The opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and not necessarily those of The New Agenda.

In January 2011, Steelers Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger [photo] beat his third rape charge, this time in Georgia, because the investigating officer was more into posing for pictures with a big time NFL player than investigating the allegations. This article shows the shots and accounts for Roethlisberger’s known history for plying his young “bitches” with liquor and then having his bodyguards drag the inebriated girls into the back rooms of night clubs so that he can rape them. According to Politicol News, “In various accounts of that night witness statements were completely ignored by the police including one statement that indicated once the women were very drunk was dragged to the back of the bar by his body guards, and Roethlisberger followed several minutes later. This was a common practice and a repeat story of his body guards taking the victim into a darker place for him and then he appears with his pants down and exposing his penis.”

In January 2010, six players from the Huddersfield Giants, a Rugby team, were arrested on rape charges submitted by a 22-year-old girl. While the investigation was still in progress, they were all bailed out and allowed to continue to play in their boyish games.

In May 2010, NY Giants star athlete, Lawrence Taylor, paid $300 to have sex with an underage and beaten 16-year-old who was narcotized and forced by thug Rasheed Davis into prostitution. Taylor got probation because he hadn’t known that she had been trafficked into the industry or that she was a minor. “I didn’t pick her up at no playground,” is his pithy defense. No, he didn’t. He paid a thug to have her brought to him in his Mercedes Benz, paid for her flesh, ignored the bruises on her face and body, and didn’t even consider that having sex with a minor was an unethical and disgusting fact.

Reporting on this case from the Polaris Project, a site dedicated to ending sex trafficking in the United