How to Prevent False Allegations in a #MeToo Era

[deleted480308]

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Continuing to conflate this with legal proceedings is a strawman. We can do this all day.

You are pretending jail is the only fear men have. They also fear losing their careers, schools, and reputation. There should be some expectation of proof to take those things from an American as well (morally, not legally)

 

[WisNeuro]

You are pretending jail is the only fear men have. They also fear losing their careers, schools, and reputation. There should be some expectation of proof to take those things from an American as well (morally, not legally)

You are pretending that incontrovertible proof is available in every crime. Particularly with CSA, be it within a family unit, or within a large institution such as the Catholic church, simply a willfully ignorant assertion.

 

[deleted480308]

You are pretending that incontrovertible proof is available in every crime. Particularly with CSA, be it within a family unit, or within a large institution such as the Catholic church, simply a willfully ignorant assertion.

I’m not at all pretending proof is always (or even usually) available. I’m absolutely saying that society deciding to not still require proof to act against an accused is inappropriate.

I also find it odd that after acting like I was crazy earlier for saying men were worried about losing their presumption of innocence due to “believe all women” you now seem to be implying that proof isn’t required after all

 

[WisNeuro]

I’m not at all pretending proof is always (or even usually) available. I’m absolutely saying that society deciding to not still require proof to act against an accused is inappropriate.

I also find it odd that after acting like I was crazy earlier for saying men were worried about losing their presumption of innocence due to “believe all women” you now seem to be implying that proof isn’t required after all

You are still conflating and putting words into mouths here. Presumption if innocence is irrelevant in this area, as it's not a criminal proceeding that we are talking about. Outside of a courtroom, no one has a right to presumption of innocence, which is a sham concept in and of itself, but that's for another thread. You keep bringing this back to a narrow notion espoused by a minority of people, outside the spirit of the concept.

As for society acting on things, that's on society/people. We shouldn't be muzzling people from being able to talk about their experiences because society is ****ty. Seems like we're readily willing to muzzle first amendment rights to placate a false view of another right.

 

[deleted480308]

You are still conflating and putting words into mouths here. Presumption if innocence is irrelevant in this area, as it's not a criminal proceeding that we are talking about. Outside of a courtroom, no one has a right to presumption of innocence, which is a sham concept in and of itself, but that's for another thread. You keep bringing this back to a narrow notion espoused by a minority of people, outside the spirit of the concept.

As for society acting on things, that's on society/people. We shouldn't be muzzling people from being able to talk about their experiences because society is ****ty. Seems like we're readily willing to muzzle first amendment rights to placate a false view of another right.

You saying presumption of innocence is a sham concept says quite a bit about your reaction here. We simply don’t agree on how to appropriately react to serious allegations

I’m not at all saying govt shouldn’t let people speak about their claims, I’m saying we shouldn’t act against the accused without some expectation of proof...you disagree. We’ll have to disagree

 

[cara susanna]

That’s a strawman.

Never said people cannot report things. Only that in terms of believing an alleged person is a criminal, evidence should be expected. And there were A LOT of people who wanted to block a scotus off of an accusation with no evidence, thus the legitimate concern from some about the notion that all accusations be believed regardless of evidence (again, not speaking about the doctor/patient treatment relationship)

1. A SCOTUS confirmation is a job interview. It is a privilege awarded to a select few. Denying someone a SCOTUS seat for a sexual assault allegation is different from, say, putting them in jail. I mean, Merrick Garland got denied without even a hearing and he didn't have any sexual assault allegations.
2. In sexual assault cases, where there often is not physical evidence, the alleged victim's verbal account IS evidence. So, no, it's not true that there was no evidence against him. Also, he still got confirmed, so that kind pokes holes in the "accusations ruin men's lives" idea. Ditto with Clarence Thomas.

