Kanin: False Rape Allegations

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Commentators Jew613 and Heidi are discussing Eugene Kanin’s study entitled False Rape Allegations (Archives of Sexual Behavior: 23, No. 1, 1994). I figured I’d dig up a grainy PDF of it and host it here.

ABSTRACT: With the cooperation of the police agency of a small metropolitan community, 45 consecutive, disposed, false rape allegations covering a 9 year period were studied. These false rape allegations constitute 41% the total forcible rape cases (n = 109) reported during this period. These false allegations appear to serve three major functions for the complainants: providing an alibi, seeking revenge, and obtaining sympathy and attention. False rape allegations are not the consequence of a gender-linked aberration, as frequently claimed, but reflect impulsive and desperate efforts to cope with personal and social stress situations.

Read the whole thing here:

kanin-false-rape

7 thoughts on “Kanin: False Rape Allegations”

  1. Word.

    Haven’t I warn the fellas about this? She consented until she changed her mind after the fact and turned it into rape.

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  3. She consented until you did promote marry invested in her …it.s was consensual until you did keep your part of the deal. ….

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  6. Here are some quotes and thoughts from Kanin’s published paper:

    “First, false allegations failed to include accusations of forced sexual acts other than penile-vaginal intercourse. Not one complainant mentions forced oral or anal sex. In contrast, these acts were included in approximately 25% of the founded forcible rape complaints.”

    There were no claims of oral or anal sex in the false allegations. I wonder if the same would be true today.

    “Practitioners in the mental health and legal professions, however, will readily recognize that these false rape reports are not really exceptional exaggerations in light of what people rather commonly do in order to satisfy these same needs in other contexts. Consider the extravagant and perjurious accusations that routinely pepper divorce and child custody proceedings, and the inordinate departures from the truth that have accompanied credentialed and respected political and corporate figures in their quest for recognition and office.”

    Just who are the “people” referenced here? In the second case, almost certainly all women. In the first case, I suspect the vast majority are women.

    “If rape were a commonplace victimization experience of men, if men could experience the anxiety of possible pregnancy from illicit affairs, if men had a cultural base that would support their confidence in using rape accusations punitively, and if men could feel secure that victimization could elicit attention and sympathy, then men also would be making false rape accusations.”

    I find this claim to be pure supposition, which should be reprehensible for a scholar. In effect, it seems to be an attempt to say women are not really that bad, because men would do it too.

    “Addenda: In 1988, we gained access to the police records of two large Midwestern state universities. .. The false allegation cases . represents exactly 50% of all forcible rape complaints reported on both campuses.”

    So college women falsely report rape at about the same rate as the general public.

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