On December fourth, Timothy Heller tweeted a series of statements revealing that years ago, she had been raped by a close friend. That friend happened to be the well-known singer Melanie Martinez.

In the statement she posted, Heller detailed that over the course of their friendship, Martinez had gradually become more and more controlling. Heller went on to state that while staying over at Martinez's house, Martinez begged to get intimate with Heller and spent the course of two nights pleading and wearing her down.

Heller finally told Martinez that she could touch her breasts -- and only her breasts. However, Martinez continued to touch Heller beyond her breasts, and eventually performed oral sex on Heller, and penetrated her with a sex toy, despite the fact that Heller said "no" multiple times, and did not want to get intimate with Martinez.

Heller concluded her statement by explaining that she was reluctant to share her story, since she was scared of Martinez's controlling personality, and believed that her fame would prevent any allegations against her from sticking.

However, when these allegations broke, there was an enormous backlash against Martinez, with even her former fan pages tweeting their support for Heller.

This backlash continued, with some of Martinez’s former fans posting videos of themselves destroying her merchandise, and posting statements declaring that they no longer supported the singer. Twitter users also noted that SocialBlade -- the website that notes famous individuals social media ranking -- reported that Martinez’s social media accounts were taking a hit, with her losing thousands of followers.

Within a day, the hashtag “#melaniemartinezisoverparty” was trending on twitter, and multiple sites began covering the story.

Martinez herself eventually made two different statements on the accusations- one claiming that the sex was consensual, and another claiming that she and Heller had never been intimate.

While many Twitter users -- some of them being fans of Martinez -- were quick to notice the difference between the statements and call her out while continuing to support Heller, others did not.

Some fans accused Heller of lying and exaggerating, while others claimed that she was just jealous of Martinez’s fame, and was trying to edge her out of the spotlight. Others suggested that since Heller herself was trying to break out in the music scene, she was trying to get rid of any possible competition. Many were quick to speculate that Heller and Martinez did not know each other in real life, despite the fact that they had many pictures together on each other's social media.

As of now, there have been no new developments in this case. Unlike the many rape accusations against men that have broken this year, the accusations against Martinez -- as well as the accusations against other women -- don’t stick. Think about it this way: if the story was different, and the accusations against Martinez had been accusations against a male singer, it is very likely that he would have been dropped -- by his record label, his manager, or by companies he was sponsored by.

The fact is, when a woman is accused of sexual assault, the accusations rarely stick. Sexual assaults committed by women are often seen as invalid, and are brushed off as lies. Often, when a man states that he was assaulted by a woman, he is asked if he “enjoyed it” or is told that he “got lucky”.

Many people believe that women are only ever assaulted, and are incapable of committing assault themselves -- despite the fact that according to research done by Scientific American, assaults committed by women occur much more often than most people believe.

On television shows, assaults committed by women on men are often played for laughs. Men are shown as being belittled for being raped by women, or assault committed by women is used for comedic effect. These actions just further the ideas that women cannot commit rape, and that men cannot be raped.

What people need to understand is this: women are absolutely capable of committing assault.

Someone’s gender should not dictate whether or not they’re capable of assaulting someone. And to the people who are quick to accuse rape victims of lying: please think about what you’re saying before you do something that could potentially invalidate someone -- your words can hurt.