 

[deleted480308]

1. A SCOTUS confirmation is a job interview. It is a privilege awarded to a select few. Denying someone a SCOTUS seat for a sexual assault allegation is different from, say, putting them in jail. I mean, Merrick Garland got denied without even a hearing and he didn't have any sexual assault allegations.
2. In sexual assault cases, where there often is not physical evidence, the alleged victim's verbal account IS evidence. So, no, it's not true that there was no evidence against him. Also, he still got confirmed, so that kind pokes holes in the "accusations ruin men's lives" idea. Ditto with Clarence Thomas.

Every one knows an interview isn’t jail. I’m saying the principle of presumption of innocence is important outside the limited context of constitutional protection. I’m also aware that testimony can be weighed for its merit as evidence with corroboration/verification

I’m not rabbit trailing into digestion of Kavenaugh accusations, I believe we already did that elsewhere

 

[WisNeuro]

I’m not at all saying govt shouldn’t let people speak about their claims, I’m saying we shouldn’t act against the accused without some expectation of proof...you disagree. We’ll have to disagree

If you look back, I never said this. Once again, words into mouth.

 

[cara susanna]

I agree about presumption of innocence being important. But I also think that doesn't translate to "presume she's lying," and that's the way our society handles allegations right now.

 

[deleted480308]

If you look back, I never said this. Once again, words into mouth.

Here

You are still conflating and putting words into mouths here. Presumption if innocence is irrelevant in this area, as it's not a criminal proceeding that we are talking about. Outside of a courtroom, no one has a right to presumption of innocence, which is a sham concept in and of itself, but that's for another thread. You keep bringing this back to a narrow notion espoused by a minority of people, outside the spirit of the concept.

As for society acting on things, that's on society/people. We shouldn't be muzzling people from being able to talk about their experiences because society is ****ty. Seems like we're readily willing to muzzle first amendment rights to placate a false view of another right.

 

[deleted480308]

I agree about presumption of innocence being important. But I also think that doesn't translate to "presume she's lying," and that's the way our society handles allegations right now.

Investigate but Presume no one (of any gender) is telling the truth unless there is proof is actually how allegations should be handled

 

[clausewitz2]

Hey @sb247 I'm very curious as to the independent reasoning that led you to the conclusion that the principles of evidence governing judicial proceedings specifically under Anglo-American Common law is, in fact, the complete and perfect standard by trumps all other ways of assigning blame or culpability for society at large.

Non-random example. Say a friend of yours, known them for years, really good with your kids, willing to come over and play babysitter in a pinch. Then someone pulls you aside aghast at a social function when they find out who your babysitter is and tells you that they saw this person looking at child porn on more than one occasion. You don't think this is a crazy person. Your friend swears up and down it isn't true, it's all a lie, they would never. Do you leave your kids with them again for the night unsupervised?

Outside of the formalized proceedings of the law where the might of Leviathan will be deployed based on the outcome, presumption of innocence is a wonderful check on state power. But even civil suits in this country are based on a preponderance of evidence standard, i.e. is it more likely than not? It is a garbage principle in real life and I am highly skeptical anyone really consistently applies it in making social judgements, at least versus something roughly Bayesian where you weight different sources of information with priors based on criteria related to reliability, past veracity, social status, etc and come out with some posterior probability distribution and have a set of decision rules based on blah blah blah you get the idea.

Of course if you actually apply presumption of innocence for real consistently in your daily life, lemme shoot you a PM, I have this rich friend in Nigeria who is having some troubles with his bank.

 

[deleted480308]

Hey @sb247 I'm very curious as to the independent reasoning that led you to the conclusion that the principles of evidence governing judicial proceedings specifically under Anglo-American Common law is, in fact, the complete and perfect standard by trumps all other ways of assigning blame or culpability for society at large.

Non-random example. Say a friend of yours, known them for years, really good with your kids, willing to come over and play babysitter in a pinch. Then someone pulls you aside aghast at a social function when they find out who your babysitter is and tells you that they saw this person looking at child porn on more than one occasion. You don't think this is a crazy person. Your friend swears up and down it isn't true, it's all a lie, they would never. Do you leave your kids with them again for the night unsupervised?

