2019, the year I found out who my true friends are... and my enemies (They're both WITHIN the cause)

We all need to vent at times at the risk of sounding like a pity party. Well here's mine-- for pretty much all of 2019, my life was been one tragedy after another. 

I believe most people see me as nothing but a resource and a worker bee for the cause, but not worth much else. Few people give me any thought except when they want questions answered. I correspond with hundreds of people seeking answers but when it was my time in need, I discovered who truly cares and who does not. 

On February 27, 2019, the apartment complex I lived in caught fire. I lost most of my worldly possessions and I was now out of a home. I received a $400 card from the Red Cross to get a hotel but I spent the first two days of being homeless trying to salvage what I could. It could have been worse but I was able to recover some belongings including my work files. The registry office was understanding and gave me about 5 days to do what I needed to do before checking in, and a local charity I supported returned the favor by storing my salvaged things for free. (I donated plenty of it to them in return even though they didn't ask me for anything.) A half dozen supporters of OnceFallen sent me some money to help, which amounted to about $600. Just after I got out and returned to Cincinnati to tie up loose ends, I heard from my nephew for the first time in years, only for him to pass away less than a week after connecting for the first time in years. 

Things got from bad to worse when I went in to register as homeless, as I was detained for a warrant out of Broward County for a theft I obviously did not do. Even those at the registration office found this ludicrous, they still had to do their job and arrest me. I would not find out the full accusation against me for three weeks until I suffered through transport to Florida. The accusation is laughable and my innocence can easily be proven. Anyone who knows me knows I've been chomping at the bit to show the world the proof, but I've been advised by my attorney not to do so, though my friends have seen the conclusive evidence personally. But I digress. 

(As a footnote, anyone who wonders how I managed to warn people of my impending arrest, the registry office let me make calls on my cell while trying to figure out if the warrant was valid, which took half an hour.) 

It should not come as a shock that the group of people who will mobilize the fastest are not your friends but your haters. Dwayne Daughtry, who works for the North Carolina chapter of NARSOL, felt it fitting to post my mugshot on social media, and in turn, two personal stalkers used my info to impersonate me while I was detained. This was followed by a barrage of false allegations from Daughtry and Michael McKay, NARSOL's "marketing director," whose only idea as marketing director is "#SOregistry" and making a registry of activists. They campaigned to delete my social media accounts and made false accusations that I "SWATTED" them. Plenty of idiots believed them instead of questioning whether the accusations were true or not. There have been other outlandish stories like claims I make thousands of dollars off my website and use the money to buy personal items. (At this point, I can't even raise the funds to pay the basic debts associated with providing the website and outreach that I do now, nor have I ever used OnceFallen money to buy anything not directly related to activism efforts.) My latest report shows that those efforts to discredit my work, and the blood, sweat, and tears I have poured into this cause over the years is not appreciated or supported by many people within this movement. 

So what I found out in 2019 is that MANY so-called registry reform activists were NOT truly people that were my friends or allies.

On the upside, during this time in my life, I also found out who my friends were. 

When I lost my apartment, a few activists sent me money to help me get back on my feet. 

When I was arrested, there were a number of activists who helped me. Members of FAC, WAR, SOSEN, and ACSOL reached out to help, along with a few individuals who helped support my efforts over the years. A couple of folks in particular helped get me a real attorney.

When I needed a place to stay, a fellow activist let me stay with him. 

My girlfriend was an activist for the cause for years before we even met, much less dated, and has stood with me through all of this. 

Another fellow activist who drives a truck picked up my possessions in Cincinnati and delivered them to rural Nebraska.

An elderly registrant who I helped when he got out of prison loaned me the bail money. (And yes I paid him back with my own money.) Quite frankly, if it wasn't for this man, I'd probably still be sitting in jail today still awaiting that dismissal. 

So what I found out in 2019 is that SOME (albeit less) registry reform activists ARE truly people I can lean on as friends and allies.

In 2019, I had to take plenty of time to think about this reform movement and whether I have a place in it at all.

When I look at the attacks against me that happened from people allegedly in this fight to reform the registry, and how I lost support because there are plenty of stupid people who blindly believe every rumor they hear on the Internet, then I think that I have wasted the past 14 years of my life.

