My email and phone have been burning up:
Ben Roethlisberger was suspended Wednesday for six games for violating the NFL’s personal conduct policy, the league announced.
Commissioner Roger Goodell handed down the punishment a week after prosecutors decided not to charge Roethlisberger in a case involving a 20-year-old college student who accused him of sexually assaulting her in a Georgia nightclub in March.
The Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback also was ordered to undergo a comprehensive behavioral evaluation. Goodell will evaluate Roethlisberger’s progress before the season and might consider reducing the suspension to four games.
A lot of my Steelers fans friends are livid about this- “He wasn’t even arrested” is a popular refrain, and I just have to laugh.
Spare me- he’s getting off light. He’s being held to a lower standard than the Geico voiceover guy, who just made a phone call to a bunch of wingnuts and was fired.
He’s getting a four game suspension, assuming he does what he is told to do. No one blinked an eye when Santonio Holmes got the same length suspension for smoking some kind bud (and he wasn’t arrested either, btw), something that I don’t even think should be a crime. And I’m just assuming Santonio, with his money and so much to lose, is smoking good reefer. If he is risking everything to blow hot piss tests for seedy bags of shake and stems, he needs another four games tossed on to his suspension just for being an asshole.
What Ben did was beyond excuse. It may not be technically rape to ply under-aged women with alcohol until they are so drunk they blow a .20+ BAC, then take them back into a back room and have sex in a bathroom with them, but it sure as hell does make you an asshole. And that would be the case if you were a teenager or a college student yourself, but a grown man who already has been accused of predatory behavior?
I’ll always be a Steelers fan, and I’m so tribal about my team I’ll deal with whatever the Rooneys decide. But Ben needs to get his act together, because if he doesn’t, he’s going to ruin some more lives, including his own. Right now he could be set for life, but he needs to get it through his head that no one wants an autographed picture of a rapist hanging on their wall. No matter how many Super Bowl’s you win. I hope he gets the message the Rooneys and the NFL are trying to send him.
Linkmeister
It’s that sense of entitlement that star athletes develop.
Separately,
Huh? Got a link?
SiubhanDuinne
Thank FSM, not the little gecko!
licensed to kill time
__
You shore do have a way with words, Mr. Cole. I like.
someguy
Being a felon never slowed down George Bush, and 30% of all ‘murricans still wanted his autographed pitcher on the wall…
Tlazolteotl
Thank you for not defending this lout’s behavior.
Garrigus Carraig
If they’re too drunk to legally consent, & I imagine .20+ BAC qualifies, then I think it is technically rape.
TooManyJens
@Linkmeister:
Here’s C&L’s take.
Steve
If I understand right, if the league suspends Roethlisberger for violation of the NFL conduct policy, doesn’t that mean that the team is precluded from suspending him any further? That’s not to say they can’t not play him or release him or trade him or whatnot, but as far as suspensions go, this is it, right? If that turns out to be all the corrective action he receives, then I agree he got off very lightly.
I am on the same page as you with regard to the breaking the law canard. I can easily be suspended, reprimanded, or terminated from my job for doing stupid crap that, while not necessarily criminal is definitely stupid or casts my employer in a negative light. Nothing wrong with him getting a smackdown for what has been determined to have happened.
geg6
I’m with you, John. No one, not even you, is a bigger Steeler fan than I am. But this asshole got off easy and I’m perfectly willing to have a mediocre season to teach him a lesson. And trade his ass if he doesn’t. That’s how the Steelers and the Rooneys roll most of the time and I like it that way.
Meh. They signed Leftwich yesterday and we have Batch and Dixon. I’m old enough to remember when the Steelers NEVER won any games. If it’s not a playoff or Super Bowl season, I can live with that.
By the way, if what I’m hearing on the radio and seeing on the local tv websites is any indication, most Steeler fans are feeling the same way you and I are.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
GO Browns!! woof woof./
Tlazolteotl
and here is the link for linkmeister (you might want to reconsider your nym)
http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/bullied-geico-fires-voice-over-announ
Linkmeister
Never mind my #1, I Googled.
Mark S.
I doubt it. He’ll be accused again before his suspension is up.
John, what do you think of the trade rumors?
Linkmeister
@Tlazolteotl: Ha! Well played!
Spiffy McBang
It is definitely rape. There are debates even in feminist circles over whether drunk sex is rape when the parties involved are a little intoxicated, but no one would question this. If she’s blacking out, she could not give competent consent, period.
Bnut
I have no game in the Steelers rise or demise (G-Men fan), but I think it’s embarrassing they don’t simply release the idiot.
Tlazolteotl
@ linkmeister: ;-)
And it appears I owe TooManyJens a coke. :-)
freelancer
Is this Breitbart’s idea of the Institutional left?
SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName
I would add he’s probably going to be a Raider soon….like within the next 24 hours soon. That’s punishment enough.
demkat620
He should get 4 games just for stupidity. I have quite a few Stillers fans where I work. Not one of them disagreed with this suspension.
D-Chance.
The Geico guy can join Donnie Deutsch in the unemployment line.
And, why is anyone surprised that an alleged rapist is only suspended 6 (4 for good behavior) games in the NFL? You can fight, abuse, and kill animals and be welcome back with open arms.
geg6
@Bnut:
You don’t know the Rooneys. They are tough, but willing to give people a chance to change for the better. I think the reason he has to undergo the psych evaluation is exactly a Rooney kind of move. They did the same for Holmes when he got busted smoking dope. But Holmes got into more and bigger legal trouble and got caught tweeting about how he likes to “wake and bake.” Thus a Super Bowl MVP gets traded for a fifth round draft pick.
That’s the Rooneys. I love them.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Somehow, I sense stupidity is only part of this guys problem.
LosGatosCA
I hope he gets it, too. For the sake of the women he encounters in the future.
But people still go to Woody Allen movies.
Getting traded to the Raiders? That’s too drastic. Life wihout parole is very tough.
Violet
That GEICO thing is just stupid. Why are they such pussies, firing the guy? Did he identify himself as the GEICO guy in his call? If not, and if he was phoning as a private citizen, he should be able to say what he wants. I don’t get it.
Thanks for the post, John. Ben got off lightly.
inventor
I have no NFL team having been a lifelong Houston Oiler fan (Renfro was in bounds dammit!!!) and now don’t care a wit about the league. However, this will not end up hurting Roethlisberger any more than Kobe Bryan was hurt for being a sexual predator. If the Steelers make the play-offs nobody will care.
Yes, our society IS that shallow.
LosGatosCA
@D-Chance.: A conviction before college gets you a scholarship at Florida State, Nebraska, Marshall, and a few other schools.
LosGatosCA
@D-Chance.: A conviction before college gets you a scholarship at Florida State, Nebraska, Marshall, and a few other schools.
Ailuridae
JC, good on you for being intellectually honest about this. I agree that Ben got off really, really light. If you read the complaint there is a decent chance that Roethlisberger is nothing short of a serial rapist.
Bnut
@geg6:
So at what point do they cut the cord? I agree with you that the Rooneys seem like genuinely good people, something I always loved about the Giants owner also. But how many “near” rapes does it take?
danimal
I wonder how my former boss (a big Steeler fan) is taking the news. She doesn’t like my teams’ qb (Chargers-Phillip Rivers) for talking trash on the field, but he lives a model life off the field. Big Ben has two Super Bowl rings, but his off the field conduct must be an embarrassment.
I’ve got to think sexual assault > trash talking.
Mike Kay
This is Great News for Cincinnati Bengals.
robertdsc
I’d have preferred a lifetime ban and personal bankruptcy but I’ll take this.
someguy
Look on the bright side, John. At least he wasn’t molesting underage boys, so you can be assured he’s not Catholic or Republican – even if he is stupid enough to be a Republican congressman or a cardinal. Um, church type, not Arizona type.
The Dude Abides
Besides the fact that the QB was a complete douche and a probable felon, the thing that stands out for me about this case is the behavior of his bodyguards, who were off-duty policemen. They basically dragged a drunken, under-21 woman into an isolated bathroom to be assaulted, then stood guard outside the door and wouldn’t let her friends, who were trying to get her out of there, inside. Pretty disgusting.
Jeff
@Garrigus Carraig:
If they’re underage it’s rape regardless– just ask Roman Polanski.
Yutsano
@Bnut: To be fair to Ben (and IMHO the suspension is warranted if light) the first incident was so flimsy it only made news because she chose to be so public about it. But it set up the second incident badly in a lot of folks’ eyes, so Ben needs to keep his damn zipper shut for awhile. If a third incident comes down the pike, even if there are no charges, Ben should be done.
@someguy: Ha. Imagine the freak-out if Ben were caught having sex with another guy in the bathroom even if it was totally consensual. IOKIYAH.
jrg
@Spiffy McBang:
Maybe I’ve got a case against that fat girl back in college.
Mike Kay
Look on the bright side, john, at least he wasn’t wearing diapers, engaging in poop play while a new orleans dominatrix literally beat the shit outta him.
Jeff
@Garrigus Carraig: If she were underage it is rape regardless– just ask Roman Polanski.
Ailuridae
@The Dude Abides:
This. More importantly if Roethlisberger has used security for a long time its highly unlikely that these guards decided this one time to lead a drunken girl to the back room with Ben and then, just this once, prevent her friends from getting to her.
SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName
@someguy:
In fairness, Bush never raped a person. A country, yes; a lady, not that we know of.
Mike Kay
@jrg: you slept with Oprah?
jrg
@Mike Kay:
Oh, heavens no. I said “a little intoxicated”.
The Dude Abides
@26. There is no comparison between the Bryant and Roethlisberger cases. In Bryant’s case, the woman had not imbibed any alcohol, left the hotel immediately afterward and shagged her ex-boyfriend, then was overheard at several parties in the subsequent weeks bragging about shagging Bryant and how “hung” he was. A number of her friends were ready to testify against her if the case went to trial. That obviously was not the case with Roethlisberger. The Georgia coed’s friends were livid about what the QB and his bodyguards did to her. Bryant was guilty of adultery, but innocent of sexual assault. Roethlisberger was likely guilty of sexual assault, but the odds were only about 50-50 of his being found guilty in a court of law because of the intoxication of the Georgia coed.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Oh, and FWIW, good level headed take, Sir Cole.
RobertB
Douhat, is that you?
Faisal
I hope he can use the time off learning to get something through his head other than Patrick Kerney or a Chrysler.
Me, I should learn to pay more attention to Virginia Montanez’s opinions on character.
RobertB
Big Ben needs ‘babysitter’ security, not ‘aiding and abetting’ security.
Bnut
@jrg:
That was awesome. Let’s start a class action, lol.
SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName
@The Dude Abides:
I echo. Professional athletes are not sexual predators merely because they have sex with women who sleep with them only because they are famous. That was obviously the case in Kobe’s case and Roethisberger’s Vegas case.
This one was probably rape but nearly impossible to prove in court because of her first written statement which is very ambiguous. Nonetheless, Ben is a douche and an asshole and I hope he enjoys Oakland.
arguingwithsignposts
Just to note that I fired off an e-mail to GEICO announcing my intent to cancel my insurance with them as soon a I found a suitable replacement. I think the word “asshat” was included somewhere.
Garrigus Carraig
@Jeff: Well, she was underage for alcohol, but not for sex.
lacp
Well, John, the Steelers knew there was trouble. They could have picked up Donovan (and I suspect he would have much rather gone to them than the Skins), but decided on another direction. As an Iron City native by birth and current Philly resident I would have loved the above hypothetical; serious McNabb fan who thinks he got a very raw deal by folks here.