Outside of the formalized proceedings of the law where the might of Leviathan will be deployed based on the outcome, presumption of innocence is a wonderful check on state power. But even civil suits in this country are based on a preponderance of evidence standard, i.e. is it more likely than not? It is a garbage principle in real life and I am highly skeptical anyone really consistently applies it in making social judgements, at least versus something roughly Bayesian where you weight different sources of information with priors based on criteria related to reliability, past veracity, social status, etc and come out with some posterior probability distribution and have a set of decision rules based on blah blah blah you get the idea.

Of course if you actually apply presumption of innocence for real consistently in your daily life, lemme shoot you a PM, I have this rich friend in Nigeria who is having some troubles with his bank.

I wouldn’t trust anyone who says they caught someone multiple times with child porn and didn’t call the police.

 

[clausewitz2]

I wouldn’t trust anyone who says they caught someone multiple times with child porn and didn’t call the police.

Uh-uh, dodging the question by changing the stipulations. Fine - say they did tell someone when it happened but for whatever reason no formal investigation was ever launched. Do you still let them babysit your kids?

If you say yes I would bet a large sum of money that your partner would not be cool with this.

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

Uh-uh, dodging the question by changing the stipulations. Fine - say they did tell someone when it happened but for whatever reason no formal investigation was ever launched. Do you still let them babysit your kids?

If you say yes I would bet a large sum of money that your partner would not be cool with this.

You hire a babysitter. 2 days before he/she starts, you're told by multiple reliable sources that he/she is a unicorn that will eat your refrigerator. Do you still hire them?

You can't use a nonsensical example and then get mad when someone refuses to accept the premise.

 

[clausewitz2]

You hire a babysitter. 2 days before he/she starts, you're told by multiple reliable sources that he/she is a unicorn that will eat your refrigerator. Do you still hire them?

You can't use a nonsensical example and then get mad when someone refuses to accept the premise.

I don't think it's nonsensical at all - substitute sexual assault for child porn and it is a pretty common scenario. People in Hollywood knew about Harvey Weinstein being a rapist for decades and talked about it before he suffered the slightest consequences. And it was not any particularly compelling piece of "objective" evidence that turned the tide against him, just firsthand accounts by people who did not go to the police at the time for the most part.

The point mainly is that literally no one is going to to apply a presumption of innocence standard to allegations of serious sex offences when deciding how to respond outside of a criminal prosecution. For some reason it being an alleged sexual assault against an adult woman seems to make it hard for people to grasp this, I do not care to speculate why.

I agree your example is nonsensical - unicorns are not a thing but pedophiles and rapists are.

Make the stakes personal and more viscerally other - probably a good number of men don't feel great about what they did in retrospect about one or more sexual encounters in their past, whereas usually only people with OCD are scared they are secretly pedophiles. Et voila the intuition is clearer. If unicorns were real and were known to love to chow down on appliances and a few years back I or someone close to me lost a dishwasher to one, I would definitely cancel, yes.

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

I don't think it's nonsensical at all - substitute sexual assault for child porn and it is a pretty common scenario. People in Hollywood knew about Harvey Weinstein being a rapist for decades and talked about it before he suffered the slightest consequences. And it was not any particularly compelling piece of "objective" evidence that turned the tide against him, just firsthand accounts by people who did not go to the police at the time for the most part.

The point mainly is that literally no one is going to to apply a presumption of innocence standard to allegations of serious sex offences when deciding how to respond outside of a criminal prosecution. For some reason it being an alleged sexual assault against an adult woman seems to make it hard for people to grasp this, I do not care to speculate why.

I agree your example is nonsensical - unicorns are not a thing but pedophiles and rapists are.

