There Goes a Perfectly Good Shirt
Yesterday, John Cole asked, “And why the hell is [Ben Roethlisberger] out in bars at that hour without security?” One possibility that John should consider: he was in bars at that hour to sexually assault women.
Note: Following spate of ill-temper is inspired by John’s post but not directed at him.
Look, Ben hasn’t been charged with a crime yet for what happened in Georgia over the weekend. He may never be. And in the eyes of the law, everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty. (Offer not valid under Republican rule.) But sports media and Steeler Nation seem to be rushing right past the possibility that Ben Roethlisberger sexually assaulted the woman who says Ben Roethlisberger sexually assaulted her to declare that he “needs to use better judgment,” “has to lower his profile,” “stop putting himself in these situations [where unfamous women can say mean things about him]” and so on. Hey, maybe Ben Roethlisberger needs to stop sexual predation!
Sports media largely comprises men writing and talking for other men. Steeler Nation has a partisan rooting interest. (Believe me, I know!) But every time an athlete gets accused of sex crimes, the very first thing too many people feel they need to say is, “You know, rich athletes can be targets of unscrupulous women sometimes.” Yes. And rich athletes can be rapists and batterers. Rich athletes can be killers of women. (And others.) Some people are more willing to believe that Marvin Harrison might be a mob boss than that Big Ben might be a rapist. Race is part of this, I realize, but sexism is the rest of it, and not a tiny piece either.
Some people accused of sexual assault are innocent. But a lot of people get accused of sexual assault because they sexually assaulted their accuser. Strange but true! And there are a lot of rich athletes out there who have not been accused by two different women in two different states in two different years of sexual assault. Two accusations is – and I watched Castle last night so I think I speak from authority here – a pattern.
Maybe there’s nothing to it but some guy acting boorishly. An easy target for a couple of lying sluts with their eyes on a jackpot settlement. Kind of hard to square such a conclusion with a presumption of innocence for the lying sluts, but it could happen. But I don’t see why any of us should assume that Ben’s problem is, “He needs to put himself in better situations,” and not, “He needs to stop attacking chicks.”
I’ve been a Steeler fan since i was ten years old and a Ben Roethlisberger fan since his rookie year. He’s the best quarterback the team has had since Bradshaw, and if he ends up in the hoosegow it will probably be another generation until we get one as good. And on top of that, I own a damn jersey. So my wardrobe is taking a hit here, because I’m not going to wear the thing unless and until these women are proven to be paid agents of the Baltimore Ravens. This makes me mad because I am cheap. I’m still wearing promotional t-shirts I got from my bookstore days in the mid-1990s. But two is two too many.
Comment by marcel —
March 9, 2010 @ 10:33 pm
I hate seeing lonely comments on this proud libertarian blog, since it makes it seem like 1 is the loneliest number. So I thought I’d get this in early.
Comment by marcel —
March 9, 2010 @ 10:34 pm
Whats’ this? When did you change the label? No lonely comments? Well, … Harrumph
Comment by Thoreau —
March 9, 2010 @ 11:54 pm
I know this is supposed to be a serious thread on a sobering topic, but the parenthetical there cracked me up.
Comment by Sherri —
March 10, 2010 @ 12:49 am
My only disagreement with your post is the adjective “rich.” They don’t have to be rich to be rapists and batterers, though being rapists and batterers doesn’t always hurt their chances of becoming rich. (Nor does killing people while driving drunk.)
Comment by Matthew —
March 10, 2010 @ 11:28 am
I think (based on reactions to a similar situation at Oregon) that it tends to be which side you identify with more. Women tend to identify more with a woman who is a legitimate victim, having a harder time picturing a false accusation since they themselves wouldn’t do that. Men tend to identify more with a man falsely accused, since they themselves wouldn’t commit such a crime.
Comment by Di Di —
March 10, 2010 @ 12:10 pm
I think one reason people have been jumping to “Ben should stop making himself vulnerable to lying women” is that the first accuser has been thoroughly discredited in the press based on comments from her “friends” and things that indicate a financial motive. The press might have been grossly unfair to her, but a lot of people got left with the impression that a woman decided to take advantage of his money. Steelers fans were especially eager to believe this version. Then when it happened “again” people decided that he was stupid for not learning from the first situation that women will lie to get his money.
But even if one believes the stories discrediting the first accuser, there has been no evidence that the woman in Georgia is lying or after money. She went to the police and to the hospital immediately. Ben is innocent until proven guilty, but there is no evidence to support the conclusion that he is the victim of her lies and “shouldn’t have put himself in that situation.”
