Honey Badger Radio: Brian Banks and the Social Rapist Show Notes

Air Date: 21/11/2013

Show Intro (written by Alison Tieman, Narrated by Karen Straughan)

Wanetta Gibson. Wanetta Gibson. That’s the woman who falsely accused Brian Banks of rape in 2002. Even though there was no physical evidence to corroborate Wanetta Gibson’s testimony and her story that he had dragged her, protesting, past five class rooms full of students without anyone noticing was far from plausible, Brian Banks was threatened with being tried as an adult and pressured to take a plea deal.

His plea deal got him 6 years in jail, 5 years probation and a life sentence on the sex offender registry.

All based solely on a woman’s testimony. Despite the lack of physical evidence, despite the implausibility, despite the inconsistencies of the tall tale, Brian Banks was not exonerated until he’d served his full sentence and recorded his rapist fessing up to her crime.

Did we say rapist? Why yes we did. Because we do have a rape culture, one in which women can socially rape men with impunity.

Join us on Honey Badger Radio as we discuss the Brian Banks case and other cases of false allegation.

Or as we prefer to call it, social rape.

Additonal Show notes after the break.

Brian Banks Review (Written by Della Burton)

In 2002, Brian Banks was falsely accused of rape by Wanetta Gibson. Gibson’s story had holes in it, and changed under examination by prosecutors. There was no physical evidence of rape. However, under threat of being tried as an adult and facing a possible 41 years in prison, Banks was pressured by his attorney to plead no contest instead of fighting the charge. The attorney didn’t even let him consult his mother before signing the deal.

Banks served over 5 years in prison, received a felony strike, and upon release, was subjected to sex offense registration and other requirements associated with being on parole.

He had served that time time and was out on probation when Gibson contacted him, asking to let bygones be bygones, then agreed to meet with him. It was at that meeting that he recorded her admission that she lied about being raped.

Gibson’s taped confession was enough to convince the Innocence Project to investigate the case, their first time taking on a case of someone already released from prison. Evidence presented by the Innocence project was enough to convince L.A. county prosecutors, and an L.A. county superior court judge that the conviction should be thrown out.

Social Rape: It Exists (Written by Alison Tieman)

Our ideological opponents point out that using the word rape to refer to false rape accusations is expanding the term.

What’s amusing about the charge that we’re “watering down rape” is that feminists are busy expanding what the word rape applies to with their term “rape culture.”

Because of “rape culture” rape now isn’t just a crime that all people condemn–but still remain skeptical in any particular instance that it’s actually occurred–rape exists on a continuum of social behaviour totally unrelated to actual rape.

Rape jokes, rating women’s looks, the beauty ideal, all of these things get folded into the idea of rape using the term rape culture.

Sometimes the only way to fight fire is with fire. If we can get false rape accusations seen as a form of rape, a social rape, then we bring balance to the discussion. We have to consider the needs of both types of rape victim; those who are raped physically and those who are raped socially.

Now to offer an argument that false rape accusations are social rape, we have to look at what makes rape a bad thing.

It isn’t the physical damage which, according to studies, is often identical to whatever damage is sustained during consensual sex… in fact we know what makes rape uniquely bad is not physical damage because the average physical trauma of other crimes that are considered far less serious than rape is often far more significant. Beatings, broken bones, permanent disfiguration and organ dysfunction… these are common features of muggings, assaults, attempted murders and they all are far more physically damaging than the average rape.

What makes rape uniquely horrific is not the physical damage, which is eclipsed by other violent crime, what makes it uniquely horrific is the mental effects on the victim, the loss of trust, the disruption in their sexual life, the psychological damage.

All of that damage is shared between victims of physical rape and victims of social rape.

When you read the stories of false rape accusation victims, a common theme emerges.

I’ll defer to the words of jpflathead, a commentator on reddit, in describing the effect of a false accusation:

Wait till you’ve been hit with a charge of false accusation of pretty much anything and you find:

• intense depression
• social disapproval
• ptsd
• constant guilt and wondering if you did anything wrong or deserve this
• distrust from others
• distrust of others
• your failure to thrive at work or in social relationships
• feelings of personal powerlessness, feeling robbed of control over your life
• fear of knocks on the doors, or even emails
• suicidal ideation

All of these symptoms are shared with physical rape victims, male and female.

So if you’re going to take a crime like rape and say that it’s worse than any other crime even though it is, on average, less physically damaging. Then to justify it you have to rely on the psychological damage of rape.

Which applies equally to victims of physical rape and victims of social rape.

And as for women having impunity to socially rape men… unless the criminal justice system gets involved a woman can accuse a man of rape or other sexual crimes without any consequence.

She can use her community against her victim by spreading rumours.

She can even use modern social media against her victim, spreading her toxic lies further than ever before.

Social rape. It exists.

False Accusations (Written by Diana Davidson)

When the topic of false accusations of rape arises the feminist reaction is to silence the subject with claims of ‘victim blaming’ or ‘rape apology’

Aside from assuming guilt instead of innocence, which bypasses an essential aspect of the justice system, it stands as an hysterical reaction to legitimate reasons to vigorously question an accuser.

