At my Web site, I chronicle and analyze false rape claims. http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/ Of all the depressing aspects this entails (and there are many), prehaps the most depressing is this: in cases of alleged acquaintance rape where a typically young woman claims that a typically young man raped her, but he claims sex was consensual, police require no corroborating evidence to deprive the young man of his liberty by incarcerating him. Any woman or girl can send virtually any man or teenage boy to jail just by crying rape, even if the claim turns out to a far-fetched lie.

Is there any other class of private citizens who have so much power over another class of citizens as young women have over young men? They can use the police and the media to destroy any male they target. Far-fetched? Read the stories in my Web site.

The unfairness is mind numbing. Two conflicting claims of criminality -- she claims he raped her, and he claims she made a false police report -- but only one arrest is made. He is left to suffer in jail sometimes for weeks or months, experiencing an anxiety that may surely surpass the crime he was charged with committing. His once-good name is splashed across the newspapers, TV, radio and the Internet, and the entire world is invited to titillate to the details of his humiliation. Note that most of these "men" are barely more than boys. Most people will assume that since he was arrested, "he must have done it," and most will never once consider that he is in jail based on nothing more than a lone female's accusation that has not been corroborated by any other evidence. The accusations will brand him with a taint that he may find impossible ever to remove.

For her part, she is afforded anonymity in the press as well as a paid sexual assault advocate (who, by the way, never met a false claim she was willing to acknowledge) to walk her through her "ordeal." The advocate is paid for by tax dollars or tuition (largely from men). And don't even get me started on Federal Rule of Evidence 413, which treats men accused of sexual assault worse than Charles Manson at trial -- perhaps the most appalling double standard in all our jurisprudence (which is saying a lot). And when it turns out she lied, she typically will receive less jail time than her victim served (another topice for another time).

All of which is a long-winded way of saying this, why do we as a society tolerate our young men being arrested over a disputed claim of acquaintance rape? Would not a "protective order" work for the girl until he's actually convicted, assuming he did it? And why isn't she arrested since it's just as likely he's telling the truth and she's made a false police report?

Sadly, I believe I know the answers to all this, but that's why people interested in fairness need to speak up about it.