My name is Jesse Vetters, and I am
among the vast minority of men who have been falsely accused of
sexual assault.
Let me explain. According to RAINN.org,
over 237,000 cases of sexual assault happen every year. Only sixty
percent of these are reported, and according to the FBI only two
percent of those reports have evidence pointing to being unfounded.
That amounts to about two thousand, eight hundred, and forty-four
people who are falsely accused of sexual assault or rape each year.
Out of a population of more than three-hundred million, that's a
pretty low number (though not as low as it should be, because rape
and sexual assault are atrocious and shouldn't happen at all.
My accusation came from an
ex-girlfriend while I was in high school, and it was, in its own way,
justified. See, while one girl and I were dating, we did a bit of
sexting or whatnot. We were eighteen, incredibly horny, and not
having actual sex, so what else were two creative kids going to do?
I'm not super proud of some of the things we said, but it was what it
was. Flash forward to our entirely unpredictable breakup a whopping
three months later when she tells another of my exes (they were
friends, it should have been expected) that during one of our little
sessions or whatever, I mentioned having sex while holding a knife to
her.
Now, context: She was into bondage and
hardcore situations, and I was into making her happy. I'd never now
and never would have held a real knife to any real person, but I was
of the opinion that what is said in a “sexy” instant messaging
game isn't exactly meant to be taken as reality. Like, ever.
Seriously, I've also written about a menage-a-trois with a centaur. I
write fiction.
Aaaanyway. My more-ex-girlfriend, who
had her own grudge against me for a mostly-unrelated reason, decided
that I was a threat to someone's safety. I've never been entirely
sure whose, but I suppose she had her reasons and I don't judge her
for them. At the time I was something of a wayward soul, and she
wasn't the only one of my friends to think so. Most of them knew I'd
never hurt anyone (hopefully all of them knew that) but c'est la vie.
My school, much like most other
schools, had what was called the “safe school hotline,” where
students could call in and report anything about anyone that they
thought was unsafe. It was an anonymous system that could, in theory,
do a great deal of good in stopping harmful or dangerous activity
without any blowback to whoever reported it. I think having such
systems in place is good. That said, it was something of a small
community that my family happened to be in pretty tight with. So when
the call came down the line that I'd “threatened” to “rape”
my ex-girlfriend “with a knife,” my mom got a phone call warning
that the police might be at my door to escort me to school in the
morning. Needless to say that warning passed on to me with a pretty
frantic midnight conversation, and it became somewhat clear (I'll get
to that somewhat in a minute) that I wasn't actually a potential
rapist. No cops were called or needed, though I did spend a good
chunk of the next day talking to various members of the school's
faculty, and that was certainly a joy.
Through the course of the next two
days, I confronted the more-recent ex about why she would accuse me
of threatening her, to which she, rather put off by the whole
situation, told me that she didn't, but she did talk about it to the
other person involved. That was where shit really hit the fan,
because while the safe school hotline was anonymous, high school
students are definitely not. When my accuser was confronted about the
situation, the story immediately changed from being one of asserting
safety to one of outrage that the anonymous system had failed and
she'd been outed.
Did I mention I was doing a production
of The Crucible at the time? The characters were all mixed up, but we
were all there. To protect those involved, I won't say who was who.
This was years ago, and I'm over it. I just think the story should be
told.
Now, about that somewhat. I mentioned
briefly that I spent about two days explaining that I hadn't
threatened anyone, trying to keep my life from falling apart.
Throughout this ordeal, I had more than a few people notice that I'd
been spending a lot of time out of class and around the principals'
offices. For those that remember high school, this is never a good
thing. Despite my efforts to keep the situation under wraps (I did
tell a couple of very close friends that I'd trusted with things like
this before) rumors started to fly. Maybe my accuser told others,
maybe not, it doesn't matter. What matters is that for about a week –
honestly, with most people it only took a week for that to not matter
anymore – I was some kind of delinquent and possibly a
knife-rapist. I didn't particularly care what most people thought,
but a few people I'd thought were my friends turned against me, and
that stung.
At the end of the ordeal, I was
exonerated and the truth, mostly, came out. It was a long time before
I could actually forgive either of the others involved, but
eventually I did. I even understand why the call was placed. I guess
I'm writing this to mostly say that, yes, sometimes people are
falsely accused of various forms of sexual assault. Sometimes it's
rape, sometimes it's not. But those incidents, in my experience,
don't hold a lot of water. We all make mistakes, and we all say and
do things we shouldn't, but when it comes down to it, we falsely
accused cannot afford to make a stink about our situations. Not yet.
If you are sitting in a jail cell right now for a rape you did not
commit, then your story is different than mine by exponential
degrees. But if you, like me, suffered no more that a few people not
talking to you and a dad who thinks your story would make a good
play, then I say to you, tell everyone how little your false
accusation affects your life. Tell them that they should, instead,
focus on the near-quarter-million people who are assaulted each year
in the United States alone. Tell them that by focusing on the falsely
accused, they silence the voices of those who have been truly
wronged. Tell your stories, right your wrongs, but do not let your
voices drown out those that need the platform, too.
Sexual assault should never happen to
anyone. Support should be there for everyone.