Yes, I'm only a one-man operation, so the numbers of those I help annually number in the hundreds, not thousands or tens of thousands like the big groups are supposed to be doing. And most who contact me for help don't contribute to me or to the anti-registry community as a whole. Every move I've made from TV interviews to public awareness campaigns has been criticized far more than congratulated, mostly by armchair activists. 

I remember the near-universal condemnation for daring to take on Lauren Book for her efforts to keep Miami's registrant population homeless, and only a few individual activists stood by me, so what should have been a hundred strong turned into a dozen. I haven't forgotten that various NARSOL affiliates (ACSOL was still a NARSOL affiliate at the time) initially supported my efforts and even pledged to help but backed off because of just one person's objection. I haven't forgotten that and never will. 

So every year, I find myself looking to cut back my efforts. In the coming year, my focus is on my website and on expanding my prisoner outreach efforts. I have already stepped back from participation in other groups and have abandoned some projects like the ReFORM blogs. I have decided that I will no longer do videos (too much time on too little views). And if support for OnceFallen drops again this year, Once Fallen won't be renewed in 2021. But it'll always be on the Web Archive so there's that. 

If anyone is interested in acquiring my site, contact me at iamthefallen1@yahoo.com

HOWEVER...

I also look at the people who HAVE supported me over the years and that helps motivate me. 

When I was being hit with SLAPP suits by Senator Lauren Book and her northern doppelganger Laura Ahearn from PFML, I planned on taking these thugs on myself, but a couple of supporters went out of their way to find an attorney. And so far, the SLAPP suit by Lauren Book was defeated in the Florida Court of Appeals in August. 

As a one-man operation, my organization has never needed the funds of the larger efforts. Quite frankly I wouldn't know what do if someone left me thousands of dollars. In the 12 years of OnceFallen I only once received a thousand dollar donation, and not needing most of that money, donated it to other organizations that needed it more. I can safely say that when I do need resources for projects, support had come from a small number of people who believe in my efforts. And by small I estimate roughly three-fourths of donations to OnceFallen have come from roughly 20 people. They trust that their funds go directly into anti-registry activism. 

Of course, I'm encouraged when people call me and I find out my website was given to them by law enforcement, attorneys, and even a couple of prosecutors. I'm encouraged when my resources help someone. That keeps me going. 

I don't know what 2020 will bring. Thank you to my supporters, and to my haters, just keep on hating. I may be down but I'm not out just yet. But some of my worst enemies are not trolls, those pimping the registry, or even the Book Crime Family. No, sometimes the worst folks are those who are supposed to be allies. But within this movement are also some of my closest friends and allies. 

Addressing the #MeToo narrative of "underreported sexual assaults" and "only 2% of sexual assault claims are false"

I found even the title of this chart to be misleading. 

This morning, I read an article from The Economist entitled, "After a year of #MeToo, American opinion has shifted against victims." The very title implies every accuser is a "victim." The article laments the growing skepticism against people making high-profile accusations:

"Yet surveys suggest that this year-long storm of allegations, confessions and firings has actually made Americans more sceptical about sexual harassment... The share of American adults responding that men who sexually harassed women at work 20 years ago should keep their jobs has risen from 28% to 36%. The proportion who think that women who complain about sexual harassment cause more problems than they solve has grown from 29% to 31%. And 18% of Americans now think that false accusations of sexual assault are a bigger problem than attacks that go unreported or unpunished, compared with 13% in November last year."

The article adds the following statement: "According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Centre, an American non-profit organisation, 63% of sexual assaults are not reported to police, whereas between 2% and 10% of assault cases are falsely reported."

This statement is very misleading. Below is my comment left on the website. If anything, we have overestimated underreporting while minimizing the number of false accusations. This discussion is worthy of a complete analysis on my main site, but for now, I wanted to share a few thought on this subject.

*****

The statement about 63% of rapes/ sexual assaults going unreported while only 2%-10% of sex assault claims are false is an intentionally misleading statement by the victim advocate cult.

The claim that 63% of sexual assaults/ rapes go unreported is a bold conclusion stemming from the National Crime Victimization Survey. The NCVS is a “self-report study” that includes “attempted” as well as “completed” acts, including “verbal threats.” The study relies on the survey taker, not a trained law enforcement official, to determine whether an act is an “unreported crime.” It is completely up to the survey taker to determine an act is a "crime."

