Another Innocent

We're all innocent until proven guilty, even if acquaintance rape does seem to be an occupational hazard in athletics. But pro ball players are our role models, not your average Joes. We'd rather not hear about stories like this, rather not have to see them on the defensive.

The story:

A pimp sends a 16 year-old girl to visit a football player in a hotel room, an ex-Giant. An older woman who has accompanied the girl with the pimp in the car, maintains that the girl never had sex with the football player. Lawrence Taylor did give her money, yes, but the teenager returned to the car, the one with the pimp and the informant, to say,

"It was weird ... we didn't even have sex."

Not so hard to believe, but not so easy either. For the girl tells us she was raped.

So this will be another case of a pro on the defensive, and a person who manages an under-aged girl for sex is also, we assume, under investigation.

The lesson:

Sixteen, and younger, is rape bait. A thinking adult male who values his career and family life, his reputation, should not invite an under-aged teenager to his hotel room. Prostitution is illegal to protect kids, primarily, from rape. Age is one of the ways we define rape.

Even if a minor wants sex, consents fully, is sober, even signs a legal document! If the person she is consorting with is an adult, it is technically rape.

So who to believe? Did they do a rape-kit? To prove rape you need to show force (except with kids), DNA, and proof that there was sex. When a victim goes to an emergency room or to the police, it is law in most of the 50 states to administer a rape kit. We'll find out in the coming weeks what happened with that.

We still need to educate professional athletes, our role models.
We could teach them, for example:

If you're paying for friends, make them adult friends. Why an athlete needs to hire a teenage friend is something to wonder about, since everyone wants to be friends with a pro. But even pros can be socially phobic, may have difficulty socializing. People have their reasons. And escorts stay under the radar, aren't likely to brag.

So we have to teach them that sex, if it's ever construed as rape, is not about bragging, it's about hurting. Unless a person has been raped, it may be hard to empathize with that. But the statistics on acquaintance rape for women and men are high. One in three for women, one in nine for men.

To be a role model, then, our professionals might begin with no under-aged escorts in hotels, no sex in the restrooms at the bar, either. If you do this, let teenagers into your rooms, it's very hard for most jaded individuals, and who isn't jaded anymore, to think that nothing has happened between you.

The weirdest thing, she says. For sure.

Defense-wise

NFL Anonymous

Anonymous Athlete, a new column in the New York Daily News, promises to bring out the secret lives of athletes.

It's not that we're voyeurs. Actually, it is that we're voyeurs. It's a miracle this isn't a reality TV show, yet, but it will be. And that will take the word, anonymous out of the 12-Step programs, which is bad, but okay. Anything to disseminate healthy changes, and athletes in 12-Step programs are modeling healthy changes.

The addictions programs based upon the 12-Steps emphasize anonymity because when you're anonymous, you feel more free to talk. And it's the talking that heals, having people.

I.M. Anonymous at the Daily News writes:

It’s only for a few months, because while the NFL is hard on guys like Brian Cushing (Houston Texans linebacker and reigning Defensive Rookie of the Year recently tested positive for a banned substance and will miss four games this season), it’s easy on players who use street drugs.

Players are tested at random for performance enhancing drugs, but only once a year, in the spring, for street drugs.

While the NFL is chasing down those PED “cheaters,” the real losers only need to cut back on drug use for about two months, in May and June. We’re warned at the very first meeting of May minicamp/OTAs by the head athletic trainer: “Annuals are this week …

In other words, they have advance warning so it's easy to stop the drug abuse in time for testing. Straighten up for two months, ditch your marijuana, your cocaine, and you're good.

Like that's so easy. At least they're good for now.

Defense-wise

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Entitlement

Above: At the White House in 2006.

One of the things we associate with sexual assault is entitlement, people thinking they can have what they want. No need for permission. You're just supposed to get it. No need to ask, not if you really are special. And you get to feeling special if people lavish you with attention and prizes, wealth. Success doesn't go to everyone's head, of course, but it's certainly a toxic variable for some. We see a sense of entitlement associated with athletes accused of acquaintance rape.

Those who feel entitled take liberties in relationships, not just athletes, too. People who are married rape their spouses and until relatively recently, thought they were entitled. The king of the castle.

Being a professional athlete is like being a king. They're treated like royalty.

So we're thrilled, amazed, and hopeful that young people are paying attention to the subtext of what Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is saying. The subtext is:

You're not entitled to anything vis-a-vis relationships. You can't take what you want, you can't act aggressively off the court, and you surely need permission for sex.

That's my interpretation. If he said it, it's not in the article.

What he did say, however, is that there’s a disturbing sense of entitlement among many of today’s young pros.