Matt
Rape or not (not to diminish the importance for justice purposes that the authorities determine which it was), the fact of the matter is that these kinds of incidents have been dogging Roethlisberger since his college days. Harder to hush them up when you play in the NFL, I guess.
He is obviously a scumbag of the highest (lowest?) order.
Jim
Did any of you ever card a 20 year old in a bar before buying her a drink? I know I never have.
I think Ben is a jerk, but accused is a pretty flimsy standard to use when doling out punishment. I see a lot of people paraphrasing some of the worst statements made by the woman’s friends, but no one mentioning what she herself said when asked if she’d been raped, “No”, or when asked if she had had sex with Ben, “I don’t know”.
I realize she later told a different story, and it may all be 100% true, but none of us, or Goodell knows if that is the case. Her friends don’t know either.
In the end what we know for sure is that Ben likes young blonds, and doesn’t mind hooking up with women who have been drinking. He’ll even buy them the drinks! He might be a rapist, but then again lot’s of people might be rapists, which is why we have police, DAs, Judges and trials.
I see the Colt’s just decided to pass on any punishment for one of their players who was accused of rape because no charges had been filed. Please fill the teams inbox with your righteous anger over their decision and hold your breath for Goodell to suspend the guy, or even mention his name in public.
Walker
Arguewithsignposts:
I use Progressive, and have been very happy with them. Both with an accident that was my fault and one that was anothers fault (she also had Progressive).
Fortunately, DC Douglas still has a career as Legion.
tbogg
Tim Hasslebeck was on ESPN and seemed to think that the suspension was too harsh. Towards the end he said “Ben Roethlisberger, Super Bowl champion…” as if winning a Super Bowl should have been a mitigating factor in his punishment.
Jesus. He’s stupider than his wife…
PhoenixRising
I’m not second-guessing the prosecutor of Dirtball County, Georgia–if he’s convinced that in his jurisdiction, jurors don’t believe a woman who was too drunk to say ‘no’ was too drunk to have intercourse with, he’s probably right.
That just means Ben found a place where the community’s ethics are similar to his own, not that he didn’t do anything illegal.
How on earth am I supposed to let my son have a poster on his wall depicting a man whose predatory actions set an example of what I explicitly warn my daughter to avoid?
My educational lecture for the 15 year old girl audience: “Yes, dear, when a rich, good-looking [professional athlete/stockbroker/actor] you have just met offers to buy you all you can drink, it’s because he wants to have sex with you and is concerned that openly asking while you’re sober won’t get him in your pants. We can safely conclude both that he’s an insecure jackass, and that you aren’t going to enjoy the sex–if he were any good, he’d be home having sex with someone who said yes in the past and wants seconds. Most likely he has a small male organ. Next question?”
demo woman
@Garrigus Carraig: If they’re too drunk to legally consent, & I imagine .20+ BAC qualifies, then I think it is technically rape,
That might be true in several states but in GA in works just the opposite. Sad but true. That is one reason the DA did not bring charges.
Ailuridae
@Jim:
In the end what we know for sure is that Ben likes young blonds, and doesn’t mind hooking up with women who have been drinking. He’ll even buy them the drinks! He might be a rapist, but then again lot’s of people might be rapists, which is why we have police, DAs, Judges and trials.
Ah, you’re not much of a thinker, are you? Whether Ben is a rapist or not is only dependent on one piece of information: whether or not he raped someone.
The criminal justice system does not establish whether someone is guilty of a crime or not.
Also, lots and Colts not lot’s and Colt’s, dumbass.
fucen tarmal
it may not have been rape, it may not have been sex, it may not have been anything at all like the allegation. you are assuming quite a lot when you assume there was sex at all. being as there is no evidence of it, and the d.a. said there wasn’t even probable cause…
all of this misses the point, because i don’t make any assumptions about what happened, nor did roger goodell.
what ben is being suspended for, is bad publicity.
he brought bad publicity so he gets a time out.
imagine if kordell stewart had actually been gay, said he was gay when he had his press conference to announce he wasn’t gay…imaging all the speculation about him having sex in this park or that, depending on what part of the burgh the miscreant telling the story was from. remember sex in a public park is illegal too. those rumors, as idiotic and pro forma urban legend as they were, would have been perceived to be true. even if stewart had the best reason for them not to be. if he was gay, he wouldn’t need to go to a park for sex.
add that to the players and sports media speculating about how homophobic nfl players actually are. under this policy, kordell stewart would merit a suspension for that.
really, the charges did not stand up to an investigation, there wasn’t even enough to meet the ham sandwich standard, by the d.a.’s opinion. suspending people for things that might have happened is a slippery slope.
demo woman
@Jim: Just to be clear he bought a tray of shots. His bodyguard walked the girl down a hall way. Actually the bodyguard would have to walk her because she probably had trouble walking herself.
Can’t Ben have sex without having to get the girl drunk first… GEEE
Lisa K.
Damn…he’ll be back in time for the Patriots game…
Brachiator
@Spiffy McBang:
If Ben is not charged with a crime, and convicted, it’s not rape.
I agree with the suspension, by the way.
TuiMel
Thank you for this. I think that states it in terms that Ben (and his defenders) can understand. Incapacitation does not equal consent.
Linda Featheringill
Oh dear. Should I cuss and throw things? Get drunk? or just get depressed?
There is absolutely, positively, no justice in this world. None. Never has been. Never will be. Just put it out of your pretty little head.
jdlfjlsdjflsfiejhwtnvniheunahrkjocijx;o!
debbie
Jim @ #56:
I’m guessing you’ve never been overpowered by someone way, way bigger than you. Try it sometime and see how you like it.
I’m disappointed that they only suspended him for 6 games. Particularly since this isn’t the first time. And even more so because he’s shown no contrition for this.
I hope the Rooneys slam his dick in a door on his way out.
Joel
Roethlisberger will have the harshest road crowds in the history of the modern NFL. The Steelers apparently want to trade him, but what team is going to take a chance on that?
He might flame out of the NFL before the year’s end.
MadRuth
A few facts not yet mentioned. His “bodyguards” were Pennsylvania law enforcement. When her friends saw her being led back, they approached one of them and said they were uneasy and would like to go to her. The guy ignored them. The policeman she first gave her report to was the same one who set up Ben’s VIP room for him at the club. The security tape that could have answered all the questions was left in the club for several days and when it was finally retrieved, guess what? It had been taped over. This girl never had a chance. The whole thing stinks.
Ailuridae
@Brachiator:
Again, the criminal justice system does nothing to determine whether somebody actually committed a crime or not.
TuiMel
@LosGatosCA:
I thought the same thing.
debbie
Brachiator:
Excuse me, but it’s the ACT that’s the rape, not the legal standing. Though, now that I think of it, both Big Ben and the NFL have raped her.
demo woman
@debbie:
Best line ever.
fucen tarmal
@debbie:
then why did she have her lawyer write a letter saying that she did not wish to pursue charges?
how does a 6 5 guy rape someone who is sitting in a toilet?
how does unprotected sex not result in at least a nanogram of dna?
there are questions about the allegation. if you are judging the situation without answering them, then what are you doing?
Bnut
How in the hell does a famous Super Bowl winning NFL QB not have sober broads lining up at his door to pleasure him? What is wrong with America……..
binzinerator
Jesus, John you sound like you’re talking about a 16-year-old who got a DUI.
Yeah, just dock his allowance and give him a talkin’ to about how he’s gonna ruin his life. Just another errant young kid who doesn’t realize he gonna throw so much away…
Aw bullshit. This is a grown man who got a woman who was too young to buy alcohol totally fucked up on booze, and who told police he raped her.
And you know she won’t press charges because this asshole’s lawyers told her how they’d make sure she, a broke college kid, understood she going to get slagged in the media with help from a deep-pocketed PR machine, get hate mail from fans, have her privacy of her past sex life violated in court and in the tabloids, be forever branded as a slut by the public and can kiss any dream of whatever career she went to college for goodbye.
But just for a fer’instance, what do you suppose would happen to any non-rich non-famous asshole if he had bought booze for a 20-year-old student, got her blind drunk and had sex with her when she said no?
Surely the worst he’d get a week’s pay docked and a fatherly scolding, amirite?
Over at the linked NFL page there’s this headline: “Is Roethlisberger punishment too harsh?”
Fuck these rich entitled predatory assholes, and fuck their fans who help shield them.
Linda Featheringill
I decided that he is not worth getting depressed over. Nor is the NFL. Nor the police in that town who were playing toady for the rich and famous instead of protecting their own citizens. Or any of his defenders.
Sometimes I hate humans.
Bobby Thomson
I agree that Roethlisberger is, at a minimum, an asshole, and I applaud your willingness to call him out for it. There are disturbing allegations here, which, if true, would probably also make this “rape rape.”
However, a 20-year-old is not what I would consider “underage.” As someone who legally drank alcohol in this country at the ripe old age of 18, I don’t think there is anything particularly immoral about people who are old enough to vote and be killed in combat drinking alcohol. (Hell, in the Jamestown settlement, everyone drank beer instead of water because it was safer.) In fact, I think Liddy Dole’s raising of the drinking age was arguably unconstitutional. More to the point, at the age of 20, one is well past the age of consent in every jurisdiction.
4tehlulz
Gee, I wonder why she decided not to pursue charges.
debbie
@fucen tarmal
My understanding is that she freely admitted she was so drunk that she couldn’t remember clearly what had happened. She couldn’t even remember the sex, let alone whether she had wanted to have sex. That is why she chose not to pursue a prosecution.
The woman COULDN’T EVEN WALK STRAIGHT. This is like having sex with a cold apple pie. Are you the kind of person that thinks anything short of shrieking out “No!” should be assumed to mean “Yes”?
I am appalled that you make seem to be making excuses for him. And if you’re a woman, you are just an abomination.
demo woman
@fucen tarmal: In some states a .2 drunk can not give consent. In GA it’s just the opposite. She drank the shots provided to her and was led down the hall. She said no. The problem is why did he feel it necessary to have sex with a drunk? What’s the enjoyment in that?
Whether it’s rape or not, it does show what type of individual he is.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Im no Steelers fan, although I do think the aerial combination of Bradshaw to Swan was one of the most exciting offensive weapons in NFL history. And the teams they played on were legend.
Ben seems like something of an idiot when it comes to personal behavior, and needs to get some professional help. He also is a helluva quarterback.
If I can have my druthers, he will struggle some more, and end up playing for the Cardinals, finally getting the therapy he needs, and his third Super Bowl ring, out here in Arizona.
All things in the fullness of time.
binzinerator
@geg6:
That’s heckuva sacrifce you’re willing to make in the moral education of young Ben.
What is it with the willingness of the superfans to pretend he’s a boy who just needs to be taught a lesson and he’ll straighten up and fly right?
Brett
If the Steelers hate him enough, they could always trade him to Oakland. He’d fit right in – the Cryptkeeper doesn’t really care about character (and loves the Long Bomb passes), and Big Ben and Janikowski could then go trolling the seedier bars of Oakland together.
Not to mention that it would finally give the Raiders to opportunity to turn Jamarcus Russell into a pulling guard.
Miss Mouse
Yes means yes. Anything short of that is not consent. Just because a woman hasn’t screamed ‘NO!’ doesn’t mean that she is consenting to sex.
