What's worse, being raped, or being falsely accused of rape?

[Chairman Miaow]

There have been a lot of rape threads recently, and the outcry against rapists has been (unsurprisingly) massive. Rapists are probably number 2 on the world hate list behind child molesters.

There have actually been a fair few cases where women (and possibly men, although I've not heard of it) have cried rape and started witch hunts against certain individuals they dislike.

So what do you think is worse? being raped? or having people think you are a rapist?

Edit: sorry about the poor organisation and wording, have to go to work, shall be back to see response.

Edit 2: a lot of people are mentioning that you can be proven innocent of rape if you were falsely accused. what if you were convicted? is rape still worse?

 

[ACman]

Whats with all the rape threads today?

OT: Both are pretty bad I think.

 

[Sigma Van Lockheart]

Well in my view they both ruin your life but rape can never be undone. Being falsely accused of rape is bad but you can always be proven innocent. Yet with rape you can?t be un raped making it worse in my opinion.

 

[Merkavar]

Whats with all the rape threads today?

yeah^^^

I would think being raped would be worse.

being falsly accused might cause you problems but will probably all be over if/when the accusations are dropped. rape is more permanent

 

[rutger5000]

Depends entirely on the situation and persons in question. Both can ruin your live.

 

[Hugga_Bear]

Whats with all the rape threads today?

yeah^^^

I would think being raped would be worse.

being falsly accused might cause you problems but will probably all be over if/when the accusations are dropped. rape is more permanent

Yes and no, sometimes a rape accusation can lead you to losing your job (notably teachers) and then it's not exactly easy to recover. I don't doubt it would cause a lot of psychological harm as well.

However I'd have to go with actual rape, there's no if buts or maybes with it, with an accusation there's a chance everything will be okay and life will continue. Being raped, I doubt that's the same.

 

[William MacKay]

i think they would be around equal. if you get raped, you probably feel really insecure and shit. if you get called a rapist though, you might lose friends and get fired and would end up feeling shit.

 

[Sikachu]

Eugh. It's obvsiously and uncontroversially far worse to be raped than it is to be falsely accused of the same. Falsely CONVICTED, on the other hand...

 

[similar.squirrel]

Erm.. Being raped, obviously.

 

[DEATHROAD]

Being raped is worse in my opinion for the same reasons people have already said, but if it was a choice between being falsly acused of child molestation or being raped then i think the former is worse, even if your proven inocent there will be ALOT of people who will treat you like dirt for the rest of your life, not to mention if you get put in jail for it, we all know what happens to pedo's in prison. even fasly acused ones.

 

[Gigano]

Impossible to say on an individual level.

While always a serious crime, there are different degrees of "rape" - from drunken contact rape between ex-lovers to assault gang rape. And while also a serious crime, there are similarly many different consequences a false allegation can have - from being a minor annoyance to the falsely accused spending life in prison.

So it's not feasible to make any general comparison on how much harm each crime will potentially do. Especially if you factor in the different social situations and psychological constitution and hardiness of the victims.

If we go by what total harm is actually caused by the two across the board, then rape - simply by being the far more common crime - is undoubtedly the greater culprit.

 

[RicoGrey]

For the individual, definitely being raped(assuming this is a brutal rape), but overall I would say being falsely accused.

The reason is, falsely accusing someone of rape is not only straight up evil, it causes people to question legitimate rape accusations.

 

[Catchy Slogan]

Whats with all the rape threads today?

yeah^^^

I would think being raped would be worse.

being falsly accused might cause you problems but will probably all be over if/when the accusations are dropped. rape is more permanent

Might have something to do with Colenel Gaddafi allegedly ordering his troops to commit mass rape as a weapon. Then again, it might not.

OT: I think both can be as bad as each other. Sometimes being falesly accused is worse when it makes the news, as communities have this idea of knowing better than the police and victimising and harassing the person who was falesly accused.

 

[Continuity]

Both a heinous crimes and both should carry long custodial sentences... The trouble with both is that they're largely one persons word against anothers, how do you tell who's lying?

 

[LadyRhian]

Being raped. There's a whole lot of mental and emotional stuff that comes with that, from being told you should have known better (if you were in a dangerous place or wearing anything the slightest bit sexy and/or short) to the feeling that you might have been able to keep it from happening if (Insert reason X here). The whole issues of trust and fear are bad enough, but if you report it to the police, there are places that can make you feel like it's happening all over again, or douchey police officers who tell you that you were asking for it or that, if you are old, ugly, fat or in any other way unattractive, that you should be grateful that at least you got to have sex.

Yeah, it's getting better, but it still happens. So, honestly, I'd have to say that actually being raped is worse.

 

[Grubnar]

Being wrongfully accused is bad.

Being raped is far worse.

 

[iRevanchist]

Rape is definitely worse. It's like crushing one's will to be.

 

[SpartanBlackman]

Getting accused of rape ruins you. No job will take you. you can never rise high, as being in a big rape case will make it so that you can never get anywhere in life. You lose friends, family, and you would have no-body, just because someone lied about you.

At least when getting raped you can eventually recover.

 

[LandoCristo]

Probably being raped would be worse. What would you rather happen: Get punched in the face, or be falsely accused of punching someone in the face?