<story><title>This is a blog post that’s incredibly confusing and painful for me to write</title><url>http://blog.maxistentialism.com/post/91476212698/this-is-a-blog-post-thats-incredibly-confusing</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>eykanal</author><text>While it&amp;#x27;s very chivalrous of him to not want to lawyer up, what he&amp;#x27;s describing is libel, pure and simple. This &amp;quot;friend&amp;quot; of his did something completely inappropriate, and is liable to cause significant monetary damage, a possibly permanent stain on his reputation, and significant psychological distress.&lt;p&gt;Not pursuing this through the appropriate venues—the legal system—simply lets her &amp;quot;get away with it&amp;quot;. That&amp;#x27;s not being nice to her, that&amp;#x27;s being in an abusive relationship and not speaking up for yourself.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>untog</author><text>A lot of people in this thread seem to want Max to become a Men&amp;#x27;s Rights activist and fight this case on behalf of wronged men everywhere.&lt;p&gt;What he seems to say in his post is that he is willing to let this slide because the alternative could well result in fewer women speaking out about sexual assaults they have suffered. He has decided that the negative (a false accusation against him) is worth an overall positive (women hopefully feeling free to speak out). That is his choice to make.</text></comment>
<story><title>This is a blog post that’s incredibly confusing and painful for me to write</title><url>http://blog.maxistentialism.com/post/91476212698/this-is-a-blog-post-thats-incredibly-confusing</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>eykanal</author><text>While it&amp;#x27;s very chivalrous of him to not want to lawyer up, what he&amp;#x27;s describing is libel, pure and simple. This &amp;quot;friend&amp;quot; of his did something completely inappropriate, and is liable to cause significant monetary damage, a possibly permanent stain on his reputation, and significant psychological distress.&lt;p&gt;Not pursuing this through the appropriate venues—the legal system—simply lets her &amp;quot;get away with it&amp;quot;. That&amp;#x27;s not being nice to her, that&amp;#x27;s being in an abusive relationship and not speaking up for yourself.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>NickWarner775</author><text>While this is definitely true, couldn&amp;#x27;t that just bring more unwanted attention to him in this situation? We see it with celebrities all the time; they go on trial for something, and the trial often gets so much media publicity that people forget if the person in question was even innocent or guilty in the end. They only remember to associate them with whatever the crime was. He doesn&amp;#x27;t want that, and maybe he doesn&amp;#x27;t want to give the accuser the satisfaction of tainting his reputation like that.</text></comment>