Justin Fairfax
No matter how this bizarre saga ends, it shows one thing: Current feminist and liberal-left rules on issues of sexual misconduct, based on the "Believe women" dogma, create untenable, no-win situations.
Fairfax's accuser Vanessa Tyson, an associate professor of politics at Scripps College in California and a fellow at Stanford University, has said she met Fairfax at the Democratic National Convention in 2004; they struck up a friendly conversation, and ended up going to his hotel room where he said he had to pick up some papers. Once there, they started kissing. According to The Washington Post: "She said Fairfax guided her to the bed, where they continued kissing, and then at one point she realized she could not move her neck. She said Fairfax used his strength to force her to perform oral sex."
Fairfax has denounced the accusations as a "smear." He admits the sexual encounter with Tyson but insists it was "100 percent consensual." (He was 25 and single at the time.) He also says that Tyson subsequently called him and told him she wanted to meet his mother.
Neither Fairfax nor Tyson have any corroboration for their versions of the encounter. And there we are, with a classic he said/she said case.
Barring the sudden emergence of a hidden-camera video or some other extraordinary evidence, there is simply no way to know what happened between these two people in a hotel room in Boston almost 15 years ago. What's more, this may be a situation in which both people believe they are telling the truth.
At least for now, what we know of Tyson's account leaves ample room for ambiguity. It's unclear whether she's claiming that she said no, or conveyed her unwillingness in some other way. It's unclear whether she's saying that Fairfax deliberately used enough force to compel her to perform oral sex against her will, or simply that he guided her head toward his genitals. Recent feminist discourse on sexual assault (of which Tyson is very much a part, having been involved in anti-rape activism since 2002) tends to conflate physical force with any sexual contact in the absence of explicit consent.
It's entirely possible that Fairfax thought it was a fully consensual encounter while Tyson felt she had been sexually coerced. It's also entirely possible that she thought it was consensual at the time but reconsidered it as a sexual assault in the wake of #MeToo - as a number of women openly admit they have done with past experiences.
There is no way Tyson can prove Fairfax's guilt. There is also no way Fairfax can prove his innocence. Even if he had corroboration for his claim that Tyson contacted him later and expressed a desire to meet his mother, many would argue that this proves nothing: Tyson could have been simply trying, as many sexual assault victims do, to pretend that everything was fine and that what she experienced was consensual sex.
Do we risk punishing an innocent man, even if it's "only" by destroying his career? Do we risk telling a woman coming forward as a sexual assault survivor that she's a liar?
There have been inevitable comparisons to the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings. National Review's David French thinks that Tyson's story has more credibility than Christine Blasey Ford's, since Fairfax has admitted, at the very least, that he had sex with her. But should a claim of consensual sex make the accused less credible than complete denial of any sexual contact? That's a slippery slope toward suggesting that when sexual contact is established, the burden of proving that it was consensual is on the accused. That would effectively reverse the presumption of innocence in sexual assault cases where the defense is consent.
Other conservative commentators such as National Review editor Charles Cooke have taken the "live by the sword" approach: since Democrats and liberals have argued that "Believe women" should be the default for judging sexual assault accusations, it should also apply to Fairfax. That may be morally satisfying, but it also reinforces the slide toward presumption of guilt.
Some on the left have suggested the phrase "Believe women" should function as a slogan capturing a mood, rather than as a principle underwriting legal action. Even so, rhetoric matters. Just yesterday, for unrelated reasons, Sen. Cory Booker's (D-N.J.) past comments on the Kavanaugh saga were brought up:
We're not defined by a president who mocks a hero in Dr. Blasey Ford. We're not defined by a president who does not believe women. We'll be defined when this state says not only do we believe women, but we elect women.For many, the exhortation to "believe women" means "don't presume that women lie," as was often done in rape cases in the past. To that extent, it's a welcome aspiration; reports of sexual violence need to be taken seriously, and historically they often weren't. But the slogan is also being used as a literal standard for evaluating contrary claims. The woman says one thing, the man says another, and we must side with the former.
Tyson has now hired Ford's legal team to represent her, which puts the Democrats in an extremely awkward position if they plan to challenge her claims. Meanwhile, Republicans may jump on the "Believe women" bandwagon if it's expedient.
No one can predict at this point how the drama will conclude. But regardless of the outcome, the allegation against Fairfax should be a wake-up call for Democrats about the dangers of a once-radical, now mainstream progressive creed on sexual assault. Under this #MeToo regime, the definition of sexual assault expands to cover a multitude of ambiguous, gray-area situations; women are encouraged to rethink unpleasant or regretted sexual experiences as nonconsensual or abusive; and believing women's accusations becomes a moral duty. It's a regime under which almost no one is safe from potential career destruction.
UPDATE (February 6).
Tyson has issued a statement that clarifies her allegations. She is definitely claiming that Fairfax used physical force to keep her from turning her head and to insert his penis in her mouth, and that she was crying and gagging so that he could not have mistakenly believed the act was consensual. It is a very disturbing account, and if what she alleges is true Fairfax is unquestionably guilty of sexual assault.
However, her account also raises new questions. Firstly, it has some odd details (e.g., Tyson seems to acknowledge that she voluntarily joined Fairfax on the bed in the midst of kissing, but is also adamant that she was not consenting to sexual activity). Secondly, it is phrased in a way that suggests Tyson's alleged assault may be a "recovered memory": "I did not speak about it for years, and I (like most survivors) suppressed those memories and emotions," Tyson writes. She further claims that seeing a photo of Fairfax in October 2017 with an article about his campaign for Lieutenant Governor "trigger[ed] buried traumatic memories." This also coincided with the #MeToo campaign, which she acknowledges played a key role in inspiring her to come forward.
Does Tyson mean simply that she suppressed the memory in the sense of not thinking about it, or that she actually repressed it in the sense of being unaware that this happened? She acknowledges that in an educational video made in 2007 in which she talked about being a victim of incest and child molestation, she made no mention of the alleged 2004 assault. It is also notable that she did not discuss it with anyone despite working for a rape crisis center at the time.
None of this proves that Tyson was not assaulted by Fairfax. But it certainly leaves room for doubt - such as the possibility that her memory of the incident may have been significantly revised. (One possible scenario: Tyson felt pressured into performing oral sex on Fairfax while he assumed the encounter was consensual, but due to memory "editing" she genuinely believes that she was physically forced and clearly showed her distress.)
It is also striking that Tyson categorically states she will not discuss her account further. In other words, she is making an allegation that is likely at this point to kill Fairfax's career but is refusing to be questioned about it.
Should we be comfortable destroying someone's career and reputation under these circumstances? My answer would be no.
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