ASHE SCHOW: Another sad reason to be skeptical of brutal campus sexual assault allegations.
One of the more damaging and lasting effects of the Rolling Stone gang-rape debacle was that allegations of brutal campus sexual assaults would be less likely to be believed.
The accuser in that story, Jackie, painted a picture of an assault so brutal as to challenge the imagination. She claimed she had been gang-raped on broken glass and punched in the face, and that the experience left her covered in blood and bruises and cuts.
Given her own description, it was difficult to believe that anyone who saw her in such a state would have suggested she not report such a hideous and obvious crime. It became impossible to believe that a man responsible for orchestrating such an attack would shortly afterward say he had a “good time.”
The same issues plagued Emma Sulkowicz at Columbia University, who claimed that during an otherwise consensual sexual encounter, a man who had never before shown violent tendencies suddenly punched her, choked her and raped her as she fought back. The accused student, Paul Nungesser, invited Sulkowicz to a party two days after this alleged attack — hinting that if the allegations are true, he must be a real sociopath. . . .
The problem here is that these two frightening stories of brutal rape are not what they appear to be. In the case of Jackie, no evidence exists she even had sex the night of her alleged attack, or that her alleged attacker ever existed. For Sulkowicz, the sex actually occurred, but there is no evidence to suggest it was the violent encounter she described.
The idea that a woman would wait months after an obvious, brutal attack, and that her friends wouldn’t notice or care about her injuries, strains credulity.
And now another accusation appears to follow suit. A woman using the pseudonym Jane Doe is suing Virginia Wesleyan College for allegedly failing to prevent her rape or respond properly to her report after the fact.
Women do lie about rape. That’s not the PC line, but it’s become abundantly clear that it’s the case.