Ashley Manta was discussing her own rape trauma with a friend, when she named her rapist: a fellow named Ben Ketchum. There followed one of those series of confirmations that are rather terrifying: her friend had also been raped by Ketchum. Then she put up a blog post naming her rapist, and more women who knew him came out to say what he’d done.
It’s just terrible: the social pressure to avoid stating the name of the victimizer is exactly what allows them to continue to act for year after year. I can tell you first hand: there is far more shrieking and yelling and complaining about revealing the identity of a rapist than there is about the rapist raping.
Don’t be part of a conspiracy of silence. I know it’s scary and hard, but at least let close friends know.
RE: The comments on that article
So, potential consequences of an accusation: loss of reputation, little legal redress, and potentially expensive legal redress. Yeah, those are all bad things… bad things that should never be dumped on the innocent. See, it’s that latter part that required for any of this to make sense. Otherwise, those are bad things being dumped on the guilty and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. I’ll lose no sleep over a guilty person suffering a loss of reputation, nor will I shed tears if said person loses money on a lawsuit.
The question you have to answer to even decide whether the act was good or bad is “Is the accusation true?” You can approach this thoroughly and analytically: rape is fairly common; the alleged victim has no apparent reason to make up a lie; women who make public accusations tend to suffer significant vitriol; etc. “Likely truthful” is my default stance in cases like this.
But let’s set all of that aside, and pin ourselves to the strongest standard of evidence possible. Asking for nothing less than witness corroboration, audio/video recordings, or forensic evidence before we make any meaningful conclusion, our conclusion is… we don’t know. Since I don’t know whether or not the alleged victim is telling the truth, I can’t say that the public accusation is bad. I can say that it might be bad. I can say that it might be good. I can say that I’ll take whatever precautions I deem reasonable in light of the accusation. But I cannot make definitive moral judgement of the accusation without further information; it simply isn’t reasonable.
Which brings me to my point: women are treated as liars unless proven otherwise. It doesn’t matter what happened to you: if you can’t prove it happened to you, then you will be judged for speaking up.
Speaking of, what is the deal with The Thinking Atheist? I usually love the show, but was disappointed when I heard yesterday’s guest was Shermer. I’d rather not, thanks.
–
And yes, on the comments over there:
Ashley was sharing her lived experience, is that not evidence enough?
Oh, yeah, I got so far into the “treated as a liar unless proven otherwise” thing I forgot to mock the “testimony isn’t evidence” thing.
Not unless there’s 4 male witnesses.
It’s a good thing no rape victim has ever had to go through all of that.
/s
Prima facie evidence of misogyny by dismissing the evidence accepted by a court of law, her testament, without a point-by-point refutation of said testimony with other evidence….
Since when is “This happened to me” not evidence?
I would change the last sentence to – Oppose people who silence survivors. Speak out to friends and fight rape culture. Create more safe spaces so more people feel comfortable breaking their silence, if they so desire.
From the linked article, “Every survivor is entitled to make their own decisions regarding reporting, contact with their rapist, their healing journey, and to whom they are comfortable disclosing.”
If no one can be accused of anything unless guilt has first been proven in a court of law, I think the legal system might slow down just a tad. They can’t really be that dumb, can they?
For clarity, my #8 is in regards to the last sentence of OP,
@Eamon Knight
Hell, it’s not even “This happened to me” at this point. It’s “This happened to us”, with two people making highly similar claims from the very outset, and yet more coming out with the same story. Even if “this happened to me” didn’t count as evidence, a bunch of corroborating stories sure as hell does.
Others are joining the two since you looked, Knabb.
And thank you, Ashley Manta, for courageously speaking up and making your story heard. I’m sorry this was not my first comment on this post.
srsly?
An accusation is evidence for the self-same accusation?
X is evidence for X, therefore X?
unbelievable.
It’s unbelievable that you don’t get that, Chas.
