The interesting thing about this guy’s comments about rape is that he doesn’t really consider the role of the parents in the whole thing. It’s true that if you have a young women, especially a teenager, and she becomes pregnant out-of-wedlock, it can cause some serious problems with her parents. In a lot of the world, her own family might kill her. In this country, that level of shame and hostility is very rare, but basic moral condemnation is not. And, in a lot of very socially conservative families, the parents will be very angry and want to know how their daughter could have acted so wickedly. This creates a lot of pressure for the girl to deny that she consented to the act of procreation. She will feel pressure to shift the blame off of herself in order to obtain some mercy and acceptance from her family. And so she will feel the temptation to make a false accusation of rape. But, the likelihood that she will actually make that false accusation is directly correlated with the amount of pressure and moral condemnation she receives from her family. It is their lack of acceptance of her basic sexuality and her human frailty that drives her to do something horribly wrong.

So, yes, if you are a boy living in a community with a lot of parents who are extremely conservative about human sexuality and you get someone pregnant, then it is much more likely that you will be falsely accused of rape. But this isn’t because the girls in your community are more evil. It’s because the parents are more evil.

Men who live in more socially liberal communities do not worry about being falsely accused of rape. At least, they don’t in the case of an accidental pregnancy. It’s always possible to encounter someone who doesn’t like how they were treated and is vindictive and psycho, But, if you treat women with respect, it’s not likely that you’ll ever be falsely accused of rape in a liberal community.

Conservative men think about false rape allegations quite a lot. I say that based on the strange frequency with which they bring up the subject. I used to think it was because they have a tendency to treat women poorly and thus have reason to worry about vindictiveness. I still think that that is part of the explanation. But I also think that it’s a rational decision for some girls to make in the context of their conservative family culture. Better to say you didn’t consent than to be beaten or shunned by Mom and Dad. There are some cultures where the family won’t let girls get off that easy, and they’ll kill their daughter for allowing herself to be raped. When things get that bad, it’s best not to ever be alone with a boy.

In any case, the point is that women can’t express themselves sexually and live out their lives in freedom as long as they have to deal with this kind of harsh moral judgment. The problem isn’t false rape allegations. The problem is people putting some dogma over their love and acceptance of their daughters. On the whole, it’s a bigger problem that too few rapes are reported and successfully prosecuted than it is that some people get falsely accused.