Quote:
Originally Posted by The Dastardly One
And I do agree, of course statistically woman would not lie about rape. Why? Because lying about rape is fucking insane.
But statistically, Philomena HAS lied about rape and being pregnant, so statistically she herself is more likely to lie about rape.
Mind you, like Fan even pointed it out it certainly doesn't 100% mean she is lying. But compound it with a lack of evidence and a bunch of other funky shit that went down (ie. her former friend being like 'you did not get raped') the whole thing was fishy to begin with. She is obviously dealing with some kind of mental illness so hopefully she gets the help she needs.
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You're right, but why is it insane? It's not only a mental thing to lie about rape, or a moral thing, but a pragmatic thing. Look how quick people were to jump on anything that made her story appear to be shaky from a cohesive narrative perspective (which real life doesn't behave as anyway).
Argh, I know what you are saying in your second statement, but I just disagree. Not on the whole point. Has she lied? Sure. Is that awful? Sure. That's not the same as saying she is more likely to lie. It says something about her character as an even younger teenager, sure, but I don't know if it qualifies as a pattern of behavior or as something that discredits a claim. As I said to #1-wwf-fan earlier: If it were a choice between her and a unscrupulous individual and their stories were in complete contradiction to each other, I might be inclined to predict the honest person telling the truth whilst still doing an investigation. But, as cunty Savio seems to be relishing in doing, there are exceptions to everything. I know that when I was younger, my honesty paid off and got someone into trouble because they had a reputation of telling fibs. I'm ashamed of that to this day, but the amount of women who have lied about being raped and then get raped is probably significant enough within that marginal statistic to warrant not coloring all women who lie about rape once as women who lie about rape 100 times.
Does that make sense? I'm not saying she isn't lying because of stats. Please don't run us down that path again, because I am likely to get distracted by it, haha. My sole disagreement here is almost semantic (well, not really -- I can't think of the term I want though -- just woke up) on how we interpret statistics in this case. I think the position you're taking in this one, while I said I can understand it earlier (and I can), is way too absolute. And I think this is really our only point of contention, to be honest:
* Do you take a complaint from someone with a troublesome past with a "grain of salt" as #1-wwf-fan said, or do you take it seriously and let the falsehoods in it fall out on their own?
Personally, I go with the latter option, because I believe that false accusations are extremely hard to maintain, and that frankly the paranoia of men who worry about this does stem from misogyny in society and culture. As I said earlier, all you need is an alibi, another witness or some contradictory evidence (not as an onus, but as something that completely eliminates the accusation from the realm of possibility) and you've completely exposed someone as a felon. And
that's a huge part of what makes lying about rape insane. Not impossible; just insane.
The problem with the grain of salt approach is that too many people fall through the cracks. People with rough pasts, substance abuse issues or that are simply coming up against a man that "couldn't/wouldn't do that." We know enough now that lots of the "couldn't/wouldn't" is bullshit, unfortunately. You don't need to change "innocent until proven guilty" in a legal sense, or shift the burden of proof. You don't need to throw everyone accused in jail on the assumption that the accuser is telling the truth because of stats (what a weapon that would be). It's just simply an attitude towards an accusation from the get-go. And to be perfectly honest, I think it's common sense: We'll treat it seriously.
I guess we depart further on where that serious line is. Some would have you believe that if you can prove she's lied about it in the past, then that's it. I don't agree with that for a second. Crying wolf and all that. And to be honest, and you used this word earlier, I think it's an intuition thing. What bothers me is a lot of people took the "what a liar" position as soon as this story came out (even before evidence of lying), which is gross to me. From what I've gathered about this case, in particular, Enzo had sex with a teenage girl that was drugged up, possibly because he was drugged up, and she went to the hospital and claimed later it was non-consensual after texting her friends about it. It's a fucking mess, but it's not not serious (what a serious sentence). Even without the claims of rape, it's
still messy. I can completely understand why WWE has distanced themselves from this guy, and I'll take whatever shots at the company I can, but I think they are completely in the right on this.
To your original point: Will people always think of Enzo as a rapist? I can't speak for anyone else. The original surge here was counter to that and seemed extra focused on protesting Enzo's innocence because it was he said/she said. I think we're both talking about larger communities. Some might, I guess. But my feelings with this are dark because we just don't know. It's a situation we're agnostic on, and I think it's irresponsible for anyone to take any certain stance on it re: guilt versus she's lying. And I don't think proving her a liar proves she's lying about this. It proves that she is capable of lying, and that she has lied -- but that's like throwing a guy into prison because there was an armed robbery and he robbed a place a few years ago. It's just a bit short-sighted and tunnel-visioned for me in a ironic turnabout from what I've been accused of by assuming she must be telling the truth because stats don't support the claim that she's "probably lying." Which is not what I've said, by the way.
Do I think of Enzo as a rapist? An uncomfortable thing stemming from this is that I don't know how to think of Enzo. I'm not comfortable dismissing Philomena's claims, and I'm not comfortable saying "Yes, he definitely did." It's a suspect situation and there is a cloud over it. I can put it aside intellectually and when criticizing Enzo in the future, remember that it is there but not hold it against him like a conviction of which there was plenty of ample evidence. But it's also quite hard to ignore the whole mess and pretend that what obviously happened was that Enzo had consensual sex with a mentally stable participant and that everyone was happy and she had a mental break two days later and filed charges against him that we can all laugh at, ha-ha. I don't think it has to be one or the other, because it's one of those situations where it's not clearly one or the other.