Feminists assume or project motives onto people who think a woman should be questioned when making an accusation of sexual assault.

It’s not complicated: when a person is accused of a crime that places their liberty in jeopardy they deserve the right to a proper investigation and a fair trial.

Though some women might make false allegations maliciously, other women may simply be in a state of confusion.

False memories are a studied phenomenon.

UK barrister Barbara Hewson outlines some experiments in the matter in a November 11th article on spiked.com called “Believe the victim: a recipe for injustice”

She describes a 1996 Dutch study which found that after an aircraft crashed into an apartment building and the media falsely reported that videos of the crash were made, over half of those interviewed later on claimed to have seen the non-existent video material, and some proceeded to give details of what happened when the plane hit the building.

In 2013 249 soldiers returning from Afghanistan were subtly asked if they remembered a New Years Eve missile attack that had ended harmlessly. This event hadn’t happened so none recalled it… until seven months later. When questioned again 26% believed it had happened.

In regards to sexual assaults Barbara Hewson has repeatedly mentioned the hysteria caused by a book called “The courage to heal” which told women that “if they didn’t have any specific memories of abuse but felt that it might have happened: it probably had” This resulted in a wave of false memories and accusations against innocent parents.

The book had not been written by psychologists or experts. It was written by two women taking a creative writing course.

So, when we say that the number of false accusations of rape are unkown, we’re not just saying that some women are bitches, we’re saying that some people might actually think something happened that never actually took place.

That’s why we want fair trials.

That’s why we want an honest dialogue about false rape accusations.

Top Comments from Listeners

Reddit Show Thread

Men’s Rights Reddit comment by unexpected item:

The magic wand society gives females to wave over men’s lives, on account of their real or imagined precious fragility and lack of sexual agency can be used to deploy a trump card of automatic victim status as soon as they start crying or show emotional weakness or vulnerability. It is just a social fact that victim status commands sympathy and hoists the bearer unto a higher moral plane. It is an instrument of power.

Men possess no such instrument. They are seen rightly or wrongly as sexual agents with the physical and emotional strength to prevail over women in most cases. A man has to make a case for having been wronged. He cannot simply break into tears or cry rape or abuse or domestic violence. This is because society does not construe man to be weaker or less aggressive by nature. This is a social fact that gives to women an arbitrary power men do not possess.

Feminism missed the opportunity to redress the balance.

Instead it construed rape as the signal act of violence used to subordinate women as a class.

Women’s victim status became encoded in law.

Now the instrument has legal force. It is an arbitrary power all women enjoy over men as a class. The power of false allegation of rape both socially and legally expressed through vigilante justice or through the courts is an example of that power.

Male shame is female power. By waving the rape allegation wand, with or without merit, women exercise that power.

Assume patriarchy. Traditional societies are dominated by men. They earn the money because stronger, physically and emotionally. This gives them economic power over housebound, dependent women portrayed as emotional, weak, vulnerable, and fragile. Better they cook and childrear as nature intended. So the theory goes.

Notice now the magic wand of female power is an instrument endowed them by the social reality feminists call patriarchy.

So now, men rape women to subordinate them as a class. Rape is their instrument of power. But within patriarchy, assuming such, the automatic victim card is the correlate instrument of female power. Crying rape is a powerful tool for women. Men do not have it.

The low burden of proof for women and the exaggerated measure of the harm done to women make rape allegation an instrument of power all women enjoy over men. When a rape occurs and accusers do not exaggerate the harm caused, which may be considerable but remains a taboo topic unacceptable to question, then they use this power legitimately. Notice, however, men still do not possess it and it still derives from the ideology of patriarchy so-called. When the allegation is false, the power is used arbitrarily and without justice and is the correlate of rape as defined by feminists, that is, as a violent instrument of arbitrary male power.

For this reason false rape allegation by women against men can be seen as a correlate, though not the only one, of male on female rape and therefore as a kind of magic wand rape or social rape.

If you don’t accept patriarchy defined weakly as traditional patterns of relationship between the sexes with their associated beliefs about male and female status, then just call it traditional society. If you don’t accept the values of traditional society then you have every reason to join us in rejecting false female victimhood and the power it confers on its bearers. You don’t need to see false rape allegation as social rape. You reach the same conclusion by another means.

Viewing it as social rape neatly draws the lines of correlation to oppose the feminist idea of rape as a defining instrument of male power.

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Youtube comment by Matt Hill in response to Percavius.

Well, in this case, since there is no actual rapist, it is pretty clear that the real aggressor, the real villain of the piece is the accuser and that’s what is being communicated here. Now, rape is rape,  slander is slander, perjury is perjury, but rape is put on a pedestal. This is by design, you see, because rape is framed as a gendered problem, and as such, those that cultivate rape hysteria can only benefit from elevating the status of rape. They make it a sacred cow so they can fortify their victim status. And here is the outcome: a society wherein unscrupulous women can point a finger and ruin a man’s life. So, you know what? Fuck the word “rape”. If you can assassinate a man’s character, you can certainly rape it, and that’s exactly what we’re talking about here.

Thank you for joining us for this episode of Honey Badger Radio.

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