the chilling effect of calling victims liars

on russell brand, etc.

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This weekend, upon concluding a four-year joint investigation with the UK’s The Times, and Channel 4 Dispatches, The Sunday Times published an exposé relating a variety of evidence- and research-backed claims and allegations of rape, sexual assault, and emotional abuse against Russell Brand, a man who, at least up until this weekend, remained a popular mainstream comedian.

It's not painful enough to read a deeply-researched, years-long, devastating investigation about a sexual predator whose wrongdoing has been tacitly permitted by The Powers That Be for over a decade. No. Because existence is a prison, we also have to hear from people who, unasked, will rise to the occasion to defend a man not in spite of the allegations against him, but almost because of them. 

It's not a coincidence — the persistent gender solidarity displayed by men is a reminder of why most women will not report incidents of sexual abuse, especially when the aggressor is a celebrity who holds sway over public opinion. To bring forward an accusation against a public figure, no matter how well-founded and brimming with evidence, is to invite the world at large to loudly and indiscriminately play the roles of judge, jury, and executioner, questioning and dissecting every word and behavior you've ever been even partly responsible for. It hardly seems worth it, not when, in the end, the accuser's life is more likely to be ruined than that of the accused. 

So when multiple women come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against someone in the public eye, knowing as we all do the odds of retaliation against the accuser are much higher than those of justice against the accused, my instinct is to believe the former. 

Sadly, as someone who has been Alive Over the Last Decade, I wasn't overwhelmingly shocked when, in the direct aftermath of the excellent reporting from The Sunday Times, many men — and some women who I dearly hope get picked — emerged from their dusty corners of the Internet to pledge their support to Brand, a person who has miraculously but unsurprisingly been dodging the consequences of his own barely-concealed misdeeds for well over a decade.  

It is fascinating, but when a man becomes credibly accused of sexual misconduct, everyone suddenly becomes both a philosopher and a legal analyst. Men who've never done their own laundry and who regularly misspell judgment start screaming "innocent until proven guilty!" into their podcast mics, as though the standard of proof required to reach a guilty verdict in a court of law applies in my house, too. As if a four-year investigation from a reputable media outlet, with the rigorous fact-checking, legal, and ethical processes and procedures that entails, is equivalent to a stand-alone, unverified, anonymous allegation from a Twitter user in Topeka, Kansas. (To any Topeka girlies reading this, I have literally nothing against you and wish your city nothing but the best, my brain just believes that Kansas is somehow more remote than Alaska.)