Rape. It’s a word that can have such a serious impact on someone’s life. If someone cries rape, true or false, the outcome is the same — the person’s life will change forever.
Accusations of rape happen in the adult industry several times a year. Some are true. Some are not.
Imagine waking up one day to find out that someone you just did a scene with accused you of rape on social media.
This wasn’t a content trade. This wasn’t two random people. This was a performer who was hired to do a scene by a producer and the whole entire thing was filmed, so there is no question about what had happened that day on the set.
About as real as it gets?
This is a real story that happened to Sidra Sage. Last month she was hired to do a boy/girl/girl scene for a live cam website. When she arrived on set the director informed her that the other female talent’s agent wouldn’t allow her to do girl/girl (for some odd reason that was never explained) and that they forgot to call and tell her the scene was canceled.
Sidra Sage had made the long drive from Las Vegas to Los Angeles just for this shoot so as you can imagine, she was a little miffed.
I mean who wouldn’t be, right?
After a bit of back and forth with everyone’s agents, they offered Sadira Sage an alternative. She could be in the scene but there could be no penetration of any kind between her and the other female talent Madi Collins.
Kissing and groping from the waist up was within the lines of consent, just nothing involving genitalia.
Everyone agreed and the scene went down as planned.
A few days after though Madi Collins tweeted something along the lines of, “I just don’t feel right about that girl randomly showing up to MY booking and trying to steal the show.”
Which was strange because it wasn’t Madi Collins booking. It was originally a boy/girl/girl scene that HER agent changed at the last minute.
Madi removed the tweet only to tweet later on that was very serious.
“Once again stopping in to remind you all that Sidra Sage raped me on a live cam show.” — Madi Collins (@MADICOLLINSXO)
Yes, you read that right, Madi Collins (@MADICOLLINSXO) publically caused another performer of raping her.
Rape is a very serious allegation that has very serious ramifications if true.
We spoke to the accused, wondering if maybe she just didn’t realize she accidently penetrated the other female in question, and this is what she had to say, “There was one instance during the shoot where the male talent slammed my head on her ass while fucking her doggy, but that’s the closest I got to her genitalia.”
We received a copy of the footage of the live show. This is what makes this case a little different. There were cameras going the whole time. The thing was shot live and broadcast live. There are no edits, no cuts, no breaks between shots. The whole thing was one continuous live show all broadcast from start to finish.
We did not see a time when the accused even touched Madi Collins’s private parts. So then how could she have “raped” her?
We reached out to Madi Collins to give her a chance to explain why she accused Sadira Sage of rape but to date, she has not responded to our request for comment.
Rape is an extremely aggressive, violent act.
“False accusations of rape are a form of rape itself. . . . . The power to falsely accuse a man of rape is a coveted power that permits women to destroy a man with a mere accusation . . . . notwithstanding widespread propaganda to the contrary, the real rate of false accusations of rape, according to FBI statistics sixty percent (60%).”
False allegations are a problem as they can harm and humiliate a person’s identity. We use a Quasi-experimental approach to study the difference between true and false allegations. Women were requested to create a false allegation in the experimental condition. They all were female victims of age between 17 and 53.
Gray Area of Rape Allegations:
Rape allegations concerned a gray area in most of the cases. These gray areas include what could be considered mixed signals, memories deluded by alcohol, and the misunderstanding of what constitutes a sexual assault.
Sometimes rape accusations are cried for attention or an attempt to cover up what might be considered an embarrassing moment.
But in this case, the producer clearly explained to all performers what was going on. So there was no confusion. There were no mixed signals.
False rape claims sadly are not uncommon. In fact, in the adult industry, it has become far too common. But it’s not unheard of in the real world either.
In 2009 Hofstra University set another example of a false allegation. A female University student claimed a group of men raped her. The accusation was later disproved when cell phone footage was released. She had consented to the sexual encounter, as per the phone video. Many times, a partner will accuse their former partner of rape as a sort of revenge.
Although rape allegations should never be taken lightly, neither should unfounded rape accusations. Even if you are falsely accused of rape, the consequences can be devastating.
Brian Banks, a former California football star, spent five years in prison after a classmate, Wanetta Gibson, accused him of rape. He was later acquitted after Gibson contacted him and apologized, admitting she had made up the entire rape attack.
In New York, William McCaffrey was involved in a similar case. Birney Peguero, McCaffrey’s accuser, confessed that the injuries she had received were not the result of McCaffrey rapping her but rather the result of a fight she had with several women after serving four years of a 20-year life sentence.