But what are "attempts" and "verbal threats"? Some feminists feel looking at a woman too long is "stare rape." If a woman goes to a bar and gets drunk, she can decide if her subsequent sexual acts are consensual or not. There were feminist discussions considering whether a guy who was about his feelings about his lover just to engage in intercourse or who cheated on them during a relationship was rape.   A woman made headlines recently for accusing a child of "sexual assault" after his backpack brushed against her backside. Had there not been security cameras and witnesses, she would have been accounted this alleged one in five women.

The NCVS understands it has limitations: “The estimates of rape/sexual assault are based on a small number of cases reported to the survey. Therefore, small absolute changes and fluctuations in the rates of victimization can result in large year-to-year percentage change estimates. For 2010, the estimate of rape or sexual assault is based on 57 unweighted cases compared to 36 unweighted cases in 2009." That is 57 "unreported cases" out of sample size of nearly 71000 people: In 2010, 40974 households and 73283 individuals age 12 and older were interviewed for the NCVS. Each household was interviewed twice during the year. The response rate was 92.3% of households and 87.5% of eligible individuals." Still, the survey strongly suggests the amount of under-reporting may be over-reported. (2010 NCVS summary)

The NCVS claims of underreporting dropped from 63.7% to 50% in the 2000s but has climbed to 67% in recent years. No doubt the campus rape scare and MeToo claims play roles in this, but with those movements came false claims. Remember the Jackie UVA case in Rolling Stone? Then Janice Dickinson admitted she lied about Bill Cosby harassing her to sell memoirs. Now we have the Kavanaugh case. While Ms. Ford stated certain memories of an assault were "indelible in the hippocampus," so were the memories of many people who made widespread claims of the 1980s and 1990s about satanic pedophiles and child sacrifices in daycare centers across America. Only problem was those claims were proven false, just as a fair number of these claims today are found to be without merit.

But even if only 2% and 10% of sexual assault claims are false, that means there are between 18,080 and 90,400 falsely accused people forced to register as "sex offenders" right now.

We used to have something in this country called "innocent until proven guilty." We've seen that concept under attack by campus sex assault accusations leading to college inquisitions in which presumed innocence was a foreign concept. We're now seeing the consequences of those actions. And now we see the MeToo Movement calling for similar inquisitions. Well, for every action is an equal and opposite reaction. MeToo is past due for a backlash, and the Kavanaugh hearings have become the Jackie UVA of the MeToo movement.

-- Derek Logue of OnceFallen

A somewhat premature requiem for "Innocent Until Proven Guilty" and the right to a fair trial

"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" -- William Blackstone in his seminal work, Commentaries on the Laws of England, published in the 1760s.


Alas, poor US Constitution. We knew you well. Well, some of us did.

In particular, this requiem is for the parts of the US Constitution that deal with the right to a fair trial. We once placed safeguards to protect the rights of the accused because we recognized our system of punishment destroyed human lives to the point we wanted a high degree of probability of the guilt of the condemned. Obviously, those days have long since passed. Today, innocent until proven guilty is little more than a myth. 

I had a recent conversation with my doctor during a routine check-up and the conversation progressed to what I spend my days doing. My response was that I advocate for the rights of those who served time to become productive members of society. he brought up Brock Turner, of all people, as an example of the system not being "tough on crime," to which I brought up the fact that for every case like his, there are thousands more where the person gets far more time. We didn't even discuss the registry, a punishment even worse than prison. Stories like Turner's make the jobs of the victim cult easier. 

I've heard an old mantra that the US Constitution began eroding the day it was committed to paper. Perhaps it is true to some extent, but it had also strengthened. Numerous groups fought in the past to become part of that wonderful concept of all persons being "equal." Blacks, LGBTQ+, women, the disabled, Native Americans, Hispanics, and Transgendered people have fought for that right, as many of us that are placed on the arbitrary government blacklist known as the "Sex Offender Registry." While those of us condemned to a life of shame and discrimination struggle to fight for the right for opportunities to become equal members of society, thousands more human lives potentially face life on the list.

Our movement tends not to focus much on the rights of the accused, and that is understandable given the fact we're all struggling just to find jobs and housing or trying not to get murdered by vigilantes who thinks every human on the registry molested a stadium full of toddlers. However, our fight for our lives began the day we were accused of a sex crime. 

