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LV's avatar
31mEdited

This piece is bereft of any kind of scenario analysis or attempt to understand humans. It sounds like are describing a revenge fantasy for men whose prosecutions scandalize you.

Contrary to what you suggest, evidence of ex-post social contact is in fact routinely introduced in criminal defense. But in fact, this is never solid evidence of innocence because people have professional, personal, or familial reasons for staying in contact with abusers, and accommodation is a normal human response pattern. Using the same logic and omissions, you could write an essay saying that battered women who do not leave their abusive spouses should be stigmatized instead of helped.

Natalia Bower's avatar

Where else is this standard that victim must not have any further contact with perpetrator enforced? In an elder abuse case, would we dismiss a claim that an elderly person was abused if they maintained contact with the abuser after the initial event? This standard seems especially odd in cases of rape involving abuse within a family or human trafficking cases. If a step daughter stays in a house after her step father rapes her, this counts against her claim? Why? When that doctor for the womens olympic gymnastic team was repeatedly abusing the girls, why should it count against their credibility that they didn't immediately focus on bringing charges against him instead of continuing to train at the olympics?

I'm not really seeing what would be more believable about contact stopping after the initial sexual occurrence either. People have consenting one night stands. People have ongoing abusive relationships. What makes a rape allegation more credible when a woman or girl stops associating with a rapist after sex given that women can just as well suddenly stop associating with a man they chose to have sex with?

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