If she’s drunk enough that she’s blacking out, she is unable to consent to sex. A women being drunk doesn’t lead to her being raped- being around a rapist is what gets her raped.
I’m not judging what happened in this situation because I wasn’t there, but let’s just be clear on consent and rape. This shit happens too much, and I’m sick of the ‘blame the victim’ attitude.
TuiMel
@Bnut:
I am more inclined to wonder what is wrong with Ben. Super Bowl QB needs to resort to drink and paid “wranglers” to get some for him in a nightclub bathroom. That sounds like a real prize to me.
Ed in NJ
A couple of points:
The Steelers have been actively shopping Big Ben all day today, asking for a top 10 pick in tomorrow’s draft. My prediction is that by tomorrow, Ben will be a Raider and the Steelers will try to move up to draft Sam Bradford.
As for the Colts player, that is Eric Foster, who was an All-American at Rutgers and by all accounts a standup guy, a true leader. As a Rutgers grad, I can say that we are all absolutely shocked about the allegations, and hope that they are not true. But if they are, I would expect him to be punished, and deservedly so.
The huge difference, though, is that Foster was not only cleared by the police (I know there are questions about the investigation, but it’s not my or the Colts organization’s job to blame the authorities) but has a sparkling reputation otherwise. Big Ben can’t make that claim in any way. In fact, just the opposite. He has exhibited a pattern of abusive behavior towards women, and in general has the judgement of a 5 year old boy. His punishment is not only deserved, but probably in the best interests of himself and everyone who is around him. He needs help, and wouldn’t get it otherwise.
fucen tarmal
@debbie:
i don’t see how “are you the type of person that” questions are at all helpful. my point is, we cannot assume that rape, or even sex that could be considered rape took place. you are assuming that it did, without considering any other possibility.
your second question tells me you have chosen to make a judgement without considering the facts. sad. as a person really, doesn’t have to be gender related.
what you and others are saying is, if you don’t believe this, uncategorically, you are a horrible human being…its not that much different than what the right wing said when they sold iraq.
frankly, i expected better. you can hate the person for the possibility of what they might have done, you can choose to believe which ever side you choose to believe, but when you cross a line to believing there is no reason for anyone else to have any other opinion, you really become something else entirely.
litbrit
I haven’t read all the comments, so please forgive me if I’m repeating what others may have said but I had an immediate reaction to this:
It may not be technically rape to ply under-aged women with alcohol until they are so drunk they blow a .20+ BAC, then take them back into a back room and have sex in a bathroom with them
…and wanted to respond immediately.
It sure as hell IS technically rape. Even without the alcohol-plying, the man had sex with a minor, a crime that in Florida, to name just one state, has put 19-year-olds behind bars and/or on the Registered Sex Offenders list.
Furthermore, there is really little argument that someone of any age who’s that drunk–.20+ BAC–can be possessed of the sound mind and body that are legally required to give consent, whether it’s signing a contract or having sex.
So, double-whammy here with Yes, it Was Technically Rape, and Legally Rape, and Actually Rape. But sadly, we tend to let our prized athletes skate on a pretty regular basis when it comes to them committing crimes against women, don’t we? And I speak from personal experience, sadly–long story for another day. *sigh*
tdd
What kind of asshole do you have to be, to be a super bowl winning millionaire professional athlete and still have to get women drunk to have sex with you?
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Don’t knock it.
Besides, this gives I Love Pie a whole new meaning.
MattR
@litbrit: I think this was clarified elsewhere in comments, but in case you haven’t made it through them all to see it, John meant underage from an alcohol perspective. I am not sure of her exact age, but the woman in question is 19 or 20 years old.
@tdd: The kind of dick who does things like this.
fucen tarmal
@demo woman:
with agreement, or proof, i agree with you. if what the accuser said is true, its absolutely rape. i just don’t know, based on
other facts of the case, and the d.a. saying there wasn’t enough evidence to even meet the probable cause standard.that it is true.
i have looked at both sides, read many of the documents released by the georgia bureau of investigation, i simply cannot conclude that either side is lying, or telling the truth.
i do wonder why people can be so absolute in their opinion either way.
debbie
@fucen tarmal
You sound like someone who wants a whole pile of incontrovertible evidence presented to you neatly on a silver platter and tied up in a pretty bow. You know what? Life isn’t like that. Plus, I think the circumstances speak very loudly in this instance. As does past behavior.
I’m going to drop out of this conversation because I honestly think you’re part of the problem that is sexual violence.
I speak as someone who was overpowered by someone who weighed twice what I did. Did he force himself upon me? No, but I stopped fighting because I knew I wouldn’t win. Does that sound like “consent” to you?
I lived one block from Dorrian Red Hand in NYC when Robert Chambers met up with Jennifer Levin, got her drunk, took her to Central Park, and then raped and murdered her. Do you know how many people back then thought she deserved it for even going there with him?
I can’t speak calmly and dispassionately about this, but those of you who would defend Big Ben are just as guilty as he is. Acceptance = Complicity.
BombIranForChrist
I think the key message here is that the League is actually helping dude help himself. This is a teachable moment, as the man says, and if dude takes a moment now to look deep inside, he will one day look back many years from now and say, “I had a more successful career because I took this problem I had, owned it, and adjusted myself accordingly”.
The Dude Abides
@94. The DA said there wasn’t probable cause because the woman changed her mind and decided not to press charges because of all the harassment she was receiving. Without an alleged victim, it’s pretty hard to go to trial.
litbrit
To follow up on my previous comment, I did not realize–I missed it in the excerpted piece–that the woman was 20, and was going by Mr. Cole’s statement “…to ply under-age women”. In Florida, the term “under age” means under 18, which is what I was referring to when I stated that 19-year-olds can be jailed and/or put on the Offender list for having sex with someone who’s under-age. Because they can.
A woman or man of 20 is over the age of consent. Unless, of course, he or she is not able to consent due to not being of sound mind and body.
Which leads me to my second point–that it was rape due to her blood alcohol level being far too high for her to be legally able to consent–that I still believe to be true according to the laws of my state, at least.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
“I had a more successful career in Arizona because I took this problem I had, owned it, and adjusted myself accordingly”.
Just sayin.
The Dangerman
Seems to me as if trading BR for JR and a bag of rocks would end a lot of nightmares for both sides. JR needs out of Oakland for being a stiff and BR needs out for being stiff.
SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName
@fucen tarmal:
I read all the same documents and reached the same conclusion. Her initial statement implies whatever happened in that bathroom was consensual. It’s also clear from that statement that that she is hammered. The second statement says she was raped. I have no idea what happened.
Rape cannot be discussed period. Every time it comes up, someone in the group was raped and takes the position that anyone accused of rape is a rapist. Likewise, there is someone in the group who was falsely accused of rape and takes the position that every woman is a liar.
It’s the only crime that turns on the intent of the victim and not the accused. I do recall one class discussion in law school where the professor asked if a man and woman both have the same BAC, have sex, and the woman says she was raped because she was too intoxicated to consent: is it rape? A shocking number of people in the class said it was. I couldn’t believe it.
ChockFullO'Nuts
A cup a cup a cup a cup
of coffee.
Just let Ben play in AZ for a few years. He will love it out here and clean up his act.
ChockFullO'Nuts
URL test. NO more urls allowed in posts?
ChockFullO'Nuts
Well you should. There are “sexual harassment” classes in which it is instructed that when an employee speaks to another employee, the intent behind the speech doesn’t matter. Only the person who hears the speech can determine whether the speech has caused injury.
So if you say A, and it is taken to mean B, then you are responsible for having said B, whether the words can be taken to mean A or not. That’s what the instructor said. The point seemed to be that every message was eligible to be evaluated in a sexual context.
bay of arizona
Shorter rape apologists: Them bitches always be lyin’
Cyrus
@SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName:
Theft? If I take something, whether your wallet or an heirloom or your pension fund, it doesn’t matter if I think I’m ripping you off, only if you think so. Similar arguments could be made for lots of crimes, hypothetically. Rape is such a culturally and emotionally charged issue that the intent of both parties becomes complicated, but it doesn’t start out complicated until people make it that way.
Sure, when you phrase it like that it sounds ridiculous, but the same is true in reverse. He couldn’t legally give consent, and if he wouldn’t have given consent when sober, then he was raped. (IANAL, I know that phrasing is incorrect, but I think it’s close enough for this debate.) Realistically women commit rape and are prosecuted for it much less often than men, both of which have a number of causes, of course, some of which are good and bad… but anyways, the idea that the system is unfairly biased against men (I realize you haven’t said that, but your last paragraph sure seems to be heading in that direction) is just MRA bullshit.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
That is not an apt comparison. The matter hinges on whether the thing was actually taken.
And in the case of the sex police, as described in the subthread, you seem to be arguing that one has to do a breathalyzer test and drug screen, and maybe a psychological workup, before having sex, lest the partner later claim that consent wasn’t really given. Maybe the partner should sign a consent form?
I mean, how far down a slippery slope can this go?
And would someone please address the mod filter?
Dominique (MBA EyeDoc)
My husband and son (7 years old) are Steeler fans.
My son has a Holmes jersey, a Big Ben jersey and a Big Ben Fathead on his wall. My husband is taking both jerseys to Goodwill and pulling down the Fathead. When we were selecting the jerseys, my husband suggested some old school Steelers but my son wanted the up-and-comers. When we purchase new ones for him, they will be “throwbacks”.
It’s difficult to explain this story to the 7-year old but we gave him a topline explanation and he gets that he shouldn’t “admire” Big Ben at this point. Hopefully Ben will get some help and get himself together. I remember telling my husband after the motorcycle accident that Ben needed both bodyguards and babysitters. He laughed…then. Besides even with “bodyguards”, he still managed to get in more trouble.
This is pretty upsetting for me. I have a daughter, I am a woman who has found herself in a similar situation in the past (fortunately nothing happened). I am using this as a teaching moment for both kids.
Incertus (Brian)
@fucen tarmal:
Take a look in the mirror and then ask yourself–if I were raped, and there was the slightest chance that there would be an asshole like me on the jury, would I be willing to go through the trauma of a rape trial knowing that the asshole in the mirror would look for any possible excuse to let his football hero off? The answer should be pretty fucking clear.
Sam Hutcheson
Good job, John.
John O
You’re a good man and a good fan, John Cole.
SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName
@Incertus (Brian):
She didn’t press charges because Big Baby Ben probably wrote a seven figure check. That much is pretty obvious.
litbrit
@Incertus (Brian):
Take a look in the mirror and then ask yourself—if I were raped, and there was the slightest chance that there would be an asshole like me on the jury, would I be willing to go through the trauma of a rape trial knowing that the asshole in the mirror would look for any possible excuse to let his football hero off? The answer should be pretty fucking clear.
Thank you for this, Brian. When you know you’re facing re-traumatization in a courtroom at the hands of lawyers paid for by powerful alumni boosters–not to mention having what’s left of your dignity and good name smeared–you do tend to back down in the interests of self-preservation, and you then view it all as an extremely nasty life lesson in what it’s like to be utterly powerless. It was heady stuff for a nineteen-year-old, but compartmentalization was my friend at the time, just as karma was my even better friend a few years later.
ChockFullO'Nuts
@SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName:
I think the correct answer is that we don’t know why she decided not to press charges.
You can read that any way you want, but to me it reads “Never mind.”