Even though both men were eventually released from prison, they had spent years in jail waiting for the truth about their rape allegations to be revealed. False accusations set back legitimate victims every time by compelling non-reporting and spurring a report’s disbelief with no physical evidence. Instead of a movement to stop false reporting and increase the percentage of reports that are made,
The public policy energy and rallying cry should be a war between defending the accuser’s rights against the accused’s rights.
There are three major takeaways when it comes to false allegations:
- They are nowhere near as prevalent as people believe; if someone reports assault, it probably happened.
- The small minority of false accusations have a hugely disproportionate effect on the lives of those they accuse and real victims.
- The criminal justice system can do better.
Some may find it hard to understand and empathize with a drunk frat guy who is wrongfully accused, but no one can deny the rape victim’s plight, which has just been through one of the most painful life experiences possible.
That victim will weigh the options, perhaps seek advice from friends or family, but only have a 37% chance of reporting the crime, and false accusers always make the situation worse.
Fighting False Rape Accusations:
If you believe you’ve been falsely accused of rape, you should take the allegations seriously. Even if you think the allegations are ridiculous, the consequences can be long-term. You may face fines as well as the loss of your job in addition to being sentenced to prison.
- Report to Inform the authorities if somebody accuses you of rape.
- Contact a criminal defense attorney such as Sevens Legal, APC, who will respond to the allegations and defend you against the rape charges.
- A criminal defense attorney can also help you with the steps you need to fight rape allegations.
- Adult false accusers who continue to press charges almost always have a history of bizarre fabrications or criminal fraud.
The reasons for false reports:
Research says one of the most common kinds of false accusers is a teenage girl who tells her parents she was raped to avoid getting in trouble. Such girls sometimes cite unwanted pregnancy, but the reason can also be trivial, with disturbing frequency in these cases. As a rule, it’s the parents who insist on getting the police involved. According to the studies, nearly half of all false rape complaints are filed by someone other than the alleged victim, most often by parents.
Because there’s not enough corroborating evidence to prosecute, some law enforcement agencies may label a rape claim as “false.” Rather than “false,” those cases would be better described as “baseless.”
Portrait of a false accuser:
However, some false accusers do press charges, which brings us to an unpleasant ending. Because actual rape victims are frequently mistaken for false accusers, insinuating anything negative about either group can be uncomfortable. Rape victims aren’t even a group; they don’t share any common traits. Young or old, black or white, men or women, gay or straight, wealthy or underprivileged could be anyone. Rape can happen to anyone; even a 65-year-old man was a victim of rape.
How many men are accused of rape?
There are all sorts of environments — at work, at home, in public — where someone could make an unrecorded rape allegation, whether true or false. Even if the accusations are false, they could have far-reaching and profound consequences for the accused, even if no police or judicial action is taken.
According to CPS, 5,118 men in England and Wales were prosecuted for rape (or related offenses) in the 12 months leading up to March 2017. 64 women were also prosecuted in the same year.
How many men are falsely accused of rape?
Being found not guilty of a crime is not the same as being found innocent. The prosecution’s primary objective in a criminal trial is to prove the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The defense is not needed to show that the defendant is not innocent.
There are also a variety of other reasons why prosecutions fail. For example, the victim may retract the allegation, the victim may fail to appear in court on the day of the trial, or the prosecution’s case may be missing an important legal element.
About 209 to 2,199 cases of unsuccessful rape prosecutions of 2016-2020 did not continue because the victim retracted their claim.
It is possible that the alleged victims made a false allegation and decided to pull out of the trial process. Undoubtedly, there will be more possible false cases about allegations being made. A prosecution for wasting police time or perverting the course of justice was not possible due to a lack of evidence. There is not enough data to quantify the truth.
They estimate that one false rape claim is prosecuted out of every 161 rape cases. That means that false allegations account for 0.62 percent of all rape cases, according to the data.
False Reports Example:
According to the research, the prevalence of false reporting is 2% to 10%.
The following studies support these findings:
A multi-site study of eight U.S. communities, including 2,059 cases of sexual assault, found false reports of a 7.1 percent rate. (Lonsway, Archambault, & Lisak, 2009).
A study of 136 sexual assault cases in Boston from 1998-2007 found false reports of over 5.9 percent. (Lisak et al., 2010).
Using qualitative and quantitative analysis, researchers studied 812 reports of sexual assault from 2000-2003, and they claimed to have 2.1 percent of false reports. (Heenan & Murray 2006).
Conclusion:
According to research, false reporting rates are frequently inflated due to inconsistencies in definitions and protocols, as well as a lack of understanding of sexual assault. Many victims do not report sexual assaults because of misconceptions about false reporting rates (Lisak et al., 2010). Law enforcement and service providers need a thorough understanding of sexual violence and consistency in their definitions, policies, and procedures to improve their response to victims of sexual violence.
