I just want to say up front that this post is not about the guilt or innocence of Ben Roethlisberger, and any attempts to derail the points that I’m making here by making this about his specific guilt or innocence will be considered thread-jacking, which is one of the rules that you could get banned for breaking at Pandagon. With that out of the way, I want to talk about the proliferation of rape apology myths that are exploding in defense of Roethlisberger from fans. Personally, I’ve never understood why it’s so important for people to believe that having remarkable talents precludes having bad morals. If you set that aside, you will suddenly feel both the need to defend artists/athletes whose work you love that have done bad things, and you can also realize that your enjoyment of their work is not a statement about your morals, which is why I’ve found the cries to boycott Chris Brown’s music to be missing the larger point. I think one reason that people get so defensive when it comes out that someone whose work they enjoy is a rapist or a wife beater is that they perceive an obligation to give up their beloved fandom. A better approach would be to use these incidents as teaching moments and opportunities to remake the culture, not as litmus tests for the morality of your enthusiasms. This isn’t about how you’re a bad person if you like the Steelers, but there is something to be said for the responsibility of organizations like ESPN not to cover this up and reinforce the belief that the world of sports is a sanctuary for misogynists.
What I want to address is the proliferation of false ideas getting trotted in defense of Roethlisberger, or in all reality, of the fans’ own image of themselves. Jaclyn Friedman and Amanda Hess have written pieces on it, and there’s rape apologism galore stuck to this case, and in fact is part of it. From Jaclyn’s piece:
The alleged victim is already suing Harrah’s, her employer, for telling her that “most girls would feel lucky to get to have sex with someone like Ben Roethlisberger” and trying to cover up the whole incident.
There’s a lot of bullshit being said, including the tired old “gold digger” charge, but what I want to talk about is the way that people conflate having sex with rape to confuse the issue of what is alleged to have happened here. But when you are raped, you did not “have sex” with the rapist, nor did he “have sex” with you. Having sex is a phrase that usually means something specific, with consent being the bare minimum for qualification. By conflating the two, rape then gets rewritten in the public imagination not as an act of sadism done for its own reasons, but just something that hard up guys do to get laid. This in turn is used as evidence that the accused must be innocent, as Amanda Hess notes:
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger could have sex with anybody he wanted: “most girls would feel lucky to get to have sex with someone like Ben Roethlisberger.”
L.A. Lakers shooting guard Kobe Bryant could have sex with anybody he wanted: “Why would he rape her? He could have sex with anyone he wanted.”
Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock could have sex with anybody he wanted: “It’s not like he had to make somebody have sex with him. He could have sex with anybody he wanted.”
Magician David Copperfield could have sex with anybody he wanted: “I hardly think he needs to rape anyone, surely there is plenty of willing participants out there.”