Brett
@The Dangerman:
I don’t know if they’d want to risk having Jamarcus Russell on the team, particularly if they are bringing in a new QB. His mere presence seems to jinx his replacements out at Oakland – both of the back-up QBs who went in to replace him went out with injuries not too long after.
Cyrus
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
I’m not sure what you mean – of course the analogy was inapt, analogies are almost never perfectly apt, but whether the thing is actually taken really isn’t a problem with the analogy as far as I can see – but, fine, assault then. Beating someone bloody isn’t a crime if you do it in a BDSM club and they’ve made an appointment to see you. Or assisted suicide: it’s a crime, maybe, but a completely different crime from murder. Or something. Again, it’s simply not the case that current policy on rape is completely unique like the person I was replying to said.
Such a huge excluded middle makes it harder for me to believe that you’re arguing in good faith. Sure, you could go through all that screening to cover your ass. Or you could just… not have sex with people who are clearly sloppy drunk? Not have sex with people who act unenthusiastic about it? Not have sex with, putting aside for a moment all the obvious jokes about them being good in bed, crazy people?
litbrit
@SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName:
Big Baby Ben probably wrote a seven figure check. That much is pretty obvious.
No, it isn’t obvious. Were you an eye witness to the handover of funds? Sure, it might have been money that led to the victim dropping out. It might also have been intimidation; or it might have been, as it was for me, an overwhelming sense of resignation and a general acceptance that there are, sadly, far more assholes in the world–powerful ones–than there are decent sorts who’d put the cause of justice ahead of that of having an awesome team, or something.
scarshapedstar
Is anyone else kinda surprised that Big Ben has such difficulty getting laid? I mean, I thought I had it bad, but now I feel like Larry Bird. And my last job was busing tables!
Either he’s trying to get with the wrong kind of girls, or… well, not to put too fine a point on it, but maybe the problem isn’t so much Big Ben as Little Ben.
Hey, it could happen…
…aww, what the hell, let me add a little more rain to the parade and say SEE YA ON WHO DAT HALLOWEEN, BEN!
Gus
@LosGatosCA: Honestly, I’d probably still go to Woody Allen movies if he still made good movies.
ChockFullO'Nuts
Hmm. Not sure what your “excluded middle” means here.
There is no linear relationship between blood alcohol level and displayed impairment. I’ve seen people drink a quart of vodka every evening and never appear to be drunk. I am a lightweight who falls down after a few drinks.
And the rest of your paragraph seems written to support my point. My point was that once you start imposing tests that potential sex partners have to apply to each other in order to later cover all the legal possibilities …. well, forget that the idea is just patently absurd. Let’s just say, it takes not just some, but all, of the fun out of sex, doesn’t it? Of course, I am assuming that you’d think sex had a fun component in the first place, but that would be another discussion. I think.
When an adult* goes into a bar and gets drunk and starts something with a member of the opposite sex, as far as I am concerned, that adult is responsible for the outcome, to the greatest possible and reasonable extent. Sexual pairings in bars where large amounts of alcohol are being consumed is not exactly a stealth operation. It’s pretty blatantly obvious what is going on, one would have to be an idiot not to know what the agenda might be in such situations.
Of course, what I am saying applies equally to both parties. BR is responsible for his actions in this situations. But since I wasn’t there, I really can’t say much more about that at this point in time. The full truth is probably only known to a small handful of people.
*In this context, a person over the age of consent.
SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName
@ChockFullO’Nuts:
That statement screams “I got paid.”
Jim
@ 61
You’re right, we don’t know if Ben is a rapist or not, and the lack of a trial doesn’t change that one bit. It’s actually easier this way, in the absence of the back and forth of a trial we can all just make up reality for ourselves and then assume there was an earlier history of similar behavior. Whatever that was.
And yes, I suck when it comes to spelling and grammar, you got me. You’re awesome!
ChockFullO'Nuts
@SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName:
I think I am reading and you are reading your own stuff into it.
It’s one thing to make something up, people do it here every day. But having done so, are you sure you want to keep hammering away at it? I know of not a scintilla of evidence that the complainant was paid anything by anybody in this case. Do you have any such evidence? Maybe it’s out there, I haven’t gone looking for it. Can you point to it?
theflax
@tbogg:
All week on PTI Michael Wilbon’s been shocked, astonished, saddened, and dumbfounded that BIG BEN’s going to be suspended even though he hasn’t been charged with a crime.
Word to future pro-athlete sex offenders: ESPN will have your back.
SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName
@litbrit:
This from the person that said
So, you were there?
BTW, 19 isn’t statutory rape ANYWHERE in this country. So, there’s that.
D-Chance.
Big Ben may be an accused rapist; but, at least he’s not a Christian, and therefore, not “divisive”…
what fucking morals we have as a nation. Dog killer, OK. Smoke an illegal drug, OK. Have your way with drunk 20-year-olds, OK. Have a strong moral belief, OH MY GOD WE CAN’T HAVE THAT AROUND HERE!
ChockFullO'Nuts
That’s right, duly tried and convicted in the court of “I Read It On the Internet So Shut Up That’s Why!”
Next case.
SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName
@ChockFullO’Nuts:
Because, in my humble opinion, if she hadn’t been paid, her lawyers would have put it in the statement.
And, for the record (if she did settle) she made the right decision and deserved every penny.
ChockFullO'Nuts
Okay, but I think you meant to say “In my humble imagination ….”
Which is fine, but it is what it is.
Little Dreamer
@SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName:
Are you sure? I see “I don’t want to have my name and personal life smeared all over the teevee and newspapers”.
Steeplejack
@jrg:
Is that you, Ross Douthat?
Little Dreamer
@D-Chance.:
Prove to me that Christians have strong moral beliefs.
Christianity took a messiah figure from the Hebrew Torah concept, attached a virgin birth by God’s sperm, a trial and crucifixion and then added a belief that he was sacrificed by his Godly father and yet conquered death so people can drink his blood (vampirism) and say a few words of allegiance to this supposed messiah and then they can go out and sin all they want because they are “once saved, always saved”. WTF is so moral about any of that?
Conventional Wisdom would say you win the argument, but CW lies quite often.
Steeplejack
@RobertB:
Damn it, too late again.
Cyrus
@ChockFullO’Nuts:
I support giving some degree of the benefit of the doubt to rape accusations(1). AngusTheGodOfMeat apparently thinks that means I would take any accusation as proof unless the accused had demanded a breathalyzer test and received a clean psychiatric bill of health. Clearly, this is ridiculous, right? There’s a middle ground he ignored.
So, getting drunk in public implies consent? I hope you don’t mean that, but I can’t figure out any other meaning of this.
(1) Not in court of course; innocent until proven guilty is a good thing. It should go without saying. But in our own heads, in public opinion, etc. OJ is a murderer even though he was acquitted, Bush encouraged torture even though he’ll never be put on trial for it, and it’s stupid to not allow people to think for themselves about rape allegations if they do so about anything else.
JK
Fuck Michael Wilbon and Dan Lebitard for whining that Roger Goodell is coming down too hard on Roethlisberger. These 2 assholes have just lowered the bar for sportswriters.
Gian
@Jeff:
with polanski the original accusation was that he drugged (and got drunk with alcohol) and sodomized a 13 year old, he got to plead to the lesser charge of unlawful sex with someone under 18, leaving out the whole bit about drugging and forcing himself on a 13 year old. The people who pretend his conduct was what he actually plead to are not being honest about what the conduct was
as for Ben, it seems like his body guard types are trained to assist from reading the police report from the smoking gun, one of his body guards kept her friend from coming into the room and interupting the assault. I don’t know if he was like this before his near death motorcycle incident, and that scrambled his impulse control in his brain, but the conduct is just plain disgusting, no matter who does it
Steeplejack
@Bobby Thomson:
I think you are missing the point. I don’t think anyone here has said that the problem is that the girl was “under age” vis-à-vis alcohol or the “age of consent.” The problem is that (it is alleged) she did not give her consent for sex or was incapacitated by alcohol so that she could not give meaningful consent. Her age is irrelevant.
Mayken
@Bnut: This question always comes up especially when it is a powerful, successful man like Ben. But please keep in mind that rape is about power, not sex. Bennie wasn’t just horny and he didn’t make a mistake or get a bit confused about whether the girl could consent or not – arguable in some cases where alcohol is involved, but not in this one. Her BAC was at a level where she was blind drunk. His punk “body guards” kept her friends from trying to get her out of the situation. He had sex with her when he knew she couldn’t consent, had arranged for it to be so and had further arranged for there to be no help for her.
This was rape, plain and simple.
A line of willing women blowing him at that very moment wouldn’t have made a lick of difference to the outcome.
I do not understand why some men, who are so patently powerful, feel the need to exert their power in such damaging ways. I really, really don’t.
I hate to say it, because I have liked Ben to this point, despite some clearly dumb decisions on his part, but the guy’s just an asshole. He should get jailed and booted from the NFL, not given a good talking to and slapped on the wrist.
I hope the Rooneys do dump his ass.
litbrit
@SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName:
No, obviously I was not there, and if you’d scrolled down a couple of comments, you’d have noticed that I wrote a follow-up comment to correct the the previous one, when I mistakenly understood the victim to be underage (under 18), as opposed to “under the drinking age”, based on Mr. Cole’s part of the post.
So there’s that.
And with the victim’s BAC being a consent-obviating +.20, it does indeed qualify–technically, legally, and actually–as rape in numerous states (and countries), as others have pointed out.
drkrick
Whatever works for you. In my world, when an adult goes into a bar and has sex with someone who’s only marginally an adult, who he just met and who’s too drunk to walk while his paid posse stands guard outside the f***ing bathroom, that adult is responsible for the outcome. Legally, he’s innocent until found guilty by a jury of his peers. Great, that means he doesn’t get locked up. It doesn’t obligate you, me or Roger Goodell to pretend we don’t see what’s obvious, anymore than we aren’t allowed to believe OJ killed his wife.
And don’t forget that one of the reasons this case was unprosecutable is that the off duty (now ex-) cop fanboy that was on the scene let all the law enforcement people who responded to the incident know that she was a “f***ing drunk bitch” who shouldn’t be taken seriously. Think that might have screwed up the investigation just a little bit?
Steeplejack
@Gus:
Har-de-har-har. Vicky Cristina Barcelona was very good.
Not to pick on you personally, but I’m sick of the “Woody Allen hasn’t made a good movie in years” cliché. It’s old and it’s tired.
ChockFullO'Nuts
So we are back to where we started. He should ask for ID, and administer a breathalyzer test, and then call his lawyer.
I don’t see where you can draw a sharp line here. In any event, there is apparently no criminal case here. Of course, if a legion of feminists had been there to take videos, administer blood tests …. darnit. All those bars, all that drinking, all that sex going on …. where is the justice?
Sorry, I am not fond of BR off the football field, but some people are trying a little too hard to convict on charges that were never filed. To make some political point, I presume.
ChockFullO'Nuts
I neither said, nor meant that. And of course you can figure out some other possibility, you just don’t want to.
ChockFullO'Nuts
Dismissiveness almost never works on a thread like this.
This is not about what works for me, it’s about what works, period.
How does the “she was too drunk to consent” thing work in the real world? How is this determination made, who makes it, where is the standard? Remember that whatever protocol you invent has to work in the hot confines of a bar full of inebriated people with raging hormones … male, and female. In the wee hours, in the dark, with a lot of noise, distractions, intense social interaction going on.
