Just so you know, I do know what it’s like to be falsely accused, socially, of sexual assault.
When I was 18 or 19-ish, I used to go perform with a Rocky Horror troupe in Seattle. At the time there were two or three casts still going in Seattle. And on the anniversary of the film’s release, several of us decided to go to another theatre to see their show.
I had just recently come out as bisexual, and was enjoying women as well as men on a fairly regular basis. My best friend, R (who was gay and dating a friend of mine) and a woman I’ll call T and I went to the Neptune together, met up with a few more of our cast members and drank wine out of a plastic 7-up bottle in line. T was dating a guy, one of R’s oldest friends, and had been not so subtley hitting on me. While we were in line, she asked me if she could kiss me, and did. I was thrilled. She was cute and sexy, and into me. This was before my ethics on playing with other people’s partners were so, shall we say, developed.
We went into the theatre. I sat between R and T. During the course of the movie, she proceded to pin me in my seat, and make out with me. A lot. Causing R to roll his eyes. I was still happy with the goings on, and we made out through most of the movie.
The next day, R and I showed up at another friend’s house to help them do a serious housecleaning. Some other friends of ours, a lesbian couple, S and D, showed up. The phone rang. It was T. She asked to speak to S. I asked if I could talk to her, and was told she didn’t want to talk to me.
I was a little hurt and puzzled. Then after, hanging up, S took me aside and asked me if I wanted to tell her about what had happened at the movie the night before.
I said that T and I had made out, and that R was right there the whole time.
S tells me that T is now saying that I held her down and forced myself on her. Apparently she got home and tearfully confessed to her boyfriend that she hadn’t been able to fight me off, and I had practically raped her in that movie theater.
I was completely stunned, speechless, I just stood there with my mouth open, while R burst into laughter. R explained to S that I had been the passive partner, pretty much letting T have her way with me, happily granted, but I had not been the instigator, and that at no time had the two of us been alone. Just then T’s boyfriend called R up, pissed off at me after hearing T’s version of events.
R talks to T’s boyfriend and explains, and then hangs up, still chuckling. I was completely destroyed. I had thought T liked me, and I could not imagine a scenario where you would say shit like that about someone you liked. Ever. Particularly when it was so blatantly untrue, and had happened in front of witnesses. For years, S and R would refer to this and laugh uproariously, both at the idea of my timid, sexually submissive self sexually assaulting someone in a theater full of witnesses, and that she thought her boyfriend would never ask R about it, since he’d been there.
But at the time, S was ready to kick my ass because she’d had a bit of crush on T as well, and a galloping white knight complex. Fortunately, she HAD known me longer and thought it sounded way out of character, and so was willing to let me explain myself before blows were exchanged.
And here is where the difference lies. I did not take this one incident and go, “Oh, this bi-curious girl accused me of rape, ergo all bi-curious girls, or at least a majority, will lie about being raped by a lesbian or out-bisexual woman.” No, I went, “Hmmm, this girl obviously has some mental issues and this is a distant early warning sign to NOT TOUCH!”
So yeah, whenever people start in with the… “You don’t know what it’s like to have someone wrongfully accuse of…”
A. Yes, I do.
B. Rape is not the only thing people get wrongfully accused of, and certainly not the only thing that can fuck up their social or professional life.
So it isn’t that I’m unsympathetic, until I have to listen to someone then go on to say that because of this one experience of theirs, “ALL WIMMINZ EVERYWHERE LIE ABOUT RAPE ALL TEH TIME!!111!ELEVENTYTHOUSANDPEEPANTS!!!1” and then they tell me all about how it completely ruined their life, particularly when it pretty obviously hasn’t.
Polimicks 
Then there’s all that fun self-doubt. “Did I push it? Did they ever give me any sign that they said `no’? I never thought I was the kind of person… did they just regret it? Were they experimenting using me? I would never, ever…my whole *life* is built around consent…” wash, rinse, repeat.
Did I say fun?
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