Dear Roscop,

There are people out there who do not believe that the world is round.
There are also people who do not believe that the Holocaust occurred or that there has ever been a lunar landing.

The truth is, there will always be people who, despite a rather bewildering array of evidence to the contrary, choose to deny that something has occurred, weather or not they have any logical basis for that belief.

It is simply not up to Ms Funnell to add to an already horrifying experience by posting confronting images of her bruises, or other reminders of her experience, onto the internet, simply so that she can "prove" her story to an anonymous web poster who trawls on-line opinion so he can pick on those who actually have something constructive to say. My gut feeling is that it wouldn't matter to you and the other denialists even if she did - after all, there's always Photoshop, right? Perhaps even the government is assisting her in this "conspiracy" against you.

The usual practice is to accept the truth of what someone says about themselves unless there is some good reason to suspect otherwise. There is a good reason why we tend to presume innocence until there is evidence to support a finding of guilt.

My suspicion is that you, and others like you, have some sort of deep-seated psychological investment in disbelieving Ms Funnell's story and what it says about world. Perhaps this is something about which you should speak with a therapist.

Fractelle: "What do you suggest I do? Remain silent? Or by commenting,"

Either approach works.

Our Mufti was a great example of how a group of people saying "we disagree with what you are saying so badly we aren't going to listen to you any more" fixes things. I was disappointed to see this critisied as censorship, but clearly "I am not going to listen to you" is very different from "you are not allowed to say this in a public place". The Mufti is still free to say whatever he wants. It is just that no one cares what he says.

Equally, it is best if it is made plain the majority of people, regardless of gender, wildly disagree with Roscop's point of view.

The two approaches are very similar in some ways - they allow the community to arrive at a accepted viewpoint. My personal modus operandi when I see something absurd is to just ignore it, assuming everybody else will see it the same way. But is everyone did that no-one would express outrage at outrageous comments.

When is all a long way of saying I would not presume to tell you what to do, Fractelle. Whatever you do is probably good. It takes all types.

Did anyone watch the 20 years of Media watch?

I found it interesting, although I do not always agree with media watch, it does however expose how we are manipulated by the media. Popular stories relie heavily on sensationalism.

Does anyone remember the vision on the news of a little palestine boy hiding behind his father whilst bullets were fired allegedly from jewish rifles, vision was cut to black and the voice over said that the little boy had be shot by Israelie soldiers.

Highly emotive stuff, I felt enormous anger towards Israel.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that it was all staged, and the child had not be shot at all. I had developed a prejudice towards Israel as the aggressor, when in actual fact it is Palestine who are the aggressors (most of the time). The Palistine wins the PR war.

It was a war that was conducted by the media selectively broadcasting information and vision, so the media had biased my perception of Israel.

The media often plays us for fools. Playing with our biases and prejudices.

Some individuals can also do this very well.

Until the internet there was no way a person could check out the reliability of what the media choose to publish or broadcast.

Scepticism is healthy, it may not always be welcome.

The media can attempt to convince us that something is true, when it is not, and visa versa that something is false when it is true.

Doubleaa,

Comparing people who do not believe the world is round, the holocaust blah blah blah…with people who do not buy Ms Funnell’s story, is pathetic.

“The truth is, there will always be people who, despite a rather bewildering array of evidence to the contrary, choose to deny that something has occurred, weather or not they have any logical basis for that belief.” Sorry doubleaa but Ms Funnell has not presented people with a bewildering array of evidence. She has been very selective in what she says about the evidence, like doesn’t tell us anything about her alcoholic blood reading or how much alcohol had she had to drink that day?

The evidence that Ms Funnell says exists ie blood and male DNA, in isolation, does nothing to prove a crime was committed. There would be many women walking around in the community that carry an abundance of male sourced biological material. I remember a US gal. with the first name Monica, who was very proud of the fact her dress was stained with male DNA and therefore did not bother to get it dry cleaned.

Ninaf

I refer to what you say to Anti. You say a female policewoman was spoken to and that should have been the end of the matter in terms of convincing people what you were saying was the truth. Hasn’t feminist propaganda taken affect in the police force yet? Are not the police told by the feminist brigade that they should not use their own judgement with respect to such matters, instead they “should believe the victim”? The rest of the world is told that. You should know what’s in the feminist handbook, you’ve made enough comments taken straight out of it eg during your discussion with Karl Stefanovic and co… “this idea of blaming the victim”.

The SMH may have spoken to the police about their investigations but I don’t believe the police would disclose the strength of the evidence to the press especially when the case is still open.

JamesH: "Scepticism is healthy, it may not always be welcome."

Scepticism about the sentiments expressed in the article? Certainly. Absolutely even. The only issue we aren't discussing the article are we. Nina didn't mention the rape in the article, and so did not rely on it to make any points, nor did she bring it up in her posts until Antiseptic commented on it.

So what place does it have in a health discussion of the points made in the article? None that I can see. Instead, it seems to be a clear cut case of character assassination.

Roscop,

If you had understood my post, you would be clear on my argument that MsFunnell doesn't need to produce evidence to satisfy you. There was evidence in spades to satisfy those whose job it is to test the veracity of her claims.

I'll say this once more, in a short sentence with small words so that you understand: MsFunnell does not need to prove anything to you.

Also, I just want to make clear the fact that I was pointing out the ludicrous nature of your wild conspiracy theories. Were you not embarrassed to respond with yet more claims of women "walking around in the community that carry an abundance of male sourced biological material" just waiting to make a false claim of rape against....an unidentified suspect? Don't you think that your position is undermined when you make claims that this sort of thing is the norm?

You appear to like the numbers game, so I'll just ask you - are you really so unaware of the fact that the overwhelming majority of women who report rape are telling the truth, and that the overwhelming majority of rapes are not reported at all? The fact that you hinge your argument on what can only be called a statistical anomaly weakens your argument immensely.

Also, quite frankly, it doesn't matter what MsFunnell's BAC was. If you think that a person's BAC can somehow substitute for, or manufacture, consent, then you are a frightening individual who should be in jail. If, as a man, I had been out drinking (heavily) one night and was then, while I was staggering home, forced to the ground at knifepoint by a man who wanted to rape me up the ass and kill me, I would hope that issues of consent would not conflate with with my own sobriety, or lack thereof.

Finally, I find it sad that you can vilify Monica Lewinsky for not "destroying evidence" when a lack of "evidence" is precisely what you are now vilifying MsFunnell for.