Make the stakes personal and more viscerally other - probably a good number of men don't feel great about what they did in retrospect about one or more sexual encounters in their past, whereas usually only people with OCD are scared they are secretly pedophiles. Et voila the intuition is clearer. If unicorns were real and were known to love to chow down on appliances and a few years back I or someone close to me lost a dishwasher to one, I would definitely cancel, yes.

Its not child porn specifically, its that a close friend had witnessed someone looking at child porn multiple times and doing nothing about it that unbelievable. I can't speak to anyone else, but if I saw someone looking at actual child porn the police would get called pretty darned fast.

Harvey Weinstein is a decent example. Had it been a single accusation that wasn't able to be confirmed by any other means, nothing likely would have happened. If, on the other hand, enough people say the same thing it becomes much more likely to be true. I'm not sure what the magic number of accusers needs to be, but barring any other evidence definitely more than 1. It actually would be interesting to see if there are any cases where more than 1 person made an accusation (assuming the accusers aren't closer friends/family) that turned out to be clearly untrue.

 

[clausewitz2]

Its not child porn specifically, its that a close friend had witnessed someone looking at child porn multiple times and doing nothing about it that unbelievable. I can't speak to anyone else, but if I saw someone looking at actual child porn the police would get called pretty darned fast.

Harvey Weinstein is a decent example. Had it been a single accusation that wasn't able to be confirmed by any other means, nothing likely would have happened. If, on the other hand, enough people say the same thing it becomes much more likely to be true. I'm not sure what the magic number of accusers needs to be, but barring any other evidence definitely more than 1. It actually would be interesting to see if there are any cases where more than 1 person made an accusation (assuming the accusers aren't closer friends/family) that turned out to be clearly untrue.

Okay, glad to hear that we actually do share a lot of the intuition. The original question up-thread was something like 'we have to presume innocence which means that an allegation without objective external evidence should not lead to serious consequences'. I was pointing out that a presumption of innocence principle that leads to the outcome of saying 'there are multiple allegations but there's no evidence so it shouldn't count' is a dumb principle no one actually holds except for the purposes of winning arguments on the Internet.

 

[deleted480308]

Okay, glad to hear that we actually do share a lot of the intuition. The original question up-thread was something like 'we have to presume innocence which means that an allegation without objective external evidence should not lead to serious consequences'. I was pointing out that a presumption of innocence principle that leads to the outcome of saying 'there are multiple allegations but there's no evidence so it shouldn't count' is a dumb principle no one actually holds except for the purposes of winning arguments on the Internet.

Testimony counts as evidence to a degree. But it must be weighed with scrutiny, like can you prove you ever even met the person? Are you the only accuser? Etc

And yeah, I still hold that an accusation with no corroboration or verifiability should not be treated as fact

 

[clausewitz2]

Testimony counts as evidence to a degree. But it must be weighed with scrutiny, like can you prove you ever even met the person? Are you the only accuser? Etc

And yeah, I still hold that an accusation with no corroboration or verifiability should not be treated as fact

So in that scenario you're cool with them caring for your children that evening? Just want to make sure that is what you are saying because I have a hard time believing you are saying it in good faith.

 

[deleted480308]

So in that scenario you're cool with them caring for your children that evening? Just want to make sure that is what you are saying because I have a hard time believing you are saying it in good faith.

I’ve had a personal friend be accused (falsely in my opinion) and they are still welcome around my family.

I’ve also had family accused and proven to be criminal and they don’t get to be anywhere near my kids

 

[clausewitz2]

I’ve had a personal friend be accused (falsely in my opinion) and they are still welcome around my family.

I’ve also had family accused and proven to be criminal and they don’t get to be anywhere near my kids

And those family members, you were cool with them coming around right up until they were convicted? Presumption of innocence should dictate it's all good up till that point.

