Athletes and Women

Athletes are fit, and depending upon what a woman is looking for, attractive.

That doesn't give them the right to take what they want, certainly not women.  The latest case heralds from the University of Miami football team.  Jeffrey Brown is no longer on the roster.  His attorneys are saying the accusation of sexual battery is totally trumped up, and maybe it is.  The lesson, whether he is guilty or not, is that a man, a woman, an athlete, a college student, anyone, needs informed consent for sex.

If there's alcohol involved, it's hard to get informed consent.

There are people, for sure, who say that if a woman drinks too much, if she can't control how much alcohol she consumes, then she deserves what happens next.  She's surely going to have difficulty resisting a sexual assault.

But there shouldn't be sexual assault, of course.  This is not how civilized people behave toward one another.  Civilized people, those who have been raised to respect other people, don't press an advantage.  Life is not a game.  You don't press your advantage over those who are physically or mentally unable to resist assault.

It's a fairly old story, athletes and the association with rape, college males and intoxicated college females (although females can rape, too, and men are raped). We studied this one on campus in the late nineties, and the overwhelming consensus, burned into law in fifty states,  is that if a woman is forced to have sex especially under the influence, no matter if she knows him, no matter if she's in a relationship with him, no matter if she's had sex with him in the past, then what has happened is rape. Sex with an intoxicated partner, one who is legally substance impaired, can be deemed as rape in a court of law.

Accusations are legitimate, whether or not that seems fair.

Thus we started workshops at universities and colleges, even approached kids in high schools and middle schools, to tell them about the consequences of sex without informed consent. We told them not only does No Mean No, but even a Yes under the influence, isn't necessarily a Yes.  And sex with a minor is likely to  be considered statutory rape.

We focused on athletes and frat boys back then, but the "stars," for the guys in jerseys are celebrities, still make headline news for sexual battery and assault.

Again, they're not always guilty.  It has happened before,  false accusations against athletes, the most famous of these cases at Duke University, the lacrosse team.  Players were accused of gang-raping women hired to dance at a party (women of color, which made the case even more significant).  The players were later exonerated, not without extensive bad press and publicity. The prosecutor was asked to resign.

Forget athletes for a moment.  Rape is still a phenomenon on campus, even with all of prevention seminars at orientation, the peer pep talks.  Rape, even at Duke,  just won't go away.  The Chronical, Duke's student newspaper features a story about "Kate," a student forced onto a table and raped by two men on the last day of classes. Once free-spirited, the coed has lost her sense of safety, her trust in people.  Statistics:

Between July and December of 2010 alone, the Women’s Center saw 29 cases of rape or sexual assault, 25 in which the alleged perpetrator was a Duke undergraduate or a recent alumnus. Even this seemingly high number is likely a vast underrepresentation of the actual instances of sexual assault. By reporting, survivors often fear confronting the stigma that had they consumed less alcohol or dressed conservatively, they wouldn’t have been sexually assaulted.

So who do we educate?  Women? Tell them not to look good?

Or men who look good, or think they do, who think they have the right to take what they want?

I'd say the latter is still our priority.

Linda Freedman, PhD, LCSW, LMFT