As everyone likely knows by now, there are already limitations on the right to confront accusers thanks to Rape Shield Laws, a concept that largely began in the 1970s. Now, states across America are trying to pass "Marsy's Law," a "victim's bill of rights" to amend state Constitutions across America. This bill is very dangerous because Marsy's law includes a provision that allows accusers "to refuse an interview, deposition or other discovery request made by the accused or any person acting on behalf of the accused." The accuser under Marsy's law would not have to turn over potential evidence that could prove she was lying about the crime! 

Marsy's Law passed in Ohio by a margin of 82.5% to 17.5%, showing that people placed little value on the rights of the accused. Why would they, when our airwaves were flooded with commercials supporting Marsy's law, like THIS ONE:

Or THIS ONE:

OR THIS ONE:

Marsy's Law is a marvel of victim industrial engineering, funded by celebrity star power and one of the richest men in the world (Henry Nicholas). Marsy's law's key selling point, repeated in Marsy's Law ads, is ripped out of the victim industry playbook:

"Currently in the United States, the U.S. Constitution and every state constitution has enumerated rights for individuals accused of a crime and those convicted of a crime. Yet, the U.S. Constitution and 15 state constitutions do not extend enumerated rights to victims of crime. Marsy’s Law for All seeks to amend state constitutions that don’t offer protections to crime victims and, eventually, the U.S. Constitution to give victims of crime rights equal to those already afforded to the accused and convicted.

We can all agree that no rapist should have more rights than the victim. No murderer should be afforded more rights than the victim’s family. Marsy’s Law would ensure that victims have the same co-equal rights as the accused and convicted – nothing more, nothing less."

People bought it hook, line, and sinker. There weren't any ads warning people that Marsy's Law was designed to take away an important right to confront accusers. That provision is carefully worded and hidden deep within a ballot initiative that also included provisions like notifying crime victims of a convicted perpetrator's release or the right to restitution (something Ohio already had without needed to attach a name to a bill). 

Of course, that's official law, and we haven't even gotten to the "Court of Public Opinion" yet, where accusations pretty much equal guilt. I still remember the infamous Duke Lacrosse case and the infamous Wendy Murphy statement she made, stating, "I never, ever, met a false rape claim, by the way. My own statistics speak the truth." Once the accusations hit the airwaves, the presumption of guilt already permeates the conversation, driven mainly by feminists like Murphy. Feminists also use dubious stats to dismiss or minimize the notion that false allegations ruin lives by claiming only 2%-10% of rape allegations are false. (Using that mantra, then that means of the 861,837 registrants in the US, between 17,236 and 86,183 potentially innocent people are on the registry.) 

Now, as much as I've enjoyed seeing celebrities and politicians (both purveyors of Predator Panic) get a dose of their own medicine, it also illustrates this mantra in action. We've already condemned the accused without benefit of a trial. Surely having multiple allegations means that the accused is 100% guilty right? We've never been wrong on that before, right? (*cough*cough* Satanic Ritual Abuse *cough*cough*). It is amazing how we seamlessly transferred the same moral panic from roving bans of satan worshippers to "pedophile priests" or to Illuminati congressmen buying kids off a Pizza menu stored underground bunkers in DC. No matter how outlandish the story, we are taught the accused is to be believed until proven otherwise. 

This brings me back to the original premise of this article, the erosion of our rights. The current state of our system of justice has been influenced by the feminist media and by those with lots of money. The erosion of our rights comes packaged in the name of a person, much in the way a land was once conquered in the name of Jesus Christ. The religious imagery is relevant; after all, many victim's rights advocates look at their work as a Crusade, much like a tent revival preacher from the previous generation saw his work. But the Original Crusades were about conquering the Holy Land by the sword, not by preaching. The victim industry's crusade is no less of a bloody war. Human lives aren't destroyed in a movement but in a war. We're no longer allowed to doubt the intentions of these Victim Crusaders, mind you, that's pure blasphemy. And, much like the religious zealots of our day, victim advocates claim they are persecuted every time their stories are questioned or when one of their own are accused of lying.

Perhaps the Constitution isn't dead just yet, but rather on life support, but the victim advocates are seeking to pull the plug.