Does BR administer the breath test, or does he call someone to do it? What test is acceptable? Something you buy at Walgreens? A chart with subjective descriptions? Does each drinker keep a log of what was consumed? Is the bartender involved in the data collection? How do you envision this working? How do you write the law that backs it up?
Ecks
@SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName:
So your story is that she got raped, went to the nearest cop and told him, and Ben said, “here I’ve got a handful of cash for you,” and she said “ok, never mind then.”
So what you are saying is that she is really actually a hooker because she objected to sex until she got paid?
Oh yes, then she sobered up and said “no actually, it really was rape.”
Wow. Just wow.
To me her statement screamed, oh I don’t know, “I chose not to prosecute for personal reasons.” Because, you know, that’s what she actually said.
And as littlebrit here has laid out in painfully bold detail, there are lots of completely understandable reasons she would not want to go through a rape trial, particularly the celebrity kind.
And you were complaining about unproven accusations… wow.
Little Dreamer
@drkrick:
It seems to me that if a nineteen year old young woman goes into a bar (a place where people are drinking alcohol) and ends up going to bed with one of the patrons of that bar, she is old enough to know better and if not, she should stay out of bars.
By the way, “only marginally an adult” is still an adult. Are you suggesting that we should have levels of adulthood that young adults should have to pass tests to graduate to the next level? At what age should someone be considered clear of the “only marginally” tag and be considered a fully operative adult member of society able to take responsibility for and make decisions for themselves?
So are you saying that if a sixteen year old kid gets his driver’s license and takes his new souped up vehicle that his parents bought him for his birthday out on a joy ride that ends up in a major accident with injuries to others, that he is only marginally a driver of that car? Should he not be charged for his actions because he was only sixteen and perhaps didn’t know better?
Your argument is dumb. At some point people have to be old enough to be responsible for their actions. Society has deemed that at the age of eighteen kids become adults who are old enough to take care of themselves (although some states still won’t let them drink alcohol for another few years).
Dan S.
@ChockFullO’Nuts:
For the record if somebody “starts something” with me at a bar, and I proceed to have sex with them while they are obviously too drunk to give consent, I would be the one responsible for the outcome – that is, I would be responsible for raping them. If you don’t get this, I hope you’d be so kind as to keep me updated on your whereabouts and travel plans in the future. (You see, I have a daughter . . . )
Also, re: folks wondering why Roethlisberger would need to rape a drunk girl:
Ok, so imagine that you (a hypothetical you, that is ) are a famous Super Bowl-winning athlete. You have easy access to any number of women happy to have sex with you; instead, you get a college student drunk and have sex with her, even though this – having sex with someone unwilling and falling down drunk – doesn’t really resemble anything most (hopefully all!) of us would consider, well, sex with another person. (’cause it’s not – it’s rape).
On the surface, it’s kind of bewildering. But really, it’s pretty simple. For example, imagine you’re a trust fund baby, or lottery winner. You want money for something, you’ve got it. But instead, you go mug somebody – in fact, someone who obviously has just a few crumpled $1s in their wallet. Weird – but clearly, it’s not about the money, right?
A bad analogy, but the same thing. Rape isn’t about sex. It’s about rape. It’s about power. Roethlisberger didn’t have sex with a happily willing woman because that’s not what he wanted. (If you don’t believe that’s a reasonable assumption, than just fill in some other relevant name.) What he wanted was to rape someone.
Comrade Mary
@ChockFullO’Nuts: Jesus Hopscotching Christ, you are Zeno’s Paradox writ large upon the Internet. With that kind of specious and convoluted reasoning at work, how the fuck do you manage to get out of bed and get anything productive done on any given day?
At some point, a reasonable adult should notice that the object of their attention is staggering drunk, especially if, as seems to be the case, he has made sure that his minions have blocked the woman’s friends from coming to take care of her.
@drkrick:
Fuckin’ A.
Gus
@Steeplejack: Ha! I don’t take it personally, it was a flippant remark. The last five Woody movies I saw were Shadows and Fog, Husbands and Wives, Mighty Aphrodite, Deconstructing Harry, and Everyone Says I Love You. They ranged from utter crap to reasonably competent. I read good reviews for his recent movies much like I read good reviews for the latest, say, Paul McCartney album. It might be good, but it will inevitably be disappointing from an artist who once reached such heights.
Steeplejack
@ChockFullO’Nuts:
Well, up above you said:
So getting drunk plus “starting something” implies consent, i.e., responsibility for the outcome “to the greatest possible and reasonable extent”? Because of course “one would have to be an idiot not to know what the agenda might be in such situations.”
It has been a while since I have been in the bar scene. I didn’t know it had devolved into a sexual free-fire zone where a or b automatically implies consent to everything down to x, y and z. No room for changing one’s mind? No possibility of someone misinterpreting the other person’s action? If something is “started” then it has to go all the way?
Ecks
@ChockFullO’Nuts:
Ok, I see you a hypothetical and raise you another hypothetical:
What if you come across a stranger who is passed out drunk on their barstool, and haul them to the bathroom and have sex with them.
That’s totally not rape, right, because you didn’t give them a breathalyzer, so you don’t KNOW that they were drunk and couldn’t consent. Maybe it was all just a bit of adult fun.
No?
Ok, what about if you had been talking to this person and the two of you had been totally flirting and it was totally looking like it was going places (well they never say “yes” technically, but it’s cos it didn’t come up yet, and y’know, adults have their fun), and THEN they pass out. At THIS point you are now justified in carrying them to the bathroom and hauling their draws down around their ankles, right?
Because what Ben did* really isn’t so far off from this. Not very damn far at all.
.* Or at least, the preponderance of evidence very strongly suggests he did.
SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName
@ChockFullO’Nuts:
You’re so naive.
Little Dreamer
Wow, so many people willing to convict someone for something they neither witnessed nor actually have actual information or personal knowledge regarding the parties involved. People just KNOW that BR must have raped a young woman.
Newsflash people, sometimes women go into what we sometimes call “meat markets” because they WANT to be the product on display that gets taken home.
Steeplejack
@Gus:
Well, “inevitably [. . .] disappointing from an artist who once reached such heights” is quite different from what you originally said–“if he still made good movies,” presumably meaning that they aren’t good movies at all, not just falling short of previous greatness.
Ecks
@Little Dreamer: So if you walk into my hypothetical store, it would be ok for me to lift two hundred bucks out your wallet and slip an Ipod into your pocket, because the fact that you walked in means that you were clearly CONSIDERING buying one, so if I encourage the process along a little bit, I’m obviously just doing what you wanted anyway… Riiiiight.
Jim
The OJ analogy is bull. There was a mountain of physical evidence in the OJ case, there is none in this case.
What we do have is two very different versions of the events from the accuser, and accusations from her friends who were not present at the time of the alleged crime. The other side of the story is that she was playing grab a$$ with Ben and followed him from bar to bar letting him know she was Down to F—.
It’s easy for us to now say she should have realized he was too drunk to know what he was doing but without being there we’re just guessing.
Ecks,
This passed out person you’re imagining being dragged around the bar was talking to the police a few minutes later. Quite a recovery!
Little Dreamer
@Ecks:
No, I’m saying that we don’t know what happened and speculation isn’t going to accomplish anyone knowing what happened. Several people here act like they know what the motivations of these people were, and they don’t and can’t know that.
I am not saying that this woman was looking for a sex partner, maybe she was, maybe she wasn’t. No one knows what happened.
But, regarding your hypothetical, just because I walk into your store doesn’t mean I’m willing to buy either. I might just be window shopping and have no financial ability to pay. That two hundred in my wallet might be meant for something else.
fucen tarmal
@Incertus (Brian):
right, so in order to avoid be cast as an asshole, or as someone who worships athletes, we should lower the standard of proof to she sorta said kinda, when she was asked enough times. as long as you are being fair and dispassionate in your analysis, i’m sure you would be a real asset to any jury.
frankly, all his status means is that it is even more unlikely that she would not follow through with her claim, because of the large payout. and if you say well maybe she was already paid off, well then you are accusing the victim of a crime yourself, and you should be ashamed of yourself too.
her family had home territorty advantage, north georgia dislikes yankees, and loves to defend the honor…they hired a pretty damned high priced lawyer in their own right. savy move.
perhaps if you familiarize yourself with the actual facts of the case, the answer that her accusation was less than rock solid might become clear.
i can very easily conclude that you carry your own biases that have determined your opinion, i just don’t need to make as big a show out of it as you seem to need to.
Brachiator
@Ailuridae:
Yeah, it does (as does a civil case in some circumstances).
More importantly, poster comments, no matter how impassioned, don’t determine much of anything, especially when the actual evidence gathering was a botched crapfest. As a result, flat assertions about Roethlisberger’s guilt are just meaningless.
@ debbie:
In this case, you have no idea what act took place. No one does.
Dan S.
(Or, what Mayken & drkrick said while I was typing out my comment.
ChockFullO’Nuts
So . . .what did you mean?
They’re going to have sex right at the bar, surrounded by lots of inebriated people?
Little Dreamer
So no 19 year old young woman who goes into a bar can get raped by any other bar patron?
All this reminds me of a bit from recent post over at Pandagon:
Bit of a different dynamic here. And I don’t know the various commenters’ motives. Doesn’t matter. I’ll repeat my request – everybody going on about feminist bartenders with breathalyzers and whining about how can one be 100% sure that it’s rape, after all, what if they move their arm feebly and throw up, that could be taken as consent, especially if it’s dark . . . please keep me informed of your whereabouts and travel plans – after all, I have a daughter.
Ecks
@Jim: People wake up (hopefully). It happens.
Jim
@ Ecks I understand that, but what makes you think this particular person was ever passed out to begin with? Yes, it’s possible she was passed out and then woke up, but no one, including her ever said that was the case.
If we knew they had had sex, and if we knew she was passed out, then yeah, it’s obvious he raped her. We don’t know either of those things.
Q: “Were you raped?”
A: “No”
It’s not proof of anything, but it’s pretty suggestive.
Ecks
@Little Dreamer: And just because I’m in a bar flirting doesn’t mean I’m looking to F**k either.
As for the “we don’t know what happened that night”… nobody disputes that she was falling-down, couldn’t-walk-straight drunk. At that point she’s half a step from literally passed out, and about as capable of forming an intent.
If she had been buzzed and maybe slurring a tetch, you would have yourself potential doubt, and it is a case of he says / she says… In which case the very best case scenario for him is that he’s an ENORMOUS dumbass for putting himself in such a situation with his history of dubious conduct in the past, and the worst case is that she is telling the truth and he isn’t…
But nobody is saying that this is what happened.
SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName
@Ecks:
Say “wow” one more time. It’s really persuasive.
Besides, I didn’t call her a hooker dummy. I said she settled a viable legal claim against a very rich and famous professional athlete in exchange for informing the DA that she no longer wanted the DA to “to prosecute this matter further.”
The attorney does not say she is dropping the claim because of the unwanted media attention. He says “it’s obvious” that there will be a lot of media attention and that a trial be be an unpleasant experience. Nor is he saying that she won’t testify if called (this would open up BR to obstruction of justice charges). He said its not in her “personal interests” to go through a criminal trial. It’s pretty obvious for anyone but the blind.
Believe it or not, but lawyers generally don’t fire off statements like this without putting some thoughts into the actual language. If there was a link between her desire to drop the case, and the unwanted attention, it would be very VERY clear.
SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName
@litbrit:
Well, actually, if this were true here then he would have been charged because you wouldn’t need her testimony. But he wasn’t, so you’re wrong. Also, I don’t know of a single state that links consent to BAC. Why, because it would be stupid.
