And no, we don't hold other traumatic experiences to the same standards. Soldiers and cops are expected to joke about the dark, terrifying things they see on the job. But if a rape victim seems too upbeat, hospitals treat them with suspicion. As this cop recalls, police officers often discount accusations if the alleged victim seems too calm, or laughs, or otherwise doesn't act how they think a rape victim "should" act. "Why, it's almost as if this woman has spent her life having strangers remind her to smile!"

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If you have any doubt about how common this is, note that we found all the examples in this article with about 10 minutes of lazy Googling. We also found this delightful little slice of madness:

The Fraudulent Elizabeth Smart

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Yes, it's an entire website arguing that Elizabeth Smart, who was kidnapped at age 14, held for nine months and raped three to four times daily by an insane street preacher, was fakin' it. The crux of his argument is, you guessed it, that the then-15-year-old Smart was photographed smiling at some point on the same day she testified about her rape. Surely, any true victim would freeze her face into a mask of sorrow for every single moment thereafter.

Oh, and it turns out that part of Bill Cosby's defense against one of the victims revolves around the fact that she didn't seem too upset with him a few days later. (She even handed him a gift!) We're sure Cosby's lawyers are now hard at work tracking down every laughing Facebook photo they can find for each of his 57 accusers. And here's where we should probably point out that at least six women besides Gretchen Carlson have alleged that Roger Ailes sexually harassed them. We hope none of them smiled recently.

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So please don't do this. It's bad news in general to assume that everyone shows grief, gratitude, or love the same way -- or that one person even shows things the same way from one occasion to the next. Call us cynical, but if somebody dismisses sexual assault claims because the victim fails to perform the exact right facial expressions in the aftermath, we're thinking they might have an ulterior motive.

For more reasons rape is even worse for victims than you thought, check out 8 Ways The Legal System Screws Rape Victims (Like Me) and 5 Bizarre Realities Of Being A Man Who Was Raped By A Woman.

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