 

[deleted480308]

And those family members, you were cool with them coming around right up until they were convicted? Presumption of innocence should dictate it's all good up till that point.

are you under the impression that presumption of innocence negates investigation and due diligence? I've given you the benefit of the doubt until now but you don't appear to be discussing this in good faith

 

[clausewitz2]

are you under the impression that presumption of innocence negates investigation and due diligence? I've given you the benefit of the doubt until now but you don't appear to be discussing this in good faith

Your position initially was victim allegations shouldn't have serious professional consequences for anyone because of "presumption of innocence." Now you are saying that it is less about some kind of formal process for you and more about some weighting of available evidence. So what you mean is something more like "I don't believe these allegations based on what I know."

Since in many cases of assault the verbal report of the people involved is all the evidence there will ever be, what you are saying is that the default position ought to be "the person reported to have assaulted someone should be treated as telling the truth, and the victim's report should not be considered reliable." You have above stated that you are actually making a measured decision based on available evidence, ergo no consequences for a report of alleged sexual assault has to mean that the report is given very little weight because otherwise some kind of corrective action ought to follow from it.

I genuinely don't understand what "presumption of innocence" could possibly mean apart from this based on what you have said. If that is your position, and you are okay with this having the practical consequence that the majority of actual, real, very much not faked sexual assaults have no consequences for the perpetrator...well, you'd be consistent, I'd give you that. Horrifying, but consistent.

Applying an evidentiary standard appropriate for constraining exercise of police power leads to pretty awful results when adopted as normative in society as a whole.

Strawmen aside, what "believe all women" is meant to do is to serve as a rhetorical device and a slogan to try to correct the default you are proposing which has been operative for a very long time. It is not literally the case that people are asserting that there are no circumstances under which these reports could be suspect, only that you should have to be moved to this conclusion based on exemplary facts of the situation and in the absence of that treat it as likely based in reality. Similar to "Black lives matter" - the assertion is not that people of other races are worthless but that the system as it operates today is baffling and mystifying if it was actually a system that took account of the fact that black people are in fact human beings and their deaths are tragedies.

Slogans are not syllogisms.

 

[deleted480308]

Your position initially was victim allegations shouldn't have serious professional consequences for anyone because of "presumption of innocence." Now you are saying that it is less about some kind of formal process for you and more about some weighting of available evidence. So what you mean is something more like "I don't believe these allegations based on what I know."

Since in many cases of assault the verbal report of the people involved is all the evidence there will ever be, what you are saying is that the default position ought to be "the person reported to have assaulted someone should be treated as telling the truth, and the victim's report should not be considered reliable." You have above stated that you are actually making a measured decision based on available evidence, ergo no consequences for a report of alleged sexual assault has to mean that the report is given very little weight because otherwise some kind of corrective action ought to follow from it.

I genuinely don't understand what "presumption of innocence" could possibly mean apart from this based on what you have said. If that is your position, and you are okay with this having the practical consequence that the majority of actual, real, very much not faked sexual assaults have no consequences for the perpetrator...well, you'd be consistent, I'd give you that. Horrifying, but consistent.

Applying an evidentiary standard appropriate for constraining exercise of police power leads to pretty awful results when adopted as normative in society as a whole.

Strawmen aside, what "believe all women" is meant to do is to serve as a rhetorical device and a slogan to try to correct the default you are proposing which has been operative for a very long time. It is not literally the case that people are asserting that there are no circumstances under which these reports could be suspect, only that you should have to be moved to this conclusion based on exemplary facts of the situation and in the absence of that treat it as likely based in reality. Similar to "Black lives matter" - the assertion is not that people of other races are worthless but that the system as it operates today is baffling and mystifying if it was actually a system that took account of the fact that black people are in fact human beings and their deaths are tragedies.

Slogans are not syllogisms.