AhabTRuler
To say this, one must not have any idea the sort of shame and humiliation that victims of rape experience. How much pressure society places upon the victim to just suffer and be still.
And that’s before the accused is a football star. How much money would you accept to have your sexual and other personal history dissected in the national media?
I would argue that the women who is falsifying her charge would be the more likely to press on regardless, she has already decided to go for the cash. But the woman who really was assaulted, who feels victimized and alone, who just wants everything and everyone to go away, she’s the one that will just drop everything and refuse to cooperate with prosecutors.
ChockFullO'Nuts
@Dan S.:
Bzzt. Nope. Sorry, no sale. Your scenario is based entirely on subjective interpretation, under circumstances that at best are wildly variable.
That’s not a useful standard, and I don’t accept it.
Dan S.
Little Dreamer:
Wait, now I’m confused. So you’re saying that a young woman walking into a bar isn’t automatically giving consent to any person there to perform any and all acts, even if she is incapacitated at the time?
It doesn’t matter. If you walk up to someone and shoot them in the head, it doesn’t matter whether they happened to be on their way home to commit suicide.
If someone can’t give consent – if, for example, they’re falling down drunk – it’s rape.
Little Dreamer
@Dan S.:
__
WTF are you talking about? I merely said that a nineteen year old woman who goes into an establishment where she might meet up with someone she might choose to have sex with, and that establishment also serves alcohol, she should be aware of the potential pitfalls of that situation. That is ALL I said, nothing more, so quit putting words in my mouth. You’re being an ass. I am not implying that rapes don’t happen, nor am I stating that rape took place or didn’t take place in this situation. I don’t know facts of this incident, I wasn’t there, I didn’t witness it, I don’t know the people involved. There is no evidence to back up the accusation that BR raped this woman. End of story.
Ecks
@Jim:
Let’s take it a little bit slower then shall we.
We both agree that in the case where someone is passed out, it is not ok to drag them to the bathroom and start inserting body parts into them, right? RIGHT? No matter if they’d spent the past 6 hours flirting up a storm with you, right?
Good. Well why is it wrong? Because you can flirt with someone and not intend to have sex with them. And having sex with someone when they don’t want you to is rape. And here’s the key thing: If they aren’t capable of saying no because they are passed out, then you have to assume that by default they don’t want it.
Seriously, imagine this happening to you. You chat with some guy at a bar, you drink too much, pass out, and come to half an hour later with him grunting on top of you, and then he says “sorry, I thought you’d be into it.” You’d be pissed as hell, right?
You have to ASSUME no consent unless they clearly indicate that they want it. The default position has to be assuming no consent. It HAS to be. Flirting does not count, they could be “window shopping”, such is their God given right. In fact, even if they had TOLD you, “hey, let’s have sex later,” and then they pass out, you’re STILL probably on shakey ground trying to stick body parts into them.
“But so what,” you say, “this girl was not passed out.”
Technically no, but if she couldn’t walk straight then she wasn’t far off from it either. Tipsy and flirting is one thing, but I’m willing to bet that if you and I went out and partied, and you got that falling down drunk and I decided it would be really funny to strip you naked in the bar and put your underwear on your head and make a video of you and send it to your mother, I’d probably be able to “convince” you to go along with enough joshing and ribbing… and there’s no way you would call that real consent to anything.
ChockFullO'Nuts
@Dan S.:
I said exactly what I meant.
I neither said nor meant anything of the kind. But ultimately “where” they have the sex is not relevant here as far as I am concerned. I was, of course, talking about the runup to sex. Because that is the time during which any standard is going to have to be applied. Once the clothes are off and things are getting entirely physical, it’s a little too late to start doing things like taking a psych workup.
Of course, that’s just me. For you, that might be just the right time to get out the laptop and start the questionnaire.
SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName
I just want to say that I can’t believe I have been sucked into (sort of) defending someone I loathe both professionally and personally.
AhabTRuler
This is a lovely sentiment in the abstract, especially when use to warn a young lady of the dangers before she has been raped, but after an allegation of rape has been lodged, such generalizations sound an awful lot like blaming the victim.
@ChockFullO’Nuts:
False dichotomy.
Little Dreamer
@Dan S.:
__
Really? So you are stating that when I met my ex husband in a bar and we hooked up that night and I was drinking pretty heavily that night (so much so that after I stopped drinking about an hour before I left the bar, I also asked him to follow me home in his car), that I was raped, even though I don’t think I was?
Who are you to determine what is rape and what isn’t? Who are you to determine when a person has had too much to drink and isn’t able to make decisions about consensual sex. I think you are trying to force some sort of moral argument that doesn’t hold up under normal scrutiny. There is no evidence that she was raped, you just want to create a scenario where a victim exists when you don’t know if it’s actually true.
Little Dreamer
@AhabTRuler:
Prove there was a victim, you can’t. You are deciding a victim exists without knowing all of the facts.
ChockFullO'Nuts
Nope, you are the one who wants to plug the drinking into the legal equation. Not me. Starting something implies possible consent. Continuing something then implies likely consent. Finally, there is going to be either consent, or not. How that gets handled is up to the participants. If one is saying no, stop, get off me, I don’t want to do this, and the other is forcing compliance, then you have non-consent and all that it implies. The drinking is not the issue. The drinking just raises the energy level and reduces inhibitions, but at the age of consent, we are responsible for what we do under those conditions. If we get blackout drunk and have sex, I don’t grant permission to use that as a free pass to claim that you weren’t really “able” to give the consent you appeared to be giving, and then claim that the sex was rape.
That’s just absurd. Anybody can now get drunk, have sex, and claim that rape was committed. There is no way you can make that work in the practical, real world. Even if you get the law to be that ridiculous, you haven’t done a good thing, you have made the whole thing into a farce.
Ecks
@SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName:
Wow.
Glad to have you on side ;)
er…. he’s right, it *is* obvious. You don’t seriously dispute this do you?
Huh? If he says “my client will not testify”, then how does that put BR on the hook for anything.
In other words, he is making the completely plausible claim that she would stand to suffer a large degree of psychological harm if she had to go through a media circus focusing her to publicly and repeatedly relive a traumatic experience, and so therefore she must be getting paid money to keep her trap shut.
Are you dumb, or do you just have no clue how trauma works?
It *is* clear.
And if she had settled I expect he would say something more like “My client has no comment at this time.”
or “We have come to an amicable agreement with the other party, there will not be a lawsuit, we have no further comment.”
ChockFullO'Nuts
Lolwhut? If you have an actual argument, you should make it. This remark is either just lulzbait, or else … I dunno. Crazy.
ChockFullO'Nuts
@Little Dreamer:
Honey, I think we might be talking to people who have never actually had sex. Not sure.
ChockFullO'Nuts
@Ecks:
Actually, no, it is not. It is patently unclear, and deliberately not clear. No conclusion can be drawn from it at all.
Why you persist is saying that black is white here is beyond me.
If payment is found to have happened, then it is clear. Not until.
Ecks
@Little Dreamer: If your ex-husband had had sex with you when you were so drunk you couldn’t have said “no” to anything much, then he was taking a big chance. In the event, he apparently lucked out.
Don’t want to take a chance like that when you sleep with someone? Make sure they’re alert enough to agree first. It’s not so very hard really.
SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName
@ChockFullO’Nuts:
I think the fact that its deliberately unclear makes it clear because if no money changed hands, it would be in everyone’s interest to say so.
ChockFullO'Nuts
@ChockFullO’Nuts:
Thanks to the all important 5 minute rule, I can’t edit the post.
But it appears that we might be saying the same thing, and if so, then …. we agree.
The 5 minute rule, brought to you by the same morons who can’t tell the difference between sociaIism and ciaIis.
Thank you, morons. Really. Thank you.
ChockFullO'Nuts
@SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName:
Okay, you are John McCain, right? Because I don’t know anyone else who can say that A is B any better than you are doing.
Senator, don’t hide that light under a bushel. Come out.
fucen tarmal
@AhabTRuler:
except that within her school, sorority, her life as she knows it, she has already been identified and scrutinized.
all i am saying is, and have been saying, assuming that a rape took place, given the evidence as gathered is to make a leap. there isn’t enough evidence.
if she was raped, i hope she files a civil suit and wins. i simply question the orthodoxy of assuming her claim is true.
it is equally wrong as to assume that it didn’t happen, but much more popular.
Little Dreamer
@Ecks:
How can you know how drunk this woman was? Reports suggest she was able to give a statement to the police a short time later.
You are making determinations based on facts that you don’t have any access to. You are developing a scenario without knowing what actually happened.
Damned at Random
Well, since the discussion is ongoing, I want to make the following points (I know a lot of them were covered above)
1) the bar that served an underage girl (under drinking age – not the age for sexual consent) without checking ID needs to be fined
2) Ben needs to fire his “bodyguards” as they were complicit in getting him into this mess – assuming they were sober at the time (and if I was their superior at their day job, they would be talking to internal affairs about their lack of judgement)
3) The starstruck cop who took the original report should be issuing parking tickets for the rest of his career.
4) Ben needs to realize he is lucky to be merely a classless douchebag and not a registered sex offender at present. He may not be so lucky next time
5) As a longtime Stiller fan, I hope he gets traded to some lousy team – maybe the Browns – so I can continue to cheer my team in public.
6) If he isn’t traded, after 6 games, Ben may be on the bench watch Dennis DIxon become the new franchise quarterback. The kid has a lot of talent.
7) That young girl in Georgia learned a hard lesson about alcohol abuse. Too bad she didn’t puke on him in that bathroom. Might have made the experience more memorable
Ecks
Except BR in this situation wasn’t so drunk he had no idea what he was doing. And neither were the body guards. The one situation is understandable, the other is not.
@ChockFullO’Nuts:
Then do some reading and it will rapidly become obvious:
Rape Trauma Dissorder
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Ecks
@ChockFullO’Nuts:
Especially that girl who was talking about how she was raped, she’s DEFINITELY never had sex before.
[facepalm]
Little Dreamer
@SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName:
__
Yeah, unclear is clear. That’s convincing. NOT!
Listen to yourself, are you really going to continue taking this stance? Seek help!
Ecks
@Damned at Random:
This seems like a reasonable summary to me.
SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName
@Ecks:
I’m not going to go through it line by line because its too hard to do at this late hour.
You cannot pay someone to not testify. It’s obstruction of justice. You can pay someone to say that they don’t want to testify. That’s legal.
If they hadn’t settled the claim, they would have said so. It’s in their interest. If BR hadn’t paid her, his people would be saying it; its in his interest. They’re not.
The fact is that this is a carefully crafted statement designed to get people to think she wanted to drop the case solely because she wanted to avoid media attention. If that was ENTIRELY true, the statement would say something like “The victim does not want to pursue this matter any further because of the excessive media attention and scrutiny into her private life. She has not received any payment from Ben R. in exchange for this decision and may, if she chooses, pursue civil damages in the future for the injuries Ben R. caused.”
Besides, I’m sure her attorneys told her that there was a strong chance he would escape criminal liability. If he did, it would hurt her civil claim. And if he didn’t, it would be 5-7 years (if not more) before she would get paid (if ever…think OJ).
Jim
@ Ecks
First of all there is a world of difference between not being able to walk straight and being passed out. One is a sign of impaired motor function, the other is a sign of being unconscious. You can’t just leap from “weaving” to “passed out” and say it was rape because she was (as good as) passed out.
