This is the story about how I was falsely accused for rape. This happened last year and thankfully it never made it into any legal system.

So I was apart of an acting group in October of 2017. We were performing our last weekend performance of our musical, Heathers, and on Saturday night we all decided to get together to hang out. It wasn’t the full cast though, just about 15 people. I knew the people there but felt uncomfortable with them because I wasn’t that close with any of them, except for my friend named Drake (name changed).

We got close that night playing tons of ping pong, making funny snapchat filter videos, and the like. His ride to the party was his friend Miranda (name changed again). And I guess before the party she was acting especially rude to him for no apparent reason.

Towards the end of the party, she told Drake she was heading out and to come grab his stuff. And me, feeling uncomfortable there with the others and being in a culture where walking with friends to their car was normal, walked out with them. It was pitch-black outside and so Drake asked me to search the car because he couldn’t find something small, like his phone charger or something. So I hopped in the back and threw on my phone’s flashlight and helped him find it.

I find it in the backseat and say, “Hey Drake here it is”. And so we step out of the car at the exact same time Miranda opens the door, with her friend Ashley (name changed) was out there. So we politely said thanks and all that, and watched Miranda drive off to make sure she was safe.

Now flashforward to the next day.

My ride to the performance sends me a text saying ‘hey, can’t take you.’ And so I was confused but respectfully said, “that’s okay, can you give me a ride back home?” And she says “no.” So then that was odd.

I get to the performance and things are tense and hell. I walked in and got dirty looks from everyone except Drake, my best friend at the time Bella (just assume all names are changed), and a few other of my guy friends. She pulls me over to the side and tells me how Miranda is going around accusing me and Drake of raping her.

This took me aback by far. I’m the type of person who respects women fully. I open doors, always ask for consent, and always takes no for an answer. I don’t make any inappropriate jokes or reference anything, so it shocked me to even get why I was being accused of this.

But anyway, Bella filled me in on ‘everything’. Apparently I grabbed Miranda’s butt on our way out, Drake and I kept making sexual jokes about her body, and when we entered her car we locked the door. Then, she proceeds to tell me how Ashley opened the car door, screamed ‘get out!’ In a demonic hell-demon voice, and how both drake and I jumped out and ran into the house scared.

Then this girl Lynn (who was the host), reinforced their story by saying that they had cameras outside and could prove this. (But refused to offer this evidence when asked later)

By this time I was absolutely livid because nobody besides Bella told me the truth, and I told her my side and said that my story made more sense.

So for that entire day I was practically tormented inside my own head. Nobody would speak to me except the guys, and the entire atmosphere was toxic. At the end of the show, however, this is what pissed me off the most. Our show director, Colin (who is gay), comes up to us and says ‘hey drake and ___ can you guys help me lift this?’ This first was sketchy because I’m kinda scrawny and wouldn’t be able to lift anything, and even when my other friend Jordan (who is a bodybuilder) offered to help he was shut down. So we follow Colin and he fills us in on what’s going on. How this Rumor is going on and he wants our side of the story. So we tell him exactly what happened and how nothing sexual happened, and every question Colin asked felt like he didn’t believe our story and was looking for chinks in our story. We stay respectful during the entire process, making sure not to anger anyone else.

So about 15 minutes later, Colin calls Miranda up to discuss this and make her feel comfortable. Key word-her. He has her explain her side of the story, and even when we both try and explain our sides and how they obviously contradict. But none of them were having it. She only got to tell her point of view of the story and how we hurt her. But the killer part of all of his is that she explicitly said that she never used the word ‘rape’

We all are dismissed from talking and we go back downstairs, and all the girls go and gossip about it in the other room while Drake and I are just utterly defeated by how unfair everything was. Then Greyson, whos cool with both guys and girls, shows us a group chat that Miranda made and added the entire cast to except for Drake and myself. Basically saying how we raped her and when we got called out we ‘ran away like a deer in headlights’. In the group chat, I read how she explicitly uses the word rape. Contradicting what she told Colin earlier.

The next few weeks I was absolutely crushed. I was beyond depressed, I was bombing tests, and I was close to losing all my friends. The only person who showed me that I did nothing wrong was my now-girlfriend who has always supported me.

This experience really woke me up to the awful reality we live in. Women can use their words to harm men or anyone who stand in their way. In my case, I lost all my friends and I lost out on an amazing experience. The concept of sex is basically ruined for me because every time I try having sex I get horribly flashbacks to the feelings I had those weeks.

I will support some feminists who truly believe in equality among genders, but I can and will not support feminism when it takes away the rights of men and others.

This is the first time I have publicly shared my story with anyone, so I would like to thank whoever took the time to read all of this. I pray that our society can change to fix all of these horrible problems.