Marsy's Law is but the latest in a series of laws spanning a generation eroding the rights of the accused, nor will it likely be the last. Blackstone's formula no longer seems valid here is the "Land of the Free." We are becoming more willing to erode our Constitution. Many don't even know what they support (as in the case of Marsy's law supporters) because people are far too quick to believe an ad campaign featuring a celebrity like Kelsey Grammer. However, all hope is not lost and we are not doomed to accept this march towards a less balanced court system. At least Marsy's law was struck down in Montana courts. As advocates for the rights of former offenders, we have to take on these proposals -- and the cult of victimhood-- head on.

The right of the accused to a fair and impartial trial and the rights of the accused should never be compromised. Human lives are at stake here, and someday, that life at stake may be your own. 

False rape culture is part of rape culture, too: Lauren Nelson and her 15 minutes of shame

Lauren the false-rape denier Nelson

A few weeks ago, some random blogger received her 15 minutes of virtual fame by writing an article on so-called "rape culture." It is always a hot button and sensitive topic for Feminists in particular, because this has been a long-standing cash cow for the Feminist agenda. But it wasn't so much that Lauren Nelson put her own crazy spin on the topic IN THIS ARTICLE, she felt the need to write a followup article called "Why I Won’t Publish Your Comments About False Rape Accusations," which is the more likely reason a blog at the far reaches of the internet universe jumped to the top 100,000 in the Alexa rankings (though that spike is short-lived and will return to the 17,000,000th place ranking soon enough).

I'm not keen on quoting Wikipedia, but it has a decent definition of "Rape Culture:"

Rape culture is a concept used to describe a culture in which rape and sexual violence are common and in which prevalent attitudes, norms, practices, and media normalize, excuse, tolerate, or even condone rape...Although the concept of rape culture is a generally accepted theory in feminist academia, there is disagreement over what defines a rape culture and to what degree a given society meets the criteria to be considered a rape culture.

It is long acknowledged that "rape culture" is a Feminist catchphrase. It has long been used to shift the balance in courts to the point accusations of rape are accepted without collaborating evidence to support it. In today's society, an accusation pretty much guarantees conviction in at least the court of public opinion. One look at the comment section in any news article where a person is arrested and charged with a sex crime would reveal that much.

So why is the concept of FALSE RAPE ALLEGATIONS so repugnant to Feminists? The main answer is because anything that serves as a counterbalance to their inflated claims about the prevalence of rape in our society. Christina Hoff Summers, a well-known critic of the Feminist movement, has already exposed many myths propagated by Feminists, including the GENDER PAY GAP MYTH and the famous ONE IN FOUR WOMEN ARE RAPED MYTH. But that's a story for a different day. My focus is on Nelson's blatant disregard for false allegations.

Nelson attempts to justify her denial of false rape discussion by minimizing false rape cases. Nelson makes the following claim:

"First off, the idea that false accusations are a significant problem in rape is patently untrue. For this point, we turn to data." The problem is, Nelson refuses to even mention the studies or link to them, while offering her opinion as to why they are false. Lets look at her reasons.

1. "The sample sizes are painfully small. 1,300 participants is on the high end, while some had as few as 18. Not exactly representative." If sample size is an issue here, the same can be said for the studies that rape culture proponents claim. Many of the outlandish claims have come from relatively small sample sizes. Even the Koss survey (aka, the Ms. Study, so consider the source), the much-heralded study that Feminists use for the 1-in-4-women-are-raped myth, used a sample size of only three thousand. Many research conclusions are across the board use relatively small sample sizes, so the same principles apply to rape studies.

2. "The data is inconsistent. Even when it’s the FBI analyzing larger pools of data on crimes committed, false accusations are largely measured according to police report labels such as 'no crime' or 'unfounded.' The problem with these labels is that they do not translate into a false accusation." And by the same token, the few studies that address the under-reporting claims have relatively broad definitions of rape AND attempted rape. Christina Hoff Summers' critique of the Koss study reveals that the definition included having sex while intoxicated. So if you woke up next to who you thought was George Clooney but looked more like George Costanza the next day, and you regret your choice of partners, that fell under Koss's definition of rape.

