You're allowed to love mythbusters even if he is a rapist. FFS.

If she really is a "survivor of childhood sexual abuse," then surely she knows how good abusers are at hiding themselves. As such, can she state with absolute certainty that the rape claim is, in fact, false?

She strikes me as someone who wears her professed experience as a sheild - a means to give herself authority she does not have; a way to preclude any questioning of her pronouncements.

It reminds me a bit of the "Yada yada" episode of Seinfeld, wherein Tim Whatley converts to Judaism in order to be excused for making Jewish jokes since he's now a Jew himself.

Have never met him, but have loved the show. I believe proof, and so far haven't seen any.
That said her statement actually has me believing the sister slightly more. Abusers and abused tend to be drawn to each other over and over.

The idea that women would never lie about rape is laughable. It assumes that women are a different species than men. Humans lie. Constantly. Women are human. QED.

How about, even if this happened (which it sounds untrue to me due to how overblown the behavior is portrayed), they were both children at the time and it's not relevant to anyone but the parties, 40+ years later? This story hits very close to home, because something similar happened to me when I was 7 and a close cousin was 10, although in my case it was a few incidents instead of sustained behavior. The cousin's mother had recently died and he was very much "on his own" to deal with that, so perhaps that led to a lot of acting out. The point is, that behavior is not who he turned out to be.

I don't believe any category of people, nor do I believe in "due process" for revealing the truth.

I believe certain individuals, when I find them credible, no matter who they may be. New information can change my opinion, too.

I know a young man who was accused of assault by his half sister during a custody battle between her father and his mother. The daughter was child of both, the son was the child of only the mother.

They never lived together, and always lived 2 hours apart. The son lived with his grandparents since before the daughter was born. A few years after, the mother left the father and moved back with her parents. When she filed for custody, the daughter accused her half brother of rape. When testing proved a rape never happen, she changed it to molestation a few years before (they were 15 and 12 at this time). It is believed to have been a power play for custody instigated by the father.

Nothing more came up for years. It was assumed dismissed because of the proven deceit, the fact they never lived together, the fact that no one ever remembered them being alone together, much less him even having the opportunity, and the complete absence of any evidence.

However, a decade later, the son was 25 years old and married 3 years with 2 kids. He got a new job, and two weeks into the job he was let go when a "probably true" allegation of sexual misconduct turned up on a background check. From before he was 15, more than a decade sooner, with no charges ever filed. He's fighting it, because according to his lawyer, it will remain on his record unti he is 65.

A 50 year criminal record for an incident before he was 15 that was never prosecuted because of a lack of evidence and proven deceit on the part of the accuser. Where is the due process?

Good points, Kent and Trust.

Maybe the hashtag should have been #TakeAccusationsSeriously.

The problem has always been that predators, sexual or not, are usually smart enough to target only those who are not only physically weaker but who are of lower social status. Who cares about "those people"? That would help to explain why teachers often don't care much about the victims of bullies - and why, in evangelical colleges, if a young woman credibly accuses a male classmate of rape, you seldom hear that he got arrested.

Note the presumption of guilt coursing through your veins?

You have been told constantly that sex offenders are everywhere: your priests, Boy Scouts, police, military... ALL OF THEM are waiting for you to turn your back so they can sodomize your precious, pink, unsullied children.

So of course you'll believe the accuser. You'll walk into a public space, see a stranger, and just know they are really good at hiding their criminality.

Jardin has always seemed sketchy and incoherent

In a social context, if someone accuses someone of a crime I'm inclined to believe them. Someone tells me someone stole their sandwich, or decked them, or raped them, or vandalized their house, I'll generlaly believe them.

As a juror, the standard is much higher.

But I don't need to go through a full trial for my socializing purposes.

Not to mention that, in court at least, it's too easy for the accuser to be disbelieved if she's of lower status, which, as I indicated above, she likely will be. (Keep in mind that even lying teenage girls are more than likely to drop the charges once they're pressured to take the "case" to court.) But, if she's of a higher status, that can look suspicious too, because people might think "of course he didn't attack her - only a complete MORON would attack someone with a lot more money and power."

(Plus the fact that most rape is NOT inter-racial, so again, if a woman makes such an accusation, that's likely to be disbelieved as well.)

I don't know what juries are likely to think when the plaintiffs and the defendant are of the same color and class.

I don't have a reference for this, but I attended a seminar where a prosecutor talked about jury makeup, etc.

He said that the easiest juries to get a rape conviction from are predominantly or unanimously male. Because they are thinking of their wives, daughters, sisters, etc.

He further said the the hardest juries to get a conviction from are predominantly or unanimously female. Because they are more skeptical of the alleged victim, and think more about why she was in the position.

He said it was counter to people's instincts, most accused men would say they wanted a male jury, and most accusing women would prefer a male jury, but in practice it did not play out as they would think

Anecdotal, but it was sure an interesting seminar.