Is this plot surprise sexist, like I was told?

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Both things happen. Men get falsely accused of sexual harrassment and or rape. And other men really do commit sexual harrassment and or rape, and try to make their victims out to be liars.

Its a REALLY sensitive issue. Not only that but a lying accuser is not really a surprise ending per se. Its an obvious thing to suspect.

Sensitive, and not really a surprise. Two almost mortal wounds to the story.

Kinda like a coworker who was telling me his idea for a sci fi novel about aliens invading earth. It involved alien prisoners of our defense dept. taken alive from UFO crashes in the Nineteen Forties being tortured by earthlings to get info and intel out of them. This was right at the same time Bush was occupying Iraq, and stuff was coming out about Abu Graib and Gitmo etc. Told him to "be careful how you handle the issue of torture- all I can say dude." because that very thing was sensitive at that time.

One suggestion: make the detectives be a man-woman team. And have the woman be herself a victim of some past real sex crime (maybe in childhood). So she really driven to find the perp.

You could have the hero be one person... who is female...but I am thinking that it would be easier for you imagine a team with one member being your own gender assisting rather write it all from the opposite sex pov.

Anyway.... she is driven to find the perp who raped the lady. This creates misdirection (the very essence of every magician's act)because the reader will get caught up in the hero's emotional trauma and so forth... that will more surprise the audience when you spring it on them that ... there was no "perp". And further you will have a female hero (who did survive a real sex crime) to balance this female fake victim who turns out to be the real villain. Defuse the sensitivity, and create real surprise.

Or maybe just keep one detective and turn him into a her who had survived sexual assault, and wants to hunt down the perp.

The issue is NOT the idea of a female villainous, it's the idea that what makes her villainous is that she falsely accuses people of rape. Would you write a male villain who antagonizes women by accusing women by accusing them of raping him? That's what makes it a sexist plot. You also need to remember that in the real world, men rape women and then try to make the women they raped out to be the villain by accusing the victim of falsely accusing them of rape. You're approaching a very touchy subject in a very thoughtless manner. If you're not making a political statement, then why not do something else instead?

:skull:

Well it's just that other fiction has done this type of idea before without being seen as sexist. To Kill A Mockingbird had a woman falsly accuse a man of the same thing, and no one says its sexist, and it's a classic. So how do other works do it and are not considered sexist though?

As for the question would I write a male villain who falsely accuses a woman of raping him, it depends. It depends on what the story is about and other things within the story. I get ideas for stories, and I write them, but I cannot say would I write this or that, without knowing more of what happens in the story first.

It's that I mean to come off as close minded or dismissive of the issue, it's just that this has been done in other works of fiction before and it was fine. So I just need to know how I am the exception in order to understand it, if that makes sense?

If you read To Kill a Mockingbird and think it's about a woman falsely accusing a man of rape then you've completely missed the point of the story. The point is the accusation is based on racism, not vengeance, and it's a deeply political novel. You can't tackle a subject like this while just ignoring the wider cultural context. People WILL interpret in such, and unless you make the effort to send a egalitarian message than people are going to assume you're making an anti-feminist political statement.

Oh okay thank you very much for the input! What sexist themes would I be sending me out exactly though?

I don't know, I haven't read your book, maybe that woman who accuse men of rape are evil?