Conor Oberst is an asshole

I know, we all knew that. I remember back in college everyone was like “Oh, of course he’s a jerk, because he’s brilliant.” Now, there is debate about whether Oberst is brilliant or not, but he does seem to be falling into that famous/talented/special white guy box that lets them get away with things like rape. And with the resurgence of Woody Allen in the news, I can’t help but feel an intense anger that Oberst would think, “Hey, someone is accusing me of rape, and I have a lot of money so I’m going to sue her.” That will shut a bitch up, amiright?…or as we call it in academia, that will silence marginalized and disempowered people from speaking up.

Back in December, xoJane posted an article entitled, “It happened to me: I dated a famous rock star & and I got was punched in the face.” I read the piece when it came out; the series “It happened to me” can be spot on or really off the mark. This one sounded pretty legit. In the comments, a woman posted three comments claiming Oberst allegedly raped her at a concert when she was 16. The claims (in the comments and on Tumblr) have been deleted so The Wire’s Allie Jones seems to be pretty skeptical, but as anyone reading this knows, I am solidly in the #IBelieveHer camp. Oberst denies meeting the woman, and announced Thursday that he’s suing her for defamation.

The comments made by the woman (which I read when she made them) indicated she had a lot of emotional trauma from the alleged rape, which she asserts happened 10 years ago in North Carolina during a show. She claims Oberst’s older brother was her English teacher and introduced them as a 16^th birthday present. Oberst denies all allegations. The statement he released:

“Today Conor Oberst filed a libel lawsuit in a New York federal court against Joanie Faircloth, a resident of North Carolina, who falsely accused him of rape in the comments section of the xoJane website in December 2013and again, some days later, on her Tumblr page. The suit counters Faircloth’s baseless allegations and states that Oberst never had any physical contact with her, either at the convert in Durham, NC at which she claims the attack took place, or at any other time. The only connection between Oberst and Faircloth was one of artist and fan—a fan who has posted laudatory comments about Oberst elsewhere online, including describing attending his band’s concert as the ‘Best memory ever!’

“The lawsuit filed today outlines Faircloth’s history of inventing stories and personalities online in order to gain attention. Although her false statements about Oberst have since been deleted from the locations where they were initially posted online, Oberst’s suit alleges that her malicious lies spread across the Internet and are archived by multiple blogs. Through his attorneys, Oberst requested that Faircloth recant her false accusations, but she ignored the requests. Oberst has thus been forced to proceed with this libel suit in order to set the record straight and to clear his name.

“Oberst is seeking to promote the truth and repair the distress this has brought upon him and his family. Oberst intends to donate the proceeds of this suit to charities benefiting the victims of violence against women.”

 Jones continues by discussing the practices of xoJane and her work past experience with them. It is worth a read, but the point is that xoJane provides a place for women to share their stories with one another however xoJane doesn’t protect the commenters from being libel. xoJane didn’t comment for Jones’ article.

I wanted to talk about something else, specifically Oberst’s statement and the alleged victim. First, I’m pretty sure 10 years is past any statute of limitations in the states for rape. There is obviously going to be no physical evidence, and I’d hazard to guess the alleged assault happened before everyone started documenting very aspect of their lives. So in the end, there is nothing, nothing the alleged victim could do to Oberst except write some comments online.

Now, as for Oberst’s statement, WTF? Ok, even if he is innocent of all allegations, he attacks the alleged victim with your standard women are hysterical, and look she enjoyed a concert, and they lie! I’ve told lies before, so I hope no one can prove that or someone may use that as an excuse to make me unrapable. And make no mistake, what that statement does is what every defense attorney does to alleged victims, make them someone who can’t be raped or are lucky someone so important would pay any attention to them, are sluts or crazy, unbelievable.  And as we all know, men in power with fans could never abuse anyone. The characterization of the alleged victim by Oberst’s camp alone gives me pause when I read about how any proceeds would be donated to women’s organizations combating violence against women.

If the allegations are false, I feel for Oberst, but why? Unless, she like Oberst asserts is crazy, because obviously anyone who would come forward about sexual assault in the US must be insane (I don’t mean that, well not entirely). Oberst isn’t as famous as he used to be so if the allegation is just for attention why not make it years ago when Oberst was relevant? False rape allegations are rare. And powerful men do horrifying things as those links above suggest. The woman made the allegations on a site where anyone could track her, and she used her real name. All of these things in my mind point to, she probably isn’t lying. But I’m sure we’ll never know, and she (like rape survivors on college campuses) will be punished for not being able to prove their rapes…now with litigation on top of harassment, threats of violence, the physical and psychological trauma that comes with rape.

And finally, what happened to being the bigger person? Oberst has a lot of power here compared to his alleged victim, why not use your platform to say, “I didn’t do it, but I’m not going to engage in these false accusations any further.” But no, Oberst is going to sue a potential rape victim for libel statements in a federal court. I know I can’t wait for the fallout from that if he wins. Because then won’t rapist who are accused but don’t serve jail time be able to sue their accusers? And given the small numbers of rapists who serve time, this could get really ugly. 

**UPDATE: So I saw that the accuser is now retracting her statements and claiming she never made them. This is making it look more and more like false allegations. Additionally, someone was trying to track her story back based on the dates she gave. Legit. I'm still not ok with suing accusers.