Should sexual assault accusations be made public? (Rush Limbaugh, solution, carry)

[jdmil]

It's disturbing to me that more and more we're seeing sexual assault accusations being made publicly. We're seeing women who never bothered to go to the police make accusations, often for the first time, in the media.



I don't think this is how these kinds of accusations should work. Not only should people be presumed innocent (and I'm not one of those people who think that's only a requirement for the government), they should be able to address accusations on a level playing field. If there's a woman, or even several women, who all of a sudden decide to make accusations about a man in the public eye, it's almost impossible for him to squarely address those accusations because he has to focus on the optics of the scandal and the political fallout.



Also, there's this weird subtext that we buy into that's pretty sexist in my opinion. Because when you have women accusing you of sexual abuse, on one hand, you have to be firm in your rebuke of those accusations, but on the other, if you're too firm, you look insensitive and you have to worry about "offending" other people as collateral damage. As Rush Limbaugh said, in politics, You Can't Hit The Girl. Even if the girl is obviously hitting you.


For that reason, I don't think these kinds of accusations need to be made public. I think libel laws should give people the right to sue if a publication publishes an accusation that isn't the result of a police report and investigation. That way, the person can have some kind of "official" resolution if they're innocent. But opting out of prosecution because persecution is easier, because you can tell whatever story you want and nobody will question you on the details, and you can get random women to feel sorry for you and carry the water for you in tearing the man in question, is not the kind of society we should want to live in.