Radical feminism has enjoyed almost unchallenged success in convincing lawmakers and university administrators that when it comes to rape, one gender is incapable of telling a lie, while the other is incapable of anything but lying.

From the faulty premise that women do not lie about rape follow the equally faulty but still widely accepted premises that there is no such thing as a false rape claim, and that conviction rates for rape are far too low. To help jack up those rates – or, in the twisted logic that follows from those faulty premises, to help justice be better served – laws and policies are changed to provide rape accusers with special accommodations allowed to no other criminal complainant.

In the face of these faulty premises, people concerned about the rights of innocent men accused of rape need to be aware of any study regarding the prevalence of false rape claims. Of note this week is a new five-year study in India that shows almost one-in-five rape claims is false:

…in 18.3 % cases to be precise, rape is used as a weapon to malign and attempt revenge, found a group of psychologists who assist Delhi Police in investigating sexual assault allegations.

The conclusion was drawn from 113 cases in the last five years. Anger towards the accused prompted allegations of rape in 25% of the false charges. An equal number of such cases were filed at the behest of family members. Every fifth false allegation was made by a minor `coached' to cry `rape' as an attempt to settle family scores. About 15% were situations of panic after clear consent, while the remaining 15% defied categorisation.

(Source: 18% rape cases false: Study, The Times of India, December 29, 2008.)

If we compare the Indian study’s percentage to cases in the United States, the 18.3 figure is more than nine times the average of false reporting for all crimes, according to FBI statistics. (The Politics of Sexuality, Barry M. Dank, Editor in Chief, Vol. 3 at 36, n. 8.) As dramatic as this may seem, other serious studies on the subject of false rape show even higher percentages of falsity. While the numbers vary, every serious study ever conducted on the subject shows that false rape claims are a significant problem for men – far greater than the two percent claimed by radical feminists.

For example, Professor Eugene Kanin’s landmark study of a mid-size Midwestern city over the course of nine years found that 41 percent of all rape claims were false. “Kanin also studied the police records of two unnamed large state universities and found that in three years, 50 percent of the 64 rapes reported to campus police were determined to be false.” In a 1985 study of 556 rape allegations, 27% of the accusers recanted, and an independent evaluation revealed a false accusation rate of 60%. McDowell, Charles P., Ph.D. “False Allegations.” Forensic Science Digest, (publication of the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations), Vol. 11, No. 4 (December 1985), p. 64.

It is not surprising that more studies are not conducted in this area, given that both civil and scholarly discourse on the subject are dominated by radical feminists who insist that only two percent of rape claims are false, despite both the absence of any evidentiary support for the claim, and the presence of irrefutable evidence debunking it. (See, e.g., E. Greer, “The Truth Behind Legal Dominance Feminism’s ‘Two Percent False Claim’ Figure, 33 Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review 947 (2000).

Men who don't rape, and women who care about men and boys who don’t rape, need to know about the false rape studies, because only they can combat the viral feminist two percent canard. For decades, this lie has been used to chip away at the rights of innocent men, and those rights are in even greater danger now.

An example of the dangers of the two percent lie is found in the fact that it was trotted out to help justify the passage of VAWA. See the legislative history: Pub. L. 102-199, S. Rep. 102-197 n.48 (Oct. 29, 1991). Among other special accommodations afforded rape complainants to jack up rape conviction rates are:

• the news media’s compact to keep rape accusers anonymous even for claims that turn out to be unfounded;

• sexual assault advocates who help accusers at every step of the process, paid for by tax and tuition dollars;

• rape shield laws that prohibit the admission of evidence regarding the accuser's prior sexual history with persons other than the defendant, even if the accuser is a prostitute;

• the exemption of rape accusers, but not the accused, from polygraph testing per VAWA, enacted into law at 42 U.S.C. § 3796gg-8; and

• incredibly, special evidentiary rules, just for rape cases, that admit into evidence the accused’s prior sexual acts -- even certain acts of which the accused was previously acquitted -- to "prove" he is a rapist.

Many radical feminists say that even these things aren't enough; they want the definition of “consent” to be narrowed so that a woman must give an oral affirmation of assent. Some go so far as to advocate for the presumption of innocence itself to be reversed when it comes to consent; thus, the most fundamental of all human acts of love would be transformed into a presumed crime anytime a woman decides to cry rape. The burden of proving consent would thus be cast onto the male.

If the feminists were correct that the subject of rape becomes a sort of truth serum for women, a magic elixir that forces anyone not possessing a Y-chromosome to utter incontrovertible truth, these measures -- and more -- might be appropriate. But, of course, they are not correct, as the recent Indian study and others like it prove. Using a lie to chip away at the rights of innocent men, as these faulty premises and special accommodations do, is nothing short of morally grotesque.

These lies won’t stop on their own. Persons of good will need to combat them with the truth.

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