You can continue the incredulous posting but no, I don't think any accusation should automatically be assumed to be true. Regardless of who makes it, who it is made against or what the crime alleged it.....it should be investigated with an emotional distance for facts. I reject your premise that innocent until proven guilty is only a good idea for police

 

[clausewitz2]

You can continue the incredulous posting but no, I don't think any accusation should automatically be assumed to be true. Regardless of who makes it, who it is made against or what the crime alleged it.....it should be investigated with an emotional distance for facts. I reject your premise that innocent until proven guilty is only a good idea for police

Once again - do you think this is a good idea or tending to promote your conception of justice for a class of offences and situations where there will be no evidence beyond an allegation even in the case of it occuring in objective reality?

Only an idea of moral dessert that doesn't particularly care about consequences to wrong parties seems to be able to accommodate this. What is the ultimate aim served by this?

You don't seem to be engaging with the unsettling reality that in many cases related to sexual assault the accusation is the only evidence in principle. Please, step away from the con law for a minute, don't confuse the legal system with justice (something they beat out of L1s pretty quickly). Are you okay with a large swath of these offenses being unpunishable by any means? That is what you are saying leads to, this is very much not hyperbole.

 

[deleted480308]

Once again - do you think this is a good idea or tending to promote your conception of justice for a class of offences and situations where there will be no evidence beyond an allegation even in the case of it occuring in objective reality?

Only an idea of moral dessert that doesn't particularly care about consequences to wrong parties seems to be able to accommodate this. What is the ultimate aim served by this?

You don't seem to be engaging with the unsettling reality that in many cases related to sexual assault the accusation is the only evidence in principle. Please, step away from the con law for a minute, don't confuse the legal system with justice (something they beat out of L1s pretty quickly). Are you okay with a large swath of these offenses being unpunishable by any means? That is what you are saying leads to, this is very much not hyperbole.

I'm absolutely saying that I prefer some evil go unpunished over the alternative of unjustly punishing the innocent.

 

[clausewitz2]

I'm absolutely saying that I prefer some evil go unpunished over the alternative of unjustly punishing the innocent.

The trouble is when this evil that tends to go unpunished is common, can have major negative ramifications for the people involved, and differentially impacts a demographic group who are already at a significant political and economic disadvantage. However, in your view, the categorical good of someone innocent never being punished in any way trumps this and it doesn't matter.

I'm not really a consequentialist but dag. Even Kant would be pretty uncomfortable with that. If that's where you're at I'm not sure I can meaningfully engage with a view of justice that looks like that.

 

[birchswing]

I'm absolutely saying that I prefer some evil go unpunished over the alternative of unjustly punishing the innocent.

I agree with you on this.

It's one of the reasons I strongly oppose the death penalty, which you've mentioned supporting for rapists.

You strike me as someone (your avatar helps out a bit with this) who is distrustful of the government and concedes that the government does make mistakes (I would myself agree with that position, although it motivates me to want better government rather than less government—two reactions to the same problem). Wouldn't it stand to reason then that mistakes should not be cemented in stone (death) with no possibility of amending them?

I have to say I don't have enough grasp of the rest of this conversation to opine too much, but I do tend to agree with your stance against gossip as a source of reliable information.

 

[WisNeuro]

Here

No where in there do I say what you allege I said.

 

[deleted480308]

I agree with you on this.

It's one of the reasons I strongly oppose the death penalty, which you've mentioned supporting for rapists.

You strike me as someone (your avatar helps out a bit with this) who is distrustful of the government and concedes that the government does make mistakes (I would myself agree with that position, although it motivates me to want better government rather than less government—two reactions to the same problem). Wouldn't it stand to reason then that mistakes should not be cemented in stone (death) with no possibility of amending them?

I have to say I don't have enough grasp of the rest of this conversation to opine too much, but I do tend to agree with your stance against gossip as a source of reliable information.

I think the bar for the death penalty should be much higher than conviction to prison for the reason you mentioned.

I.e. you actually catch a mass shooter in the act of shooting people on scene? I'm cool with execution
you piece together some almost definitely evidence for an old crime where it's beyond a reasonable doubt but not far? I don't think you execute that guy.

 

[deleted480308]

No where in there do I say what you allege I said.

