Jessica

Vozel

Read Jessica's bio and previous columns here

July 27, 2009

Roethlisberger Rape Case: A Year-Delayed Civil Filing Does Not a Gold-Digger Make

First, a full disclosure: As I’ve said before, I lived for 20 years in the heart of Pittsburgh Steelers country, and a lot of the people I love are still there. In Pittsburgh, football is not fun and games – it’s a culture that is inextricably tied to pride of place. For a town that gets a lot of flack in popular culture, its inhabitants are incredibly quick to defend it. As such, they’re equally quick to defend the golden boys, the star athletes who make up the Steelers and Penguins. 

A week ago, the most gilded of the black and gold, championship quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, was accused in a civil suit of raping a woman at a Lake Tahoe resort last July. In the suit, Roethlisberger is listed as one of nine defendants. The others are the woman’s employers at the Lake Tahoe resort where she was a casino manager. Allegedly, her employers bullied her into not reporting what had happened by telling her she was lucky Ben wanted to sleep with her, and that her job was in danger if she didn’t straighten up and shut up. 

Already the fans are rising up in defense.

There are certain roles that Ben Roethlisberger fulfills in Pittsburgh: He is the comeback kid, the clutch player, the quarterback who finally brought back the glory days of the 1970s. In his first year, he was young, gifted, humble and generous, a Midwestern boy who went from third to first string in just a few games. 

The fans were annoyed with his recklessness when he crashed his motorcycle and bashed his unhelmeted head into a windshield in 2006, breaking facial bones and threatening his career, but they forgave him. 

The rape charge, though, is different. The evidence is not indisputable. There is no video footage to prove it happened, no smashed motorcycle being wheeled away on camera. The rape charges were civil, not criminal, so there’s reason to believe the woman is a jealous, scorned gold-digger after Roethlisberger’s cash. Why would Ben do such a thing? He’s an athlete, an admirable person!

A Pittsburgh news station even consulted a body language expert to decipher Roethlisberger’s body language at the press conference where he made a brief statement calling the allegations “reckless” and “false.” The expert’s verdict? His slumped shoulders and tone of voice indicate he was telling the truth. He didn’t do it. Something tells me the expert’s opinion wouldn’t have been aired if she had reached a different conclusion.  

Even the larger news media kept the news of the allegations under wraps: ESPN refused to report until nearly two days after the news broke. Whatever their reasons for doing so, it seems that protecting a Super Bowl quarterback with a rabid, ratings-making fan base played a role.  

Regardless of who speaks the truth in this case, and we have no way of knowing who that person is yet, it’s evident that the woman faces a difficult few months being the object of public scorn.

As Jaclyn Friedman at the blog Yes Means Yes points out, a civil suit can mean many things, but most importantly, it doesn’t mean she is lying by default. Likewise, the fact that she waited a year to file the suit says nothing about the validity of her statement. Many women don’t report at all because of fear and shame – imagine trying to accuse a high-profile athlete with millions of fans willing to defend him, and imagine doing so in the context of a rape culture that more readily believes the accused than the accuser even when they’re not star athletes. 

Add to that, too, the prevailing belief that male athletes can have their pick of women. Why in the world would they force sex onto someone, and someone that, according to obnoxious bloggers, is not even that attractive anyway? To those who hold this belief, please know that rape is not about sex. It’s about power. Perhaps athletes who are catered to every moment of the day don’t like hearing the word “no”?  

Of course, it must be said that if the allegations are false, the woman is complicit in perpetuating the rape culture by using such a weighty accusation for her own gain. I’m aware that this happens, but not nearly as often as rape apologists claim it does. Yet every time their claims are backed up, it gives them more of a reason to perpetuate the myth that rape doesn’t really happen. 

I don’t want Roethlisberger to be guilty. I sincerely hope he’s not. But let’s remove our fan blinders for a minute and wait for more details to be revealed before we jump to conclusions. 

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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