It doesn’t need to reach the conclusion outright by itself. That’s not what evidence is for. Evidence is something that you have which leads you in a certain direction. The probabilities for a conclusion being true go up with it, even while other evidence may drive them down, and that is all different from saying that having such things at our disposal must mean the probabilities must be high/low or equal one/zero. People saying that something happened is like that: it’s evidence for some kind of conclusion (maybe not the conclusion some people claim for it, but a conclusion). There is some nonzero probability that believing a person is the right thing to do, unless they say things which are literally impossible. And it may not be absolutely-convince-a-radical-skeptical-the-world-exists kind of evidence, but it is nevertheless evidence. Yep, that is indeed what I would say about it. I don’t know what else you would call it, since you don’t offer anything.
Chas,
an accusation is not, in and of itself, evidence for that accusation.
I can accuse you of being someone who maliciously trips crocodiles without evidence.
However, eyewitness testimony has **always** be evidence.
Should I actually see you maliciously trip a crocodile, I can relate my story about your malicious tripping behavior and
1) imply the accusation
while
2) providing eyewitness testimony
The accusation and the testimony are contained within the same statement, but we’re not saying the accusation is the evidence. The eyewitness testimony is the evidence.
Before you go off saying, “But bitchez: they might be lyin’!” Remember something else:
evidence != proof
Saying that an eyewitness has no evidence is nonsensical. The evidence might be weighed against other evidence and found insufficient given that it’s hard to entirely rule out the possibility of a lie.
However, evidence short of proof in a court of law is still fucking evidence.
how thick do you have to be to not get that eyewitness testimony is evidence?
If it weren’t evidence, it wouldn’t even be **allowed** in court. And yet court routinely allow eyewitness testimony – even after it’s been proved many times that some people have actually lied in court.
Why do you think that is, Chas?
what the hell?
my comment just got eaten!
Fuck.
Well, consciousness razor has now chimed in, but without reading it I’m going to give it a go:
Chas:
1 statement can contain eyewitness testimony AND an implied accusation.
Accusations are not per se evidence of the accusation.
Eyewitness testimony, however, **is** evidence of an accusation.
Before you go all: “But bitchez: they might be lyin’!”
There is a reason we have one word for “evidence” and another word for “proof”.
But before you go and make yourself seem even more stupid, why don’t you pause a minute to ask yourself,
Clearly there’s a possibility that any given witness could be mistaken or lying.
Your answer to that problem is that eyewitness testimony should never be allowed in court at all, ever? Fucking really? What about the “eyewitness testimony” from the lab tech that a forensic test was performed and that the conclusions were thus-and-so? We know that forensic labs all over the US included high ranking people that lied their asses off in court.
So… who the fuck testifies? And how do we use non-testimonial evidence if there’s no evidence that the particular computer print-out has anything to do with the case at hand?
Chas: so boneheaded he doesn’t know the difference between “zero evidence” and “eyewitness testimony”.
It’s a really good thing you have nothing to do with enforcing laws, Chas.
Tsss, did you forget to bring your four male witnesses again, ladies? How else is poor Chas supposed to believe you?
Wait, you expected to be believed when you disclosed a highly traumatizing event?
Don’t be ridiculous. Obviously the proper skeptical position is b*tches be lying, since we all know that saying you were raped gets you so much support, a life long supply of chocolate, a new Prius AND a pony!
So Chas, if someone stole something from you, and you talked about it, we would have to believe you are lying about it unless you could prove that you originally owned the thing, now do not own the thing, haven’t stashed it somewhere, or sold it yourself, or gave it to someone else.
Given the negative things that happen to women when they speak up about sexual assault, never mind rape, happening to them, then the balance of probabilities is that if a woman speaks up about it, the odds are she’s telling the truth. It’s not a certainty, because nothing in life is. But the odds are definitely in favour of it. If several women confirm that they have been assaulted by the same person then that raises the odds in favour of her telling the truth even more.
If you look for absolute certainty before making any decision Chas, then I’m amazed you even leave your house.
Ariaflame
I think your mistake here is supposing that Chas isn’t fully aware of the implications of what he’s saying. He’s much too smart for making such a silly assumption, especially since “the victim’s testimony is obviously evidence” has been discussed many times before.
He’s not putting his pants on backwards stupid. He’s an asshole, knowing exactly which buttons to push.
