“Let them be irrationally afraid of ‘false allegations’ if it means that fear will self-police their creepy behavior”

So several years ago, I was listening to the female dating strategy podcast, which is a great sub Reddit that I was on since 2019 and got really into but then some time around fall 2022 I fell off and of course for the next three autumns I had terrible (or seemingly “ok” but retrospectively user-y) flings that I always earnestly thought were relationships since they lie lmao.

At some point in time, I was listening to the podcast they produce, which is by the same name. One of the hosts Lilith actually said something totally radical, that made me laugh and changed my brain chemistry.

She said one thing we should stop doing is reassuring men “Oh don’t worry, most cases don’t get prosecuted; famous cases like Brock Turner don’t even get much jail time, even with evidence; nobody is reporting fake crimes It’s just that the woman doesn’t have evidence so blah blah blah.”

She actually said if these deranged creepy men, you know the type, misogynist, would be predators, guys who take advantage of ““ gray area”” (coercion and opportunistic)— if they actually are so butt hurt, and they think their life will be ruined over a false allegation, let them. Literally let them be afraid. Let them think that looking at a woman the wrong direction will land them in jail with their career destroyed. Obviously the legal system has not policed their behavior. and clearly a lot of them think coercion is not even sexual assault and clearly a lot of them don’t understand how consent needs to be freely and enthusiastically given and can be revoked at any point during the interaction. They think a woman staying silent or freezing up or shutting down is consent and they are too ashamed of their creepy past sexual interactions so instead they start rage baiting online about false allegations. So let them be afraid.

I thought this was such a funny and revolutionary concept. Not only to stop the extremely painful and ineffective, emotional labor of convincing men that nobody takes rape seriously, which is also depressing, but the fact that these misogynists are running around with fear and if that causes self policing, good. Plus, having to do that emotional labor never works, never convinces them, and only makes me feel less empowered, especially as a woman who’s been through sexual assault when I was 18 and countless instances of “gray zone” and outright coercion. It is re-traumatizing and if there’s one thing I learned from interacting with abusers, whether it’s my mother or men, is that they literally get off from invalidating you no matter what it is and no matter how true what you’re saying is, it’s this position of control and power they feel when they’re able to invalidate and play devils advocate like the actual devil.

What do you ladies think?