"The most common causes of false allegations are failing careers, undiagnosed mental illness, personal revenge, anti-male sexism and a desire for publicity and validation"

My journey into the world of false allegations is an odd one, since I myself was never falsely accused. However, half the people around me were; and it broke apart families I knew, friendships I had and whole industries I loved. And, so, this matter became very personal to me.

It all began during my college days in Southern California (both McMartin and MeToo started in LA County, the county I was born in) when over 300 kids testified that their preschool teachers at McMartin had engaged in ritual satanic sexual abuse on a long-term basis. Not only did everyone believe it, but an echo-movement of ritual satanic child abuse started in Orange County where I was living. Pretty soon the closest family to me was ruined. The daughter suddenly explained one day that her parents (who I was very close to) had been ritually-sexually abusing her when she was a small girl. She learned this through “recovered memory” therapy.

Then, one of my best friends, formerly a normal psychologist with a Master’s degree, turned his entire practice into a recovered memory practice. And soon, family after family, in all the churches around, were being torn apart with half the congregation instantly believing the wild claims and other half immediately seeing that the entire thing was absurd. Of course, the McMartins turned out to be innocent (and all 300 children were lying); and, of course, the churches eventually figured out that they were not full to the brim with ritual satanic child molesters.

BelieveAllSurvivors advocates always respond that since both of these crises are over, all is well and it’s time to put the past false-allegations behind us and believe all new claimants. But, you see, I was disabled and struggling at work, and the one job I was really great at was babysitting; and in a rich place like Orange County, a great babysitter can end up being very well supported by rich families. But, now, no one wanted to be a babysitter, or work with kids in any way; and, to this day, millions of men are afraid to even be left alone with a child. And, so, untold careers and millions of relationships, and potential relationships were killed off my by McMartin and the Satanic Panic; and not a single BelieveAllSurvivors advocate has ever voiced any worry or remorse about the damage that was done, other than the worry that so many false-allegations might hurt their own movement.

After this, all through my life in the artistic world, most males who attained any prominence were accused, as were most businessman who attained financial success, such that, for the men around me, even attempting to be successful or famous is to invite the end of one’s own social, vocational and financial life. Furthermore, woman after woman confessed to me personally that they engaged in false accusations in order to gain favorable results in divorce courts (by coaching their children to falsely accuse their own fathers) or simply to extort financial settlements when their career prospects were down and they were desperate for money. One admitted to me that she did it just because she wanted men to suffer. (And when I related all these stories to other women I knew, they all said they not only didn’t care, but that it was good payback for centuries of patriarchal oppression.)

When MeToo hit, the mass-movement aspect of it felt identical to McMartin; but MeToo has permanently ruined half of the vocations men might go into (which is why you see so many vocational men-deserts, offices filled with only women). The witness coaching, the legal strategies, the group bonding women got (which many told me no other belief system had ever given them) — all of it felt like a Mega-McMartin for the whole world.

So, I dedicated myself to cross-examining every woman I met. Several started out claiming they had been themselves raped, but by the end of the conversation admitted that they hadn’t, and then went on to explain all their various reasons for what they now were admitting (an hour later) were false allegations. Being deeply involved in the arts-and-entertainment worlds, I often knew the accused personally and could tell instantly that the pattern of behaviour being described was utterly unlike the person they were talking about. One by one, most of the rape stories initially told to me fell apart, not just in my opinion, but by the women’s own admission.

I could write a whole book on these stories; but I’ll end with saying that the most common causes of false allegations are failing careers, undiagnosed mental illness, personal revenge, anti-male sexism and a desire for publicity and validation. In any case, our institutions and personal lives are in ruins and the media doesn’t care.

By Mel C. Thompson