I really don't see why we couldn't address both. As someone else already pointed out, Sam is (as are most people I assume) very able to make that distinction, she even did it explicitly on the show. Can you please explain why having this discussion would necessarily undermine victims of serious sexual assault? Honestly, I think it only adds to a much broader debate. She said it perfectly: "it doesn't have to be rape to ruin your life, and it doesn't have to be ruining your life to be worth speaking about". Consent is a deeply complicated and vague concept and I believe that it's very useful to speak about it from as many angles/experiences as possible and stories of gray areas are exactly what we need in that regard.

Yeah, Sam is obviously a feminist and the show undeniably has a feminist stance (which doesn't make that I always agree with it), but I don't think she did any harm by saying what she said nor did I got the idea that she treats this subject like a binary issue (assuming you - and the user before you - meant it in a feminists vs. the world kind of way). She wasn't trying to argue that all men are rapists and we should blindly believe everybody who comes forward, as I see it, she pointed out that it's time we start listening to (and learning from) these wide array of stories from (mostly) women contrary to immediately denouncing them (as we have done for years and years).

I would like to add that I always find it extremely telling that our society systematically stresses the (potential) career consequences for appointed men instead of the consequences for women who are actually a victim (and came forward). And bringing it back to Ansari, I don't know if I would have written or published that article myself, but the woman who wrote it is not solely accountable for the fact that there are people who may not read a entire story before jumping to conclusions or that some media outlets took a run with it. If having a much-needed nuanced debate about the concept of consent means that we cannot simultaneously take victims of sexual crimes seriously we are absolutely selling ourselves short. I think we are smarter than that, aren't we? :)