[0:00]I have a story that's similar to the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard situation. With what's going on, I felt that I had to share with you what happened and what I learned from the experience.
[0:10]But first, context on the trial. Celebrities Heard and Depp divorced in 2016. And in 2018, Heard wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post, alleging that she was a victim of domestic abuse. And despite denying these allegations, Depp was canceled. And fast forward to today and Depp is suing for defamation that Heard isn't the victim, but the perpetrator. It's a trial to determine truth, and that's never as simple and easy as it seems. Which leads me to my story. This was in 2018 during college, and there's this girl that I've been hooking up with. And every year our frat rents out a bunch of houses and we spend a weekend partying in another city. And it was a date event, so I decided to take her. On the first day, our group gets there kind of late, so there's already a bunch of parties going on. I drove up the whole way and was feeling tired, so I decided to stay sober that night. Party ends, my group, my date, and I, we all head home, and at this point, everything's all good. We get to our room, we're talking, chilling, laying in bed. We start kissing, but after a minute, she starts freezing up and tells me that she's crossed and just wants to go to bed. And from my point of view, when she was telling me that, I continued to kiss her on the neck. But when I heard her say stop, I did, and we went to sleep. So the next morning we wake up and I could tell that things were weird. So I asked her, what's wrong? She sits up and tells me that I should have immediately stopped kissing. This wasn't our first time, so I didn't realize that I was pushing any boundaries. I felt terrible because I had no intention of making her feel uncomfortable. We continue to interact throughout the day, but as the weekend went on, told me that she wanted her own space. So for the rest of the weekend we did our own thing. The weekend ends and I drive our group back to campus, and by this point, we're no longer talking. We all say our byes, and this is where the story gets interesting. The day after we get back, I get a random text from her roommate asking if we can meet up and talk about what went down. We meet up, and she says something to me that I'll never forget. How could you ever do that? You have sisters. How could you ever hold down a girl and forcefully finger her? I was in complete shock. It was the first time that I realized what she was telling others from her point of view. And here's where shit gets crazy. Her roommate and her schedules a meeting with my frat and demands that if I don't get removed, they're going to start telling the school. So long story short, they had no choice but to remove me, and even though that's all she wanted initially, it didn't stop there. The very next week I get an email from Title IX, there's been a sexual assault investigation launched against me. They started conducting interviews with myself, her, and the other people from the weekend, and after compiling texts, stories, and evidence, there's finally some good news. Title IX found me not guilty and that there is insufficient evidence to support her claims. And when I heard that, it's hard to say how relieved I was. It wasn't even happiness, I was just tired. But unfortunately, the story doesn't end there. Before we continue, I think it is important to note that this was in the middle of the MeToo movement. Which without a doubt, was a movement that did a lot of good in exposing real stories of abuse. But just like any movement, people can take advantage. When every accusation was accepted as truth, evidence didn't matter, even when it was later found that the accusation was false. People's careers and reputations were ruined, while the accuser faced no consequences. The unfortunate reality is that there will always be men and women who use movements as exploitation, rather than genuine opportunities for change. And that's exactly why you should never blindly believe all women, or believe all men. It's a mistake to believe all anything. There's always two sides to every story, and this is just my side. So a week later, even though Title IX found me not guilty, the school found out and wanted to conduct their own investigation. So to do so, they selected four random professors to serve as the Sexual Misconduct Board, who took turns in questioning the both of us. And I don't know what it was, but I had a bad feeling. Sometimes our intuition is so spot-on, especially when we don't want it to be. The board finds me guilty and I was suspended immediately, six months to go until graduation. The silver lining, though, was that there's still an opportunity to appeal, and so I had no choice but to hire a lawyer. I did a lie detector test and did everything I can to prove my innocence. After a non-stop, crazy week of compiling more evidence, looking at the school's policies and even threatening to sue for defamation, the school finally repealed their decision. And their reasoning? All they admitted was that there was a procedural error and that the case should have immediately ended after Title IX found me not guilty. After fighting for months, I was finally cleared, reinstated back in the frat, and graduated. So as you can guess, what I learned from the experience is that now I'm a men's rights activist that hates all women. I could have easily gone that incel route, but hating an entire group of people based on the actions of one person is the same ridiculousness of cancel culture, because initially people were quick to believe Heard and cancel Depp. But now, public sentiment has changed where people are now supporting the person that they first tried to cancel. But besides all that, what concerns me most is that if Depp's side of the story is true, people will then use it to question the legitimacy of a positive movement. Because whether it be men or women, not only do false accusations ruin reputations, most importantly it covers up the stories of real victims. We all want to be on the right side of history so bad that our snap judgments becomes the truth we want to believe. And I can't force anyone to believe me, but even in cancel culture, the truth will eventually prevail, and I learned that the hard way.