And more: kids shouldn't expect huge salaries and the NBA should raise its minimum age for entry into the league to 21.

He's telling young people, young athletes, that they should finish college. Get an education. Pursue your dreams but don’t let your education suffer.

This in NYC, home of Boys Town, founded by the Rev. Edward Flanagan. Get it in the curriculum, Reverend, and please, please, please. Have someone discuss the laws about informed consent in sexual relationships..

The more professionals who preach the anti-entitlement message, the more professional future professional athletes will be.

Thanks Kareem.

Defense-wise

Dwyane Wade

What makes anyone tolerate abuse? Usually prior years of abuse. If you live in an abusive family, then you don't know, haven't been taught as a child, to leave. The message is really the opposite, that abuse is normal and a person should stay, that it is deserved.

I once talked to a woman who told me that her spouse beat her to a pulp, dropped her with their son off at an emergency room, and left them. She walked home, carrying the child, didn't admit herself to the hospital. She didn't want to get the man who beat her into trouble. She must have had nowhere to go. But that's another story. These days, there is always somewhere to go, and the beginning is, the ER.

The more experience with it, pain, the more you get used to it. But Siohvaughn Wade (the professional basketball player's wife) if her story is true, isn't waiting until the damage is irreparable to her self-esteem, her life. She knows that it's co-dependent to stay, that it's not good to get used to it.

It really is illegal for people to beat on one another in this country. Maybe you can get away with slapping your kid on the bottom, but he'll call 911. So why even bother with that?

Did Dwyane Wade behave like an animal? Innocent until proven guilty. He's going through a nasty divorce and anything goes in these. The story in the Chicago Sun Times:

Siohvaughn Wade filed a lawsuit Tuesday accusing Dwyane Wade of abuse, including picking her up and throwing her to the ground while she was pregnant.

In a February 2010 outburst, Dwyane Wade allegedly called their crying 8-year-old son a "m-----------'' and said "Didn't I tell you men don't f------ cry, man the f--- up," according to the lawsuit.

Attached to the lawsuit is a March application for a restraining order, sparked --she claims in the documents -- by a recent fight between the Wades that triggered a panic attack.

Abuse makes us anxious. We get panic attacks when we're afraid. And her kids, if any of this is true, are going to be more susceptible to panic attacks and post-traumatic stress, too.

Bad PR, true or not, for the Miami Heat. We can only hope she made it up, but most people don't, is the truth. Intimate partner violence is another way to discharge bad feelings. In the wrong place at the wrong time, at home.

It's like kicking the dog, domestic abuse, after a hard day at work. Anger management is easy for those who were forced to control it as children, but so many of us never learned it. And if you grow up with violence, either at home or on the streets, you learn it's okay to whack one another. Okay to behave like an animal.

I think it's even harder for athletes than the rest of us, because competition is aggression. It's hard to turn it off. But you guys are our heroes, you're examples to our kids. You have to be especially good role models.

A devout Christian, Mr. Wade chose the number 3 for his jersey to represent the trinity. And he has two sons, Zaire Blessing Dwyane, and Zion Malachi Airamis, so he knows he has to be a role model. And he gives plenty of charity.

Tell us it's not so, Dwyane. And if it is, find a way to tell your boys you were wrong, and they should never behave this way.

Linda Freedman, PhD

Dallas Braden's Perfect Game

We could say he did it for his Mom. The photo above is his grandmother, Peggy Lindsey, who watched the Oakland A's starter breeze past the Tampa Bay Rays on Mother's Day.

His mom, Peggy's daughter, passed away from cancer when he was a senior in high school.

Some kids do their best to forget, to move on. They don't even talk about their losses. Dallas pitches a perfect game. He did it for her, of course, pitched what is only the 19th perfect game in major league baseball history.

This is healthy grieving, doing something in memory of someone who has passed away. That's what Mother's Day has to be about, sometimes. That's being a great role model for kids and adults.

Defense-wise

University of Virginia: Alcohol and Lacrosse:

Let's not be surprised that 8 out of 41 players on the roster of the University of Virginia lacrosse team have a history of trouble with the law-- and it's all about alcohol.

If you've ever treated athletes, you know that they work hard, or they should, and they play hard, which they shouldn't. And if you're talking young athletes, the play can be really reckless. We wise up as we age, most of us.

But athletes, like everyone else, cure their social anxiety and their awkwardness with America's favorite drug. They say they're partying, but it's more than that. To give an athlete the benefit of the doubt, we might suggest that competition raises anxiety, and anxiety raises the number of Saluts, Cheers, and L'chaims!