Even the National Crime Victimization Survey uses "attempted rapes" under "unreported rapes." And, as I mentioned in my Sex Offender Myths Fact Guide (under Myth #9), even the NCVS admits their sample size is relatively small, and the estimate of underreporting; the NVS found 57 "unreported cases" out of sample size of nearly 71,000 people. To even rely on the NCVS then is a bit of a misnomer.

3. "The data is also only reflective of reports of a man raping a vagina with his penis. Until early 2012, the federal definition of rape excluded such crimes as female rape of male, same sex rape, digital rape, anal rape, oral rape or rape with a foreign object (they also exclude incest for some reason). The most recent data you’ll find is 2011. That means the available data on reported cases is so far from complete, it’s not even funny." And yet the NCVS includes not only completed rapes and attempted rapes (which I just described in the last paragraph). Nelson blatantly ignores this fact. Of course, the Koss/ Ms. study used pretty much the same criteria as the criteria Nelson study.

4. "The data is plagued by rape culture. The studies most frequently cited by those stumping on behalf of the falsely accused have been the subject of criticism in subsequent studies for failing to qualitatively evaluate the methodologies of the case categorizations. Many found that police officers frequently used subjective judgment calls in dismissing cases as unfounded. Other studies found direct evidence of bias in such dismissals when studied in the field." And what is the basis for this claim? Nelson does not offer any evidence to support this claim whatsoever. Who are the "many" who can verify what Nelson said? Who knows. Where are these studies that found bias? Nelson leaves it up to you to find them. I guess she didn't feel like sending us to fringe Feminist sites as the source. That's be like getting smoking stats from Joe Camel.

5. "In studies where data was not provided but gathered in the field, the methodologies used for determining a false report were suspect (and that’s putting it nicely)." She offers no further elaboration. It is merely opinion. Of course, ever study has limitations. Read any scholarly journal and you will see the researchers discuss limitations. Sample size, methodology, focus of the study, the goals of the researchers, and the reliance of laymen to interpret expert matters of law influences any study like this. Nelson's arguments are just as valid when used against her.

Now we reach the point where her logic takes a strange turn. Nelson starts out with 8% of known rape cases as false allegations, purportedly from the FBI. Then she claims that according to the FBI, only 37% of rape cases are reported. But she does not post a link to the FBI study; she posts a link to the CONTROVERSIAL and INACCURATE Enliven Project Meme that was passed around earlier this year (and thoroughly dissected and found to be bogus). In fact, I ranted about this same meme earlier this year. So Nelson is not even using an original rant. (As an aside, the 2010 NCVS numbers state only 50% of sex crimes go unreported, going by the same criteria as the previous studies.) It is like quoting a friend of a friend who heard it from Faux News. The Enliven Project meme got much of their info from RAINN, a victim industry advocate.

Regardless, using this logic, Nelson divides 8% by 37% and now false allegations are 3% of the total rape cases. She's not satisfied with these numbers, mainly because the numbers are still too high for her liking. So she invites us to think "hypothetically."


"Still not fantastic, I’ll admit, but far from justifiable as an interruption to important discourse. Still, I’m not satisfied with leaving it at that. Let’s talk hypothetically.

Let’s give the police the benefit of the doubt, and assume that their frequency of subjective dismissal justifies an adjustment down in the false reporting rate to 7%. There’s enough out there to justify a stronger cut, but we’ll be conservative.

And let’s say that, with only 37% of rapes being reported and sexual violence education woefully lacking, the amount of “unfounded” cases labeled as such due to lack of evidence to take it to trial –  as women shower, dispose of clothing, and so forth post attack - brings false accusation rate down again to 6%.

And lets assume – given that only 9% of cases ever go to trial and only 3% of rapists will ever spend a day in jail - that rape culture factors such as dress, former sexual encounters, use of alcohol, and so forth, account for enough perceived potential for reasonable doubt to derail an additional portion of those “unfounded” cases bringing down the rate once more to 4% (and that’s being generous).

I know this is all conjecture. It’s an exercise. Stay with me."

