She doesn't need to provide him context to say no. She can just say no. End of story. To convince people of the veracity of her version of the situation, context is good. It helps someone not involved understand the situation better.

Bringing Serial into this discussion is stupid. They clearly go over the thing where most murders are committed by ordinary people. The reasons to doubt the case against Adnan had nothing to do with "He's a nice guy".

Jay's a nice guy, too. And Probably Ronald the Serial Killer...

Word. Most of the people I know that are assholes have loads of people who think they are nice and charming as hell.

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES.

I'm just puzzled by how it is possible to have the strength for a very public act of carrying the rape mattress around all the time and not have the strength to drop the niceties in those messages. That is a contradiction in my eyes.

Why is her version gospel and she gets invited to the SOTU as a guest of my Senator while he is presumed guilty?

This is one of the most important pieces I've read in a really long time.

As someone who was... I never really know the words for it... date-sexually assaulted (not penetration rape, but he took all my clothes, held me down, yelled at me, tried to pry my arms and legs open, and I managed to get away) I know the "wanting to talk" feeling. I was dating this guy, very causally- but dating. We…

I know - it's perfectly find to let the accused rapist defend himself, give his side of the story. But the fact that his side of the story is considered more credible and the victim's is always somehow muddled by emotions or something is sheer sexism.

"The impression of a man who watched disciplinary proceedings in which he wasn't directly involved doesn't dictate how a woman being cross-examined about her sexuality can and cannot feel"

she doesnt need context. Ive rejected my husbands sexual advances before, a few times, and i have sex with him ALL THE TIME. He still hasnt raped me. Am i lucky?

Even if all these women were somehow "mistaken," you would hope that Columbia would think that this guy is, at the minimum, a shitty individual who has questionable behavior around women, and maybe isn't somebody they want on their campus.

Clearly plenty of people seem to think that smoke is coming from these women's, flaming pants.

This may come as a surprise to you, but just because someone has consensual sex with you once doesn't mean that they're always DTF.

"He's got a nice mom! People with nice moms never do anything bad!"

this is all very serious but can we just glory in that girl's brilliant updogging of this idiot

You answered your own question.

We have this cultural notion that I see getting in the way of how we think of not just rapists, but all major criminals: We can't seem to shake this myth that "good people don't do bad things."

I'm just going by my own experience, but having a ~real live rapist~ in the family (grandfather) sure does seem to make a lot of people (grandmother, uncle) want to pretend that all raped women are liars (mother, aunt). These people make me sick.

The life experience of being religious and/or a complete idiot and/or someone who has internalized patriarchal mores.