Things That Bother Me

This past week Ben Roethlisberger, Steelers quarterback/serial rapist, got engaged. To a (self-loathing?) woman, no less. This was, apparently, a consensual agreement between Ben and his future wife (a first for him?). However, this begs the question, how did Ben Roethlisberger, who just last summer was involved in his SECOND, maybe third, rape scandal, convince a woman to marry him. Wait, where have I seen this before...
One of the most confusing aspects of all of this is the fact that I neither have raped nor have been raped, and yet no one wants to marry me. But a lot of my anger is this lingering feeling that Big Ben does not respect women. Instead he exemplifies the patriarchy, in that he feels entitled to possess things: women, money, endorsements, Super Bowl rings, etc. And we're willing to forgive him as long as he promises to win aforementioned Super Bowl rings.

When your Google search dictates that there are more Ben Roethlisberger rape articles then Ben Roethlisberger athlete articles, you know you're doing something right!


As a feminist, which I'm qualifying for the sake of this discussion, Ben's summer indiscretions in Georgia left me reeling. What's more, it made me even more wary of how we handle (and discuss) rape in our society. The details of that night are blurry, and yet things are also abundantly clear: Something bad happened. And in light of his recent engagement and a Steelers winning season, it seems easy to forgive and forget because, well, he's winning football games!

Let's take into account, however, that Ben took advantage of a 20-year-old girl, whom he met in a bar called The Velvet Elvis. The Velvet Elvis. In Milledgeville, Georgia. This sounds like an SVU episode, except Olivia Benson doesn't stand for sexual manipulation. She will cut a bitch. No, that doesn't sound right. She would cut his dick off.
Let's go back to that night in sexy Milledgeville, Georgia, where we just left the sultry Velvet Elvis for another club in the area. Ben's victim said a bodyguard took her arm and escorted her to a hallway, sat her down on a stool (sexy?) until Ben "came back with his penis out of his pants." She told him it "wasn't OK. No, we don't need to do this," and he told her it was OK. So, by all means, it certainly must have been OK. Between Ben Roethlisberger and Brett Favre, I've dealt with enough underwhelming NFL penises to last a lifetime.

There are lot of things that anger me about this incident. The fact that people blame this girl for being drunk. For accepting shots from Ben. For perhaps being starry-eyed and excited about seeing a celebrity. These things are probably all true, and yet, that's not a defense for how she was treated, disrespected and violated as a woman. When we start subjecting women to an onslaught of criticism for social behavior, then we'll also relegating them to an inferior position, in that women don't have the freedom to make the same choices as men because it could lead to uncomfortable circumstances. This is meaningless minutia, really, and leads to a slippery slope when look to blame people in terms of rape.

The fact that we can apologize for Be's behavior, and unquestionably place him back upon his pedestal is discouraging, especially in our society, where we tend to glamorize athletes, especially when they take our Fantasy Football teams to the championship game. At times it seems that when the hubris of an athlete contributes to a proverbial fall from grace, we tend to point fingers at the victim. "She asked for it." "She deserved it." "She shouldn't have followed him into the bathroom, if she didn't want it." These don't justify his behavior, and I hope that he's reformed in a way that he can truly appreciate the rejection of women.

In the essence, of not raping a dead horse, let's just say that Ben's impending nuptials make me feel queasy. Can't we just continue raping countries and stop raping women?