And drinking, let's face it, is culturally sanctioned, for the most part, and the legal age a very hard law to enforce.

George Huguely is among the players at U-Va who had previous alcohol-related offenses while enrolled in school. He's accused of murdering Yeardley Love, who broke up with him a couple of weeks ago. Huguely is reported to have been pulled off of Ms. Love in an altercation at a party only two months ago.

He allegedly shook her, banged her head against a wall repeatedly until she died on May 3, 2010.

None of the other guys on the team did anything to compare to it. Their arrests are not as exciting:

underage alcohol possession,
fake ID's
and DUI's

If you drink enough, you don't know what you're capable of, really.

Could we diagnose Mr. Huguely based upon the things we hear in the news? He couldn't handle rejection. He had a previous episode with a police officer, so violent he had to be subdued by taser. He swore, spat out vulgarities and racial epithets at the officer.

To be sure we'll hear words like borderline pop up in future news stories. And Borderline Personality Disorder. Narcissistic Personality Disorder, too.

The Washington Post tells us that two players of the eight were found not guilty, while six were convicted or pleaded guilty of these lesser alcohol-related crimes.

So there's some history here of disrespect for drinking laws among athletes, nothing unusual for college students in general. Now that a college athlete who abuses alcohol has implicated himself in a murder, social scientists everywhere are scratching their beards (chins) thinking of every possible variable associated with such a crime.

I'd just go with alcohol, keep it simple.

But there are those jealous, violent tendencies we're hearing about, and you can't just dismiss them. After the incident with the police officer, Huguely

received a 60-day suspended sentence, six months' supervised probation and a fine, according to court records. He was ordered to complete 50 hours of community service and 20 hours of substance abuse education, which he finished in July, the records show.

He needed therapy, too. Had he known more about handling rejection, abandonment, he might not have lost control. Had he been flagged for "instability", challenged about his "flare ups", had he been forced into therapy, and sure, anger management, Yeardley Love would be alive today.

Monday morning quarterback.

If you learn anger management but don't cut out the alcohol, and you have an anger management problem, mysteriously, no matter how good the anger management course, you still won't get a grip. And if you only go after the alcohol, if that's all you treat, if you're an angry alcoholic you'll be an angry dry drunk, with no personality change.

The police want to know whether officials knew about the team's "hard party" reputation, or Huguely's earlier arrest for a drunken, violent confrontation with a female police officer. University President John T. Casteen III knew nothing about the encounter, and tells us that officials at the school will now check students against public records each semester.

We're also told that Athletic Director Craig Littlepage affirms that when the school is made aware that an athlete has had trouble with police, that matters are handled according to "long-standing policies."

Perhaps reexamine those.

Many schools have programs now, usually that first week of school, during orientation, to educate kids, disseminate policies. They show cool movies about alcohol overdoses and rape. They're pretty good, too. I've seen them. They should be mandatory.

Words like expulsion need to be batted around, but there are softer words, too, we can talk about. But probation and community service don't cut it. Alcohol treatment and therapy, now you're getting somewhere-- with anger management.

Make it a package deal.

It's good that student records will be cross-checked with public records from now on. What they're going to do with the matches, we'll have to wait and see.

Linda Freedman, PhD

Amirmotazedi's Real World

It's not as if you have to sign a consent form to have a sexual relationship.

But if you've been drinking and don't want to be accused of rape, or you've been drinking and just can't say no, then informed consent is something to talk about. Informed consent is what the judge is looking for in rape cases. Legal sex, for there is such a thing, has to be consensual. If you're under the influence, there can be shades of gray.

Informed consent implies sobriety for contracts, too. A person is less informed as the blook levels get higher, is the thinking. We miss details when we're drunk, and we're easily influenced. Our inhibitions, our rational selves, go bye bye.

That or we forget the information right away. Or we might not care. Caring is key to avoid regret, guilt, anger, and humiliation.

It isn't that surprising that reality television has its share of regretful participants, people who signed away consent, liability waivers, before the cameras started to roll. But most people don't sue. One woman, however, in a recent episode of MTV's "The Real World" is suing producers for $5 million.

She's saying that she was plied with alcohol and ridiculed when she refused to have sex with one of the show's cast members.

Golzar Amirmotazedi is suing Viacom, MTV and Bunim/Murray Prods for a number of things, including invasion of privacy and negligent infliction of emotional distress. Apparently she was thrown out of a house in Washington, DC and later portrayed on the show as crazy, emotionally disturbed for not playing along, not having sex.

According to Reuters and Yahoo, online comments called her a "crack whore" and Andrew's "crazy stalker chick."

Bullying everywhere!

