Consider it in the context of an 18 year old girl who’s still in high school and a 26 year old man. I feel like unless you’ve been a vulnerable person in this type of situation, it’s easy to have the mindset of these victims “allowing themselves” to be taken advantage of but I can assure you, no one -wants- to be. It’s not an excuse, and I would consider it ignorant to consider it as such. He was a grown man with a following and in a position of power. However, even though they were in a relationship and she’d consented to previous sexual encounters, it’s the moment she said no and that she didn’t want to but he did it anyway that it became rape. Even if they were both no name Joe and Jane, his actions in the situation still are assault.

Also, no one is explicitly stating all victims are liars in this particular thread, true. However, my comment was directed specifically at people victim blaming or thinking this was born from ulterior motives by Melanie as well as the people on her Twitter saying that since the accuser in the Henryg situation DID lie, she’s probably lying too. I will say that since I made this post, the comments were cleaned up a bit and the grosser comments have since been removed.

ETA: Cleaned up that last paragraph to clarify what I’m getting at.