Letters to the Editor
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Let's get at what this is really about
I am sick and tired of the media and their "poor athletes, they are so popular" angle on cases where sports stars rape women. Yes, our culture prizes male athletes -- we put them in these pampered cocoons on college campuses where they are idolized by fellow students, they get free tutors to help them with their homework (if they do it at all) and boosters foot the bill for most everything they need. Indeed this is no different than how they got treated in high school. And if they have the good fortune to go pro, the bonanza continues. From the second that a boy demonstrates any measure of athletic talent, he is told that he is so special that the rules just don't apply to him the same way as to everyone else.
Any wonder, then, that there always seems to spring up around athletes this culture of sexual entitlement, this notion that all women want to have sex with you, and they are there to be used and thrown away like tissues? Any wonder, then, that to these boys consent is presumed, and therefore rape is not possible? "She must have wanted it, all these other girls do...how could I have raped her?"
I don't care how many women want to sleep with you. When you find the one that doesn't, and have sex with her anyway, you've raped her. Why is it so many athlete's don't get that? Because we've trained them all too well to beleive that their prowess on the field entitles them to break the rules whenever they want, because the coach will make sure that everyone looks the other way.
The existence of "lacrosstitutes" is no surprise. That some might try to use their existence as a justification for rape is also no surprise. Just part of the sickness that is sports culture in America.