Before anyone here asks, yes, I'm upset. I just got blocked by a popular furry artist on Twitter because I disagreed with her and said that when a man is accused of rape, I do not automatically consider him guilty.

Rape is a serious allegation. If a man is convicted of rape his life is essentially over. Unfortunately, the Court of Public Opinion seems to have the idea that the mere accusation is enough to condemn a man to prison. I'm sorry, but that's not how justice works. Anybody can make an accusation against anybody else, an accusation by itself is just words. And I'm sorry if this offends some of your folks, but a woman saying "this man raped me" is just words, and is not proof that the man actually committed the crime.

I can think of several occasions where the mere accusation of rape has been enough to effectively ruin someone's life. In the furry community, one of our most popular artists was accused of it a few years ago. Though he was never found guilty of the crime of rape, to this day any time someone hires him to do any coding (such as FA's attempt to do exactly that a couple years back), there's a mass exodus of artists away from that site because "HE RAPED A WOMAN!!!one" even though the man has never been convicted, and as far as I can tell no one has ever provided any evidence that he actually committed the crime, only rumors and 'he said/she said' bullshit. A court of law hasn't convicted him, but unfortunately the Court of Public Opinion has, and so he can't get a job coding because OMG, he has a bad reputation, waaaaa.

An accusation without evidence is nothing more than a vicious rumor. I've had the misfortune of being the brunt of a lot of vicious rumors over the years. I've been accused of being gay when my orientation was straight because I was a virgin at the tender age of 17... and the Court of Public Opinion back then decided that I most definitely was gay, and the rumors spread around the entire city of Portland, Oregon, for years afterward, making my life a living hell (this was back in the 1980's, when "gay bashing" was still highly tolerated in the area and when the infamous Measure 9 sponsored by the Oregon Citizens Alliance was a real threat to GLBT people's liberties).

So you see, I have personal experience with this whole idea that a mere accusation somehow equals guilt, because I've gone through it. Whatever this furry artist who blocked me wants to believe, she's a goddamn sexist bigot if she wants me to believe that a man is guilty of rape simply because a woman accused him of it. I will believe he's a rapist IF AND ONLY IF he's been found guilty in a Court of Law, NOT simply because a woman said he raped her or because The Court Of Public Opinion demands it. An accusation is not evidence. Denying reality won't make it go away.

And to the artist who blocked me over this: grow up, little girl. Though your actions clearly show that you believe as much, you're not better than me just because you were born with a vagina and I wasn't.