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But this is what writers do. They use everyone and everything in their lives as raw material. It's long been a complaint! Some do it consciously, some do it unconsciously, but if a writer hears a good story or something that strikes them as interesting, it all goes into the little filing cabinet of the imagination to be re-arranged and turned into a story later. They even write about how they do this!
I think the author is honest, as far as it goes, that she didn't write a direct "this is the story of Jack and Jill, only the names have been changed". She took the base story, mixed it with her own experiences, and translated it into a short story. That people then come along later and say "This was based on our true story" is not evidence she is deliberately lying.
Plus, there are always people eager to find out "but what is the real story behind this?" especially when it's this kind of sudden successful tale that is irresistible to imagine must be based on "this is Jack and she is Jill". And people do find parallels between "hey this happened to me and that event is in this story, so it must be about me!" even in cases where this is not so. There have been examples where authors wrote about George Fotheringham and then a real George Fotheringham turns up and says "all my neighbours think this is based on me, please change this". (That helped explain to me why some character names in early 20th century fiction were so unrealistic; you can't just write about Bill Shaw the villain of your murder mystery for fear of a real Bill Shaw popping up to sue you for libel, so he has to be Porteus Manglefig instead).
This is just "Worst Arugment in the World;" that authors pull from their experiences doesn't mean that a wink-nudge "this is a work of fiction, that just happens to defame a clearly identifiable real-world person, totally by coincidence released during a period when social media was alight with "believe all women" and "yes, all men!" Why are you so upset? Hmmm, perhaps truly the guilty flee where none pursue..." is fine. "in Minecraft" isn't a magical talisman that makes sincere threats not so; "allegedly" doesn't automagically prevent any accusation of defamation either.
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I'd argue there are degrees to which that's normal and appropriate, and this goes too far. It's one thing to base a story or fictional character on a real person. Usually if it's not a public figure they'll change some details so it's not recognizable though, and try not to drag someone through the mud. In this case, she left all the trivial details identical so that all of their real-life acquaintances easily recognized them, but then also changed his character to be unrecognizable. She's basically giving everyone who knows this guy in real life that he's a rapist, or something damn close (creepy, awkward, and bad at sex), when he was nothing like that in real life. There's simply no reason to use a real person for that character- why not invent an actual fictional person if you're going to make up the story anyway? At this point it's pretty much libel.
Since when do those things make one “damn close” to a rapist?
In the mind of just about every self-identified feminist woman I've interacted with in the past decade and a half.
In the mind of the contributors to the Shitty Media Men list.
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