Cops checking if someone is DWI see if they can walk straight. Upon failing the walking straight test those same people can give legal consent to a breathalyzer test. The law assumes that people can give or decline to give legal consent for the tests even when they’re displaying impaired motor function.
Having sex with someone who is drunk, even wobbly drunk, isn’t automatically rape. It may be questionable as hell, but it’s not black and white. Which is why you keep jumping to passed out, which would be black and white illegal.
SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName
@Little Dreamer:
Read her first and second statement (they’re on the Smoking Gun website). It’s obvious she was h.a.m.m.e.r.e.d. when she wrote the first one.
SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName
@Little Dreamer:
Yes, because I’m right. No civil suit ever happens. Guarantee it.
Little Dreamer
@Ecks:
__
And how was he supposed to know that I was able to determine if I was making a consensual decision? I allowed the encounter to happen and I acted like I wanted it (and I did, although years later I can say now that we’re no longer living together that perhaps I shouldn’t have wanted it – but I wasn’t aware then of the future that we would have and how we would eventually break up). I was accepting of the advances, even though I had been fairly heavily drinking. I may have been under the influence of alcohol, but I still feel that I consented to the actions that ensued.
How can someone else walk into a bar, meet someone who is drinking and know without a doubt that they are still sober enough to make a consensual decision?
The determination we’ve argued here is that the woman was so stinking drunk that she wouldn’t be able to stand, walk, talk… yet she was talking to a cop a short time later. How can anyone know at the time how much this woman had to drink and if she was able to make decisions of consent?
And are we emphatically stating that a young woman might not meet a celebrity like BR and not see a possible way to profit off of it through accusing that celebrity of rape that might not have occurred? There are such women that exist and would do such a thing (I am not saying this woman did that, I don’t know). Nobody can say what did and didn’t happen, we don’t have the facts, and are speculating about what took place, including how drunk this woman was.
Ecks
@Jim:
We approach a point of agreement here. Having sex with someone who is falling down drunk is not automatic rape, but it is “questionable as hell,” because they are going to have a very impaired ability to say no, even if they mean it.
Look at it this way, when you are blind drunk you might be able to consent to a Breathalyzer from a cop, but if you sign a contract selling me your house and your car and divorcing your spouse while in that state, good luck trying to get that to stick in court. Similarly if you sign those same contracts while I have a good twice your size towering over you menacingly, you certainly have the choice of honoring it later (it’s not AUTOMATICALLY extortion), but if you later show up claiming you didn’t really want to sign the papers then you have an excellent case.
If you have sex with someone who is sober, and not intimidated then you can reasonably believe what they say at the time about consent. If you have someone hammered out their mind or feeling extremely intimidated, then you better hope to heck that they really do want to have sex with you, because if not they have an excellent case that you raped them.
AngusJackBootedThugOfMeat
@Ecks:
So an underage girl goes to a bar and gets shitfaced drunk and ends up having some kind of sexual encounter she claims now she did not want.
Who is the primary responsible party here? Sounds to me like some people think it is everybody but the girl.
“Age of consent” implies age of responsibility. Did this girl act responsibly?
We weren’t there. Why wasn’t the girl carded?
Jim
@ Ecks
But the same witness reports you are using to say she was as good as passed out say Ben was “obviously intoxicated”. Does that mean you’re now thinking that people can be obviously intoxicated and still be in control of their actions? You seem to want it both ways, him drunk = still pretty much ok, her drunk = virtually passed out. Clearly you are assuming things you simply cannot know.
Ecks
@Little Dreamer:
And given this possibility then you would hope that you, as a celebrity, would be aware of this possibility, and wouldn’t sleep with someone unless a) they were sober enough at the time to be able to give unambiguous consent, or b) you had an ongoing relationship with them in which consent was understood as the default option.
Look, I agree with you that the line for “how drunk is too drunk” is a fuzzy one. On some level it has to be, but that doesn’t make it a real one. At some point people get drunk enough that you really can get them to do pretty much anything that they’d never normally put up with. That’s why you want to be around at least a few people you trust when you get plastered. We all recognize this, right?
If you sleep with someone without consent, that’s rape, and when someone is drunk enough, you can’t really tell if they consent so you are taking an enormous risk that they don’t… because you can’t plausibly claim afterwards that you knew they would want it. And you can’t have sex with people on the hunch that they probably do, you have to know.
Ecks
@AngusJackBootedThugOfMeat: So she is to blame now? And if she had worn a little short dress that showed cleavage then she’d REALLY be to blame, right? Those underage girls, always getting drunk and tempting us, how dare they!
@Jim: The reports say he was drunk, but if he was so blind drunk that he had no idea what he was doing then how did he end up with this coordinated action from his bodyguards? Either
a) he had never told them anything about this ahead of time, and they took it on themselves to think “wouldn’t it be funny if we got this massive drunk guy with a history of not being able to keep his dick in his pants, and shoved him out into a private hallway with a tiny drunk girl who’s hammered out her gourd. This will end well”… At this point they are negligent to the extreme. (“wouldn’t it be funny to put this staggeringly drunk guy at the edge of a cliff and watch him teeter”)
or
b) He had this routine set up and practiced with them, in which case there is clear forethought and even direct planning on his part. It’s not even like, “oops, innocent situation run amok,” it’s clearly premeditated.
His history of this stuff makes a huge difference here. If you know that you have uncontrollable urges to jump female joggers in the park when they pass you at night, then you have an affirmative moral responsibility never to put yourself in a park at night where there will be female joggers.
Dan S.
ChockFullO’Nuts
But you see, I’m not trying to propose a detailed standard for people to make sure that they’re staying just this side of what the law defines – and might prosecute them for – rape.
It gets back to that quote about defining from the margins. Ok, on one hand, it’s understandable, with (thankfully) changing norms and laws about this, people would want to know where they stand, and there are, on the margins, some judgement calls. But you know, after a while it starts sounding kinda creepy, like someone insisting you define exactly the borders of what counts as pedophilia. Sure, there are insane situations where an 18 year old gets caught having happily consensual sex with a 16 year old and ends up on a sex offender registry for life, etc. . . . but when somebody keeps asking about well, what if she totally looked older than 13, and really, if it’s obvious what’s going on, and these days they grow up really fast . . . (leave Roman Polanski aloooooooone!)
Little Dreamer:
Thing is, you’re now talking about how
And on one hand, that’s true. But a) ok, so what’s the takeaway here? Don’t go to bars? Don’t ever get more than slightly tipsy while female? – And if you do . . . you shoulda known better?
Sorta like what AhabTRuler was picking up on, and to conflate you a bit with ChockFullO’Nuts – well, some years down the road, I want my daughter to be smart and safe . .. but at the same time, the ‘make sure you have an emergency whistle and mace on you at all times and travel in a group (how about getting a male relative as an escort? Or perhaps just staying at home .. . .)’ school of advice giving can’t be our focus as a society – rather, that focus should be on how the people responsible for rape are, er, the actual rapists, even if it was dark at the time.
ChockFullO’Nuts
What’s your reply to the scenario in Ecks’ #170, the one starting with “Seriously, imagine this happening to you . . .”?
“
. (says wikipedia)
Woo-hoo!
AngusJackBootedThugOfMeat
@Ecks:
So, let’s see, looking at your three graphs …
1) The sex police have determined that “celebrities” have to observe special rules.
2) The sex police have determined that people should surround themselves with chaperones before they get drunk around people of the opposite sex lest untoward things happen which should not happen
3) The sex police warn that some people might be impaired enough to claim that the sex they have wasn’t consensual, later when they wake up to remorse. But the SP don’t have any actual methodology in mind to make that determination in the field in real time
Thank you, Sex Police. You are so helpful. Really. This noble service to mankind must not go unrewarded.
Jim
@ Ecks
How much coordination do you think it takes for bodyguards to limit public access to a VIP room? That’s kind of the whole point of being a bodyguard and having a VIP room.
As for when the guy escorted the woman to a side room (note escorted is her description) perhaps he did so because:
a) they were obviously flirting the whole night — including her pinching his ass
b) she asked him where Ben had gotten to.
c) who knows?
What in any of this shows coordination or makes Ben obviously any less drunk that her?
fucen tarmal
@SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName:
and couldn’t no civil suit ever happening be as a result of the fact that her claims were untrue. i wouldn’t be so quick to convict the accuser of a crime.
AngusJackBootedThugOfMeat
@Dan S.:
Then what is the point? If it’s all subjective, then why are we trying to mount lawyerly arguments? Adults have to navigate their way through ambiguous challenges all the time. Let them do it. And let them take responsibility for it. Let BR take responsibility for what he did, let Girl X take responsibility for what she did, and mind our own business.
If that same girl went out and got in her car and passed out and killed somebody, who would she call to pass responsibility to in that case? You? Because you see, this happens every goddam day. You get passout drunk in public, you are not going to get a lot of sympathy from me when real consequences happen to you. And yes, I have been that drunk, and I take full 100% responsibility for it, which is why I never did and never will do it again.
Ecks
@AngusJackBootedThugOfMeat: HUH?!?
The “sex police” have nothing to do with it. The “real actual police who are in charge of arresting people who have committed crimes” does start to play in sometimes though. Cos, y’know, we’re talking about rape here.
This is all about consent. If someone has sex with you, and they don’t have your consent, then they have raped you. I’m not making this up, it’s true.
So if you are going to have sex with someone, you better know that they actually do consent. You’re following so far, right? I’m not talking too fast yet?
Good. Well how do you know you have consent? Well if they are smashed shit faced drunk, you don’t really know. And the drunker they get, the less you know. And the less you know, the greater the chance that your sex will end up having being rape.
Now let’s talk about the chaperones (or body guards or any other sober people who are around drunk people): Their actions matter too. If you are drunk out of your mind, and I proactively hand you my car keys and sit you behind the wheel, then I am responsible for the crash you get into just down the road. I should have been able to forsee that taking this action would lead to an extreme risk of this consequence. If you are blasted drunk and I, your sober friend, send you off in a canoe into the middle of a lake without a life preserver, then I am consciously risking your life if you fall in. If you have a long history of trying to stick your penis into everything that moves, and I haul your drunk ass into a private room with a massively drunk girl half your size (to the protests of her friends no less), then I have to know that there’s a pretty good chance he will attempt to stick his penis into her. And if she’s not sober enough to say no, and I’m not INCREDIBLY damn sure that she wants it, then I am culpable for the entirely forseeable consequences of my actions – that being, I’ve pretty much set someone up to get raped. And that makes me every bit as guilty as if I’d thrown two pitbulls into a cage and got them all riled up to fight.
Dan S.
And see, that’s the thing – I really wasn’t trying to make a useful standard to cover every single possibility, but giving a reply to your scenario about responsibility – one using what I’d hope to be thebasic, minimum general consensus – defining from the middle, basically. At the very least, if I believe the person I just met at that bar is now obviously too drunk to consent, but have sex with them anyway, than the responsibility for what happens isn’t theirs, for daring to get drunk in a bar (who does that, anyway?). but mine, and what I would be responsible for is rape. Can we agree on that? (Now, there’s the possibility that my belief might be wrong, but ‘hey, I totally thought you I was kinda raping you, but since you tell me that you were just acting and were actually all into it, it’s all ok!’ just isn’t so great, wouldn’t you say?)
