In summary, rape myths are debatable but not debated. They are a grab bag of the true but generally accepted, the questionable, the unknowable, the meaningless and the false. The tyranny comes from their indiscriminate use. Dogma is harmless unless powerful people believe it and act upon it. Yet this is exactly what has happened. Believing in the prevalence of rape myths has become a defining feature of sex crime specialisation and helped determine policy. The myths seal the "believe the victim" orthodoxy as a necessary truth. They are used as trump cards, to be played any time an accuser is doubted. Is an investigator entitled to call a complainant's story into question because she gave contradictory descriptions of her attacker? No, that's a rape myth, because we cannot expect real victims to get their stories straight. Her account is true, and doubting it is more offensive than just being mistaken; it's revictimising a survivor and even perpetuating the patriarchy. She says she was raped, but why did witnesses see her arm-in-arm the next night with her alleged attacker? Rape myth!

https://www.blackstonesdrum.com/post/rape-myth-myths

https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1093/ojls/gqt006