No, you loathsome rape-apologist creep: X is evidence for Y, X here being the account of a rape (the accusation), and Y being the rape itself. But you know this very well. When a scientist publishes an account of an experiment or observation, that account is evidence for the event described having taken place. If it was not, how could science proceed?
@Jacob Schmidt #1 – You just removed the last doubts I had about openly naming rapists. Thank you.
@ChasCPeterson #14 – So it is evidence if I testify that Ben raped Ashley, but it isn’t if she does?
P.S. I just visited Ashleys blog. It’s heart breaking. She’s a very brave woman.
Hm. I thought Chas was on a self-imposed ban from comments here. It’s a shame it was lifted so soon. Or at all.
throwaway
I think maybe Chas’ problem is that he extrapolates. Since it would be unfortunate to believe him when he says things like he’s leaving, it must be true for everybody.
Chas, #14
Now that everyone has cameras on their phones, no rape victim has any excuse to not carefully photograph the act. Ideally a live video feed to the police would be best, but I’m sure they’ll work with you if all you have are blurry stills due to camera shake.
Chas @ 14
Wow. Just when I thought Chas couldn’t possibly reach a new level of stupid/asshole. Yes, X is evidence of X, Chas. Pretty conclusive evidence actually. If I have X in front of my fucking face, that’s pretty solid evidence that X is a thing.
Unfortunately your syllogism is wrong. It should read:
A) X is evidence for Y.
B) X rarely happens unless Y.
C) Therefor, probably Y.
ChasCPeterson,
Piss off.
I think Chas has provided an excellent illustration of why no one but my partner knows about the friend who raped me. (The pseudonymous sharing here doesn’t count, because…pseudonymous.)
You never, ever know when someone you love might not believe you and turn your trust against you.
Hell, if a rapist can be my friend and hide it, why not hateful rape apologists, too?
TMM
I had one close call with rape, and that was actually the proverbial dark car park.
Luckily I made it to my car faster than he made it to me.
I told exactly ONE person in meatspace. Her reply: Why was I parking there? I shouldn’t be parking there! It was my fault for parking there!
Chas
Didn’t you agree to stay out of rape threads?
TMM @ 27:
Yeah, this.
PZ:
This is so sadly true and I wish more people were aware of that sad fact. Or actually cared enough about that fact to at very least change their behavior. Even slightly.
It is very hard for women to work up the courage to come forward with the fact that they were raped. The woman will be shamed, and there is far too much sympathy for the “good name” of the rapist and not enough for the actual victim.
‘So, you say that’s video of your rape? Even live video can be faked (see also: 9-11), anyone with half a brain can see the pixels there have been manipulated.’ /puke
Chas @14:
Your compassion and empathy need serious upgrades.
Tony
“upgrade” implies prior existence…
Late to this party but…
It’s one hell of a gotcha they would like to put on rape victims isn’t it? “You can’t publicly accuse someone until they are convicted.” Of course you’ll never get a conviction until they’re accused – if even then.
Spits on ground and walks away
An accusation is evidence for the self-same accusation?
Hi Chas. I’m a lawyer. Law degree, member of the bar, nearly twenty years in practice. Let me explain something you may not know: Eyewitness testimony is evidence. Victims describing the crimes against them that they witnessed are, in fact, providing evidence. This is the way the legal system works.
Another account of how Ben Ketchum manipulates people. Obviously, TW for rape apologists. Replace vegan, environmentalist with skeptic and atheist.
https://vegansocialjustice.wordpress.com/2015/03/12/youre-going-to-carry-that-weight-a-lifetime/
Hey, he loves his guns as well because…..: http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/12/some_local_gun_owners_say_gun.html
Per the article, stated by the author, “more people are killed with bare hands than rifles….”
Thank you for your support. I wanted to share a new post about the aftermath of the original. http://www.ashleymanta.com/naming_my_rapist_the_aftermath
Chas:
My eyewitness testimony of what I lived is not evidence? Or the eyewitness testimony of the two hundred or so survivors who have told parts of their lives here is not evidence? What the fuck is wrong with you?
Ashley:
Thank you for your bravery.