Ecks
@Jim: So she was pinching his ass. See my answer #207. Unless they were extremely sure that she absolutely and unambiguously was looking to have sex (and ass pinching doesn’t even start to cover that), they were knowingly playing with fire.
@AngusJackBootedThugOfMeat:
Well if you push it far enough, then EVERYTHING is subjective. If you approach a stranger on the street, bang them on the head, drag them back to your apartment and have sex with them, it’s still POSSIBLE it wasn’t rape. Maybe this was a fantasy they had. Maybe these two had really met earlier and planned it as a kinky game, no matter how much they both deny this afterwards.
If you demand complete objectivity or nothing, then you might as well just take the law books and cross out all criminal law, because until we invent mind reading technology, mens rea is ALWAYS going to be at least a little bit subjective The difference is at what point you draw the line and say “ok, it’s a finite possibility, but it’s silly and we’re not putting up with this BS”.
So if you slip up on this, and I come across you, then it’s perfectly fine by you if I take your wallet, charge as much as I can to your credit cards, sell your ID, sell your ass for the sexual gratification of whoever happens to be around, and snag one of your kidneys while I’m at it. Because it’s your fault for getting so drunk in public, you wouldn’t dream of trying to hold it against me. Because once you pass out you no longer have any rights whatsoever.
Ecks
@Ecks:
Except that answer is currently in moderation, and I’m guessing the mods have gone to bed. And, frankly, it’s time for me to go to bed too.
Night all.
Jim
@ Dan S.
Well sure, but there’s no evidence that Ben thought the woman was too drunk to give consent.
He could of course have been wrong, he was after all hammered as well, but you can’t blame him for what happens once he’s hammered, I mean at that point through no fault of his own he’s at the mercy of those around him.
Dan S.
Words of wisdom. [staggers off]
AngusJackBootedThugOfMeat
@Ecks:
Sorry, strawman bullshit. I disposed of your point in my post at 206, already. Each person in the tale takes responsibility as appropriate.
There is a reason we discourage underage drinking. This tale might serve as an example.
Little Dreamer
@Dan S.:
But, what I see you saying is that rape definitely happened, and we don’t know that. There is not enough evidence to conclude that is true.
I hear you wanting to believe a rape occurred, and I am asking that we exercise caution and realize that may not be the case at all.
Evidence is on the side I am arguing, that evidence is absent of the ability to conclude such action took place.
Look, I’m female, I’m vulnerable to being placed in such situations, and I have been placed in such situations in the past, and I am saying that we shouldn’t conclude that a rape occurred if it’s possible it didn’t.
The facts and evidence don’t support a conclusion that a rape absolutely occurred. If rape did occur, I hope karma catches up to the perpetrator and he pays one way or another, but I’m not willing to join the voices who are making judgments without evidence and facts to support the accusation.
AngusJackBootedThugOfMeat
I demand something better than complete, abject subjectivity, vague sounding moralizations, and responsibility avoidance.
I demand standards before any protocol can be proposed, not made up after the fact to suit conclusions already drawn.
Jim
@ Ecks
What? A guy can’t walk a woman to where one of his friends is unless he’s extremely sure she wants to have sex with the friend? I’m baffled by your response.
Access to the VIP room was limited. Gasp!
Drinks were bought at a bar. Gasp!
Two drunk people who had been flirting with each other all night in 3 or 4 different bars hooked up.
Was she sober enough to consent? You say no, but we don’t know.
Was he sober enough to consent/scheme/plan? You say yes, but we don’t know.
Was there sex? We don’t know. Was it rape? We don’t know.
You invented the idea of her being passed out and dragged around the bar. You invented the idea of him coming up with a plan for his bodyguards to trap her with him so he could rape her. Those would be awful things, but they’re also merely things you invented.
steve
I remember Ben Roethlisberger winning the super bowl and immediatedly babbling about Thuh Lord and Jesus Christ his Personal Savior blah blah blah. I’ve disliked the guy ever since. Now I read that three women have accused him of sexual assault in the last year or so.
David Koresh and 14 year olds. Jimmy Swaggert and hookers. The entire Catholic Church.
Ladies, start looking for agnostics or atheists. You’ll be protecting your children.
debbie
To whoever said
I was doing research for something else, but it is fact that the area of the brain (prefrontal cortex) that provides for sound decision-making, consideration of consequences, and impulse control isn’t fully established until the mid-20s.
Even if she’d been sober, she might not have been able to make the best decision.
zoe kentucky in pittsburgh
I live in Pittsburgh and I haven’t met ANYONE who doesn’t think this was totally justified– this wasn’t the first time Ben got in trouble for a similar offense. One time is an isolated incident where people gave him the benefit of the doubt, but 2 times is a pattern. I thought Terry Bradshaw’s dress down of Ben was totally right on–
Ben has damaged his own rep and has really hurt his standing among Steelers fans, especially female fans, which is half of the people watching the game. I personally hope he gets traded, IMHO he’s an overrated QB anyways.
Shinobi
Ah yes, lets find ways to make sure to excuse this as probably not really rape, because otherwise we might have to acknowledge that we are letting an accused rapist get off easier than we did a man who engaged in dog fighting.
If this was a one time deal I would get all the rape apology. But it isn’t. And research shows that men who get chicks drunk and have sex with them when they can’t consent (hint this is otherwise known as rape) tend to do it over and over again, in a similar manner. In one study 95% of rapes admitted to by the surveyed population were committed by just 8.4% of the population.
Here is a really interesting article about the modus operandi of rapists. I highly recommend everyone who sat here and defended Roethlisberger go and read it.
The only reason that girl got raped is because there was a man at that bar willing to rape her. And his fans, the police and his job are all willing to let him get away with it.
Switters
This discussion is eerily similar to the Left/Right disagreement about the “dangerous terrorists” imprisoned at Guantanamo.
George Bush and company say they are terrorist that must be detained. Most of the people here argue that just because George/Dick/Donnie/whoever says they are dangerous doesn’t make it so. In fact, it is my impression that most people here also seem completely unable to contemplate how a large swath of America can simply listen to a gov’t authority make a declaration and believe it as fact. Yet, look at this thread. A large portion seems to be doing just that. Most people seem quite willing to believe a young girl’s declaration that BR is a rapist simply on the allegation alone, or at least her version of events. Is there a difference I am missing?
The apologists are not arguing (at least i am not) that even if her allegations are true, a rape didn’t occur. They are simply arguing that her allegations do not equal an unquestionable fact. Ben, for completely legitimate legal reasons, has keep his side of the story quiet. So we have an alleged victims story, some circumstantial evidence, and little else. I am not calling her a liar, that would be as bad assuming Ben is a rapist. Its fine for anyone to believe what they want, but for anyone to be certain based on a limited amount of information is a joke, and speaks more to the passions and the lack of objectivity of the opinion holder than the event in question. FWIW, If the set of facts she alleges are true, let him rot in whatever version of hell you believe in.
And two more little annoyances to address. HE did not get HER drunk. SHE got HER drunk. Talk about reinforcing gender stereo type. Guy and girl go to bar; guy and girl get drunk; therefore he got her drunk??? Guys = big powerful aggressive cave man while Girl = meek dainty and weak willed? Great reasoning.
And has anyone questioned what his blood alcohol was, and whether he was able to give legal consent. Or whether she ordered any drinks, even if on his tab. One’s lack of objectivity should become apparent to anyone who revolts at that last sentence.
A commenter earlier stated that she warns her daughter of guys like Ben. I warn mine both about sexual predators, sure, but also about drinking too much and putting yourself at risk. Does getting drunk mean it was the victims fault? No of course not. But whether raped or not, getting sloppy drunk is frowned upon for a reason and the only person responsible for that is her. Whether she was helpless in light of his “power” or not, short of him shoving the shots down her throat, SHE got HER DRUNK.
SomeoneWhoOncePostedUnderaDifferentName
I CANNOT believe the Raiders turned down the Steelers. Bummer.
New prediction is that he will be traded for a 2011 1st rounder within the next 48 hours. BR will never dress as a Steeler again.
Flugelhorn
About the Geico guy…
Geico pulls their commercial time from Glenn Beck because they do not like his opinions. Then this guy, an employee of Geico, gets fired for voicing his opinions and then laments a world where people get fired for voicing their opinions. THEN he lauds Geico as a company.
Did not Geico essentially fire Glenn Beck for the same thing?
It is the world we live in, brother.
Ecks
Quick update:
@Switters: Agree with everything you write, except that you have to take it a step further.
Guantanamo wasn’t evil because we took Dubya’s word for it that these guys were nasty and evil, but because we put them in jail and deprived them of due process on the basis of Dubya’s say so.
Nobody here is putting BR in jail, or fining him so much as a nickel. We’re just noticing that, as you say, if her version of events are true, then he raped a girl, and we’re leaning on the side of believing her because this seems to be a plausible allegation that fits with what we know about him, and what we know about how and why rapes happen (i.e., it’s about power, not sex, and it tends to be done by guys with a pattern of doing it in the past – the setup here fits pretty closely). Nobody is convicting anybody here, but it is enough for us to form some pretty shrewd ideas about how much we like this guy, and such is our right.
Yeah, the girl here wasn’t the brightest spark in the world by getting plastered in these circumstances, but this is something that people do all the time, and in no way excuses criminal conduct towards them. Jay walking isn’t very smart either, but just because a pedestrian is on the road between intersections doesn’t relieve drivers of the obligation to try their best to avoid hitting them.
Keep in mind, this doesn’t appear to be a one-off where everything just got a little out of control, someone jumped out in front of him at the last minute, catching him completely by surprise, and hey, didn’t it just end up one of those crazy nights. I would be amazed if this wasn’t a standard operating procedure for these guys, meaning they should have had enough time to think out what the risks are, and be a whole hell of a lot more careful with them.
And what are the risks? Once you have a system set up where young highly intoxicated women are routinely separated from their friends at bars and put, alone, in a private room with a big strong guy with a history of indiscriminately trying to bang anything that moves, you have what we would call a “vulnerable population.” That doesn’t mean nobody can ever have sex under these circumstances, it just means that you have to know you’re creating a very predictable possibility for a criminally bad outcome, so it becomes extra-incumbent on you to make sure that the vulnerable populations are protected. And if you are a rich and famous athlete who has presumably been trained to be aware of these kinds of risks (I can’t imagine NFL players these days aren’t, and you have to know that police officers should be), then it becomes really REALLY foreseeable.
Maybe new facts will come out and change the whole thing, sure, it’s possible. But this isn’t a criminal trial, our standard of evidence isn’t “beyond a reasonable doubt,” it’s just something like “on the balance of available evidence”… and on that criteria, it really doesn’t look too good for Ben here. So this particular court of public opinion is finding him guilty as charged, and accordingly administering no punishment whatsoever beyond feeling satisfaction at whatever the officials do.
Let’s all hope it really actually was a misunderstanding and she’s just a crazy gold digger. Wish I could believe it.
Steeplejack
@Shinobi:
Thanks for that link to the Yes Means Yes post. I found it very informative, even provocative.
Shinobi
@Steeplejack: NP, it is a really great post, everyone ever should read it.
Bobby Thomson
@Steeplejack: No, I’m not missing the point at all. That’s why I prefaced my remarks by agreeing with the point.
I just thought it was inaccurate to refer to the woman as “underage.” (As other comments show, it was also misleading.)
Shit, if you had quoted the entire text of my comment instead of the truncated version, which you took out of context, that would have been crystal fucking clear. Sorry, but selective quotation is dishonest and really pisses me off.