…then Veronica has to deal with the fact that she promised fidelity to Reggie or abstinence to Dad so she tells him (and maybe herself) that Archie pressured her into it.
There are infinite other scenarios where innocent sex somehow morphs into allegedly-guilty sex…but so what? There absolutely is such a thing as coerced sex. There are also things like attempted rape, inappropriate sex talk, hints that sound like threats and other situations that fall short of actual rape that should not be tolerated or excused. An awful lot of victims of rape or near-rape do not report what happened to them because they fear they'll only suffer further for doing so. None of this can be stopped if the victims do not come forward and they will not come forward if they're subjected to what some have faced, which includes being put on virtual trial for the crime they're reporting.
The predators count on the prey deciding that it's too painful in too many ways, and there's surely a clear link between getting away with it once and doing it again and again and again. How many women have now come forth to accuse Weinstein? How many other men have done it because they saw Harvey wasn't paying any price?
What I think is going on now in this country is a corrective and sometimes, correctives over-correct before they find the right level. We paid way too little attention to this problem in the past and victims were way too afraid to speak up. Is there a danger of correcting too far in the other direction; of innocent folks being accused or at least slandered? Sure. That has already happened. Remember Brian Banks? Remember the Duke LaCrosse team? (There's a movie coming out soon about what happened to Brian Banks. Its producers couldn't have timed it better.)
Okay, so some people are afraid they'll be falsely accused; that they'll be the target of "witch hunts." Apart from the distinction that there are no witches but there are sexual predators, that's a perfectly valid fear but, you know, we could reduce the number of people falsely accused of murder by not treating murder as a serious crime. Sexual assault is a serious crime, too…and it's one that a lot of people don't think of as one because they've gotten away with it or know others who have gotten away with it. Let's find a way to be fair to the accusers and the accused instead of worrying just about the accused.