So at this point, even Lauren Nelson admits this entire exercise is a smoking pile of horse shit. But I wish to take just a moment to return to the under-reporting myth. Because under-reporting is truly an unknown factor (simply put, we have no way of knowing how many claimed unreported crimes exist or are indeed crimes), we can claim any number greater than 0% and less than 100%. Rape Culture proponents will claim numbers as high as the upper 90s, as suggested by the Enliven Project Meme. I already noted the NCVS, which is rather generous with its definition of rape and attempted rape, finds low numbers of under-reporting in a very large sample size. Nelson tries to argue this is "rape culture," but her argument falls flat.

If there is such a thing as rape culture, then there is also such a thing as False Rape Culture. Lauren Nelson makes the same arguments as many other false rape deniers. The justification is "It makes victims feel as though they won’t be believed if they do come forward." I find that hard to believe. After all, rarely do false accusers face incarceration, and in the very rare event a false accuser is convicted, they are rarely punished.

When a false rape accuser gets off with no penalties, THAT IS FALSE RAPE CULTURE.

Lauren Nelson: "If you want to comment about false rape accusations, it won’t be on this blog."

When Lauren Nelson denies and minimizes the harm of false rape accusations and states she will not allow anyone to discuss it on her blog, THAT IS FALSE RAPE CULTURE.

When a person finally gains an appeal due to faulty and contradictory evidence at trial, and a victim industry profiteer like Laura Ahearn accuses him of still being guilty and denying the chance he may be innocent, that is FALSE RAPE CULTURE.

When TV Analyst Wendy Murphy famously proclaims "I never, ever met a false rape claim, by the way. My own statistics speak to the truth," and maintains this position after watching the Duke Lacrosse case turn into an indictment against overzealous prosecutor William Nifong (and still put this crazy lady on the air), that is FALSE RAPE CULTURE.

When it takes 11 false allegation cases before a woman serves time for ruining lives, that is FALSE RAPE CULTURE.

When people serve decades behind bars and after being exonerated, and 2 of every five of them doesn't get any compensation for losing many years of their lives, that is FALSE RAPE CULTURE.

There is always more than one aspect of any issue. Feminists, and people like Lauren Nelson, would have you believe that acknowledging its existence is some kind of power issue, like rape. So denying their argument is basically tantamount to raping them. What faulty logic!

We have seen the power of false allegations that came as the result of overzealous prosecutors and awareness campaigns in the very recent past. Remember the Satanic Ritual Abuse cases of the mid 1980s-early 1990s? Bakersfield? McMartin? Little Rascals Day Care? Even the "West Memphis Three" (which were recently allowed release after taking an Alford plea, which prevents them from suing the state for wrongful imprisonment)? Or the many stories we hear of individuals serving years for crimes they didn't commit, released after DNA tests exonerated them or the accuser finally admits she lied?

False Rape Allegations and the culture that fails to address it should be as much a part of the conversation as rape culture discussions. It takes an honest approach from all sides, and denying one side only distorts the overall picture. There are brutal rapes, cases where the circumstances are not clear, cases where a rape occurred and the wrong man is imprisoned, and cases where someone flat-out lies about rape. This is all a part of the overall picture of rape False Rape Culture is very real, and will be around long after Lauren Nelson slinks back into obscurity.

June is False Allegations Awareness month!

“In Stalinist Russia, innocent people were presumed guilty if reported as ‘Enemies of the Motherland.’ They were sent to the Gulag or executed without due process. In the United States of America, citizens are presumed guilty if reported as ‘Domestic Abusers.’...they lost their jobs, their mental health, their reputation, their trust in justice, and their self-esteem.”  -- Natasha Spivack, speaking at the first False Allegations Summit at Washington DC, June 2011

As a recent victim of abuse and a false allegation by a certain mentally ill ex-girlfriend who shall remain nameless, I have become increasingly aware of the plight of individuals, particularly men accused of domestic or sex crimes. I have already discussed the concept of legal misandry in an earlier post. I've also discussed false allegations on my main website. However, in light of recent revelations, I felt the need to address the issue even more.

A recent survey of over 10,000 people compiled by Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE) on false allegations revealed that 11% of respondents stated they were falsely accused of a crime, with 81% of those falsely accused, and nearly half were falsely accused of sexual abuse.In an age of increasing paranoia over sex crimes, the likelihood of being falsely accused is a very real possibility, especially in custody disputes.

For more info on false allegations, visit the following websites:

http://www.saveservices.org/false-allegations-awareness-month/

and

http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/