I accused you of disagreeing with me that we shouldn't act against an accused without evidence.

You said you never said it

I then showed your post where you said presumption of innocence was a stupid concept and shouldn't apply outside of criminal proceedings.

I'm going to stand by my point, you may disagree if you like or retract your statement, I'm cool either way

 

[WisNeuro]

I accused you of disagreeing with me that we shouldn't act against an accused without evidence.

You said you never said it

I then showed your post where you said presumption of innocence was a stupid concept and shouldn't apply outside of criminal proceedings.

I'm going to stand by my point, you may disagree if you like or retract your statement, I'm cool either way

Again, I never say we should act against someone without evidence, you threw those words in my mouth. I did say that no one has a right to presumption of innocence outside of a courtroom. Two very different things. If you'd rather believe the false misinterpretation, such is your right.

 

[Detective SnowBucket]

You two, this is a thread on an interesting pertinent topic. How to prevent false allegations is the title. You've wasted 2 pages without addressing. We're not here to listen to this.
I want this thread to go on. You are going to get it locked. Take it to the PM's or shut up.

 

[WisNeuro]

There is an ignore button for the prickly amongst us. And technically, we're not here to listen to anything. Unless you are using a text to talk app or something.

 

[deleted480308]

There is an ignore button for the prickly amongst us. And technically, we're not here to listen to anything. Unless you are using a text to talk app or something.

snowbucket has brought us together!

 

[WisNeuro]

I feel like more than two years on the site should give someone a pretty good idea of how these things usually go. This is fairly normal.

 

[clausewitz2]

I feel like more than two years on the site should give someone a pretty good idea of how these things usually go. This is fairly normal.

Especially in the psych (iatry/ology) forums. We do go on.

 

[birchswing]

I have to say I found this one of the better conversations. I've read good points on both sides. An impressive tete-a-tete.

 

[LasVagus]

One of my relatives was killed by a drunk driver. One of my good high school friends died in a car accident. One of my college friends died in a car accident and another college acquaintance died in a motorcycle accident. Despite these tragedies, I still drive to work everyday. Statistically speaking, I suspect that driving is the most dangerous thing I do.

It is absolutely the case that someone could ruin your life forever by making a false accusation of sexual misconduct. You could also die in a car accident while driving home from work. And it is entirely possible that either of these things could happen to you no matter how good a person you are or how careful you are. But you can't live your life paralyzed by the fear of either happening.

I can't give you advice on how to lower the risk of a false accusation to zero, but I do have some strategies I use when interacting with medical students and residents: 1) I shake trainees' hands when I meet them and when their rotation is over. Apart from this, I make no physical contact whatsoever. I don't pat people on the back. I don't tap someone on the shoulder to get their attention. I NEVER hug. 2) I do not make any jokes of a sexual nature, regardless of whether a joke is at anyone's expense or not. 3) I never comment on anyone's appearance, hair, clothes, etc. 4) I never ask about anyone's relationship status. 5) I never ask about anyone's social plans. It seems that oftentimes accusations can rise out of ambiguous situations. So I try to make every interaction as unambiguous as possible.

At the end of the day, I really do believe that most people are far more reasonable than social media would ever lead us to believe. I don't think I have ever worked with a trainee who didn't get that I'm a decent guy who is trying my best to do the right thing. But I never forget that icy roads and sociopaths will always exist.

 

[SourceOfDenial]

It must be nice living in the whitewashed Pollyanna world that sb247 lives in where going to the police to report a sexual assault is presumed safe, free from misogyny, sexism and racism. Where is this mythical place you practice and live that the justice system exists outside of a societal context?

 

[deleted480308]

It must be nice living in the whitewashed Pollyanna world that sb247 lives in where going to the police to report a sexual assault is presumed safe, free from misogyny, sexism and racism. Where is this mythical place you practice and live that the justice system exists outside of a societal context?

If you have a specific question and not a rhetorical one, I'm happy to discuss the issue with you