There are two sides...
I have seen both sides of this issue.
In the first instance a 14 year old girl was raped by a 17 year old male. No question that he was guilty (I found him passed out drunk, covered in his own semen and the girl's blood). For many reasons I can't get into the specifics.
Ten years later I was involved in an investigation as an impartial thrid party. A 19-year old woman claimed that a 22-year old male had entered her dormitory room and "sexually assaulted" her. The institution had reacted and suspended the 22-year old without a proper investigation. It turned out that it was physically impossible for the guy to have assaulted the girl - he was a member of a wedding party over 300 miles away with 250 witnesses (including the chief of police) at exactly the same time as the assault was alledged to have occurred.
After 18 months the thing was finally resolved. It came out that the woman had been interested in the guy (who had a girlfriend) and when he had told her he was not interested in pursuing a relationship with her,she decided to get even. While he didn't go to jail, the young guy's life was really screwed up by the accusations.
As an impartial observer I was stunned at how poor the original investigation was, and how clear evidence was disregarded or never followed up on. The young guy did in fact sue the institution and he ended up with more than $250k in a settlement.
I also remember a lot of guys talking about dating girls when I was in high school. There were a lot of stories about how "she said no at first, but once things got going she wanted it". This was in the early 70's. I later came to realize that many of these stories, if true, were probably what we would now consider cases of date rape.
I have seen both sides of this issue.
In the first instance a 14 year old girl was raped by a 17 year old male. No question that he was guilty (I found him passed out drunk, covered in his own semen and the girl's blood). For many reasons I can't get into the specifics.
Ten years later I was involved in an investigation as an impartial thrid party. A 19-year old woman claimed that a 22-year old male had entered her dormitory room and "sexually assaulted" her. The institution had reacted and suspended the 22-year old without a proper investigation. It turned out that it was physically impossible for the guy to have assaulted the girl - he was a member of a wedding party over 300 miles away with 250 witnesses (including the chief of police) at exactly the same time as the assault was alledged to have occurred.
After 18 months the thing was finally resolved. It came out that the woman had been interested in the guy (who had a girlfriend) and when he had told her he was not interested in pursuing a relationship with her,she decided to get even. While he didn't go to jail, the young guy's life was really screwed up by the accusations.
As an impartial observer I was stunned at how poor the original investigation was, and how clear evidence was disregarded or never followed up on. The young guy did in fact sue the institution and he ended up with more than $250k in a settlement.
I also remember a lot of guys talking about dating girls when I was in high school. There were a lot of stories about how "she said no at first, but once things got going she wanted it". This was in the early 70's. I later came to realize that many of these stories, if true, were probably what we would now consider cases of date rape.