But not so crazy, refusing to have sex for reality television.

It's ironic that even if you refuse to have sex, refuse to be raped for television (the show must go on), you can still be raped emotionally, bullied.

Perhaps there is no such thing as privacy if you consent to let the cameras roll. The courts will bat this one around, assuming Ms. Amirmotazedi doesn't settle. She signed liability waivers, claims she was inebriated at the time.

If she proves that, then the floodgates are open. We'll hear more stories like this one.

George Huguely: Innocent Until Proven Guilty

A scandal hit hard at Landon High School in Bethesda, four years ago in April, 2006. The kids worried about their friends who had graduated and played lacrosse for Duke University*. Their old teammates were now accused of gang rape.

The college students, all team players, under-aged at the time, and had partied hard at an off campus residence. They invited a stripper, African American, and allegedly brutally raped her. The boys were subsequently exonerated following an emotional investigation. Race had something to do with it, we understand.

George Huguely, at the time a student at Langdon, told the Washington Post in 2006:

"I sympathize for the team. They've been scrutinized so hard and no one knows what has happened yet. In this country, you're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. I think that's the way it should be."

George, who now plays lacrosse at the University of Virginia, was arrested for murder this morning.

The Duke case, and others, like one at the University of Notre Dame, brought attention to the rape culture associated with athletes and alcohol-- fraternities and drinking, too, on campus. Now we're talking a whole new level of violence. George Huguely is the prime suspect in the murder of his girlfriend, also a lacrosse player, Yeardly Love.

Surely there can't be an association, not when it comes to our kids, between athleticism and murder! All they want to do is play ball, hopefully win. If they party and they drink, they're in there with your average American collegian.

But maybe the variables that add up to violence on campus, be it rape or murder, include the following:

alcohol
competition
and maybe privilege

Athletes are gifted, they are rewarded. They do feel they have things coming to them. Look at Mike Tyson, Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods, to name a few.

On campus our athletes are treated like gold. Their dorms are better, they have food allowances, cars, scholarships. And groupies.

Maybe it's time to cut that out, the privilege part. Certainly if we find that privilege means that if you have an argument and you lose, you're driven to kill. It's all hypothetical, of course, that athletes are more driven, more passionate. And the lesson from Duke is clear: Innocent until proven guilty.

Still, it's something to think about, isn't it? Taking the privilege out of college sports? Because we can't take away the competition, and there's no way kids will stop drinking.

But they should do that, too, of course. Drinking been shown, time and time again, to be associated with violence. It disinhibits, you know? And we need those inhibitions, actually, to be civilized.


Linda Freedman, PhD

Allem Halkic: Bullying and Suicide

Thanks to the Wyndham Leader for the photo:
http://wyndham-leader.whereilive.com.au/news/story/teen-death-leaves-void/

There's nothing sadder than this, kids killing themselves. We've talked about Phoebe Prince, who suffered from depression years before she hung herself when she couldn't take the bullying at South Hadley High School. For months peers had called her names-- whore, slut. Those kinds of names.

Now the young man who stalked Allem Halkic (17 at his death by suicide on Feb 5, 2009), Shane Phillip Gerada, 21 has been convicted for bullying via text. According to the Hobson Bay Leader:

The court heard Allem took his life on the West Gate Bridge after receiving the texts, which included threats from Gerada including “I’ll put you in hospital” and “Don’t be surprised if you get hit soon”.

Magistrate Peter Reardon told the court Gerada’s criminal activity did not cause Allem’s death, but it demonstrated the impact threats could have on their victim.

It's probably safe to say that some kids have problems that attract the attention of aggressive kids, kids who act out their problems violently, displace aggression, we say. Victims are targeted as vulnerable. But a kid doesn't need to be depressed first, doesn't need to be vulnerable, to be bullied. Sometimes you're just in the wrong place at the wrong time, strike the wrong chord in the wrong people. And those people can make your life miserable.

What we see, as the research piles up, is that bullying has a devastating effect upon self-esteem, and victims can be very lonely, very despondent. Friends, peers, at any age, are important, but all the more-so in adolescence. Thus the scape-goats are truly at risk.

The Halkics, Allems parents, want to sue the State Government (this crime was in Australia) and VicRoads over claims that they failed to prevent deaths at the West Gate Bridge. You see, Allem's suicide followed a story about a father throwing his 4-year old daughter from the bridge. Allem supposedly asked his father after news broke about the child's murder at the hands of her father,

'Dad was it that easy?'

Then a week later, he took his own life, jumping from the bridge after being bullied on a social networking website.

You could say that kids need more education about bullying and mental health. No?

Linda Freedman