Comment by mordant espier —
March 10, 2010 @ 2:01 pm
Well, many men have sympathy with the accused men, because although 1 in 16 college aged men have actually raped women, they don’t think of themselves as rapists, nor do most of their peers.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124272157
Comment by Thoreau —
March 10, 2010 @ 2:04 pm
One of the many, many things that complicates the response to sexual assault allegations is that different questions bring us to different standards of proof. If you ask me “Should a woman who says she was sexually assaulted be believed and supported by friends, family, counselors, and others around her?” the answer is “Absolutely, without a doubt.” If you ask me “Should a person accused of sexual assault be sent to prison?” my answer is “Only after a very thorough examination of the evidence in an adversarial process, and a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Because the standard for believing the accuser outside of the courtroom has (quite rightly) a low threshold, and because the standard for finding the accused guilty inside the courtroom is very high, reasonable people might very well find themselves needing to believe the allegation in one context and question it in another. This sort of dichotomy does not (for understandable reasons) sit well with some people, so some will default to skepticism of the accuser while others will default to presuming guilt, but it is absolutely necessary to approach the two questions with different standards. This could very well lead to believing the accuser but still finding reasonable doubt.
I’ve taken a similarly divided approach to police shootings. If you ask me “Should an officer involved in a shooting retain his position of trust and authority?” my answer is that the burden must be on him to prove that he is worthy of trust and authority, and that he acted appropriately. If you ask me “Should an officer involved in a shooting lose his freedom and go to jail?” my answer is that he must be presumed innocent until proven guilty. This could very well lead to finding that somebody should not retain his job but should not lose his freedom either. And I’m fine with that. Just as I’m fine with supporting the accuser but not sending somebody to jail.
Comment by Thoreau —
March 10, 2010 @ 5:10 pm
EDIT:
Comment by Quintesson —
March 10, 2010 @ 7:04 pm
“Should a woman who says she was sexually assaulted be believed and supported by friends, family, counselors, and others around her?” the answer is “Absolutely, without a doubt.”
Of course, there is the reverse question of whether her accusations should be believed by friends and family of the accused, and a difficulty can arise whenever there is overlap between the associates of the two people.
I think that the general answer of whom one should believe when there is a disupted allegation of rape is whose life is more likely to be ruined unfairly if you trust the wrong person. Therefore, if there is a dispute it would make sense for Ben Roethlisberger’s teammates to believe him and for the accuser’s friends and family to believe her, provided neither side does something destructive to the other side (i.e. trying to intimidate the complaintant into dropping charges, spray-painting “RAPIST” in Ben’s car). That’s because whichever side trusts the wrong person is not really going to hurt the other side by doing so.
Obviously, this is reversed somewhat in cases where Ben’s status vis a vis rape could have a practical effect. If I had a daughter, I would be unlikely to let her be alone with a guy accused of rape. Likewise, unless I was fairly certain that the accuser was truthful, I would be cautious about being in situation where I would be alone with her.
Comment by Glaivester —
March 10, 2010 @ 7:07 pm
Shoot. That last post was me. I changed my name to “Qunitesson” in a previous thread as a joke (we were talking about robot rebellions, and I made a comment supposedly a Quintesson lamenting the Transformer rebellion, and I forgot to change the name back.
Comment by ajay —
March 11, 2010 @ 5:06 am
Women tend to identify more with a woman who is a legitimate victim, having a harder time picturing a false accusation since they themselves wouldn’t do that.
You’d think so, but actually the reverse happens: women, on juries at least, are more likely than men not to believe the accuser in a rape case.
Comment by matthew h —
March 11, 2010 @ 9:36 am
to modify ajay, it is OLDER women who tend to be more skeptical of the woman and OLDER MEN who tend to be more solicitous (they have daughters and remember the punks they knew or were as kids). YOUNGER men identify with the accused more and YOUNGER women with the accuser.
Comment by Matthew —
March 11, 2010 @ 3:22 pm
Ahh, makes sense. Like I said, I was just going off of what I’ve seen in reactions to our RB being accused of domestic violence.
I know I look at that and realize that if my one crazy ex had called the cops and told them I’d hit her, I could be prevented from coming to school for weeks, based on scant evidence, whereas if a woman’s crazy boyfriend had done the same, there wouldn’t be the same treatment.
Comment by Mrs. O. —
March 11, 2010 @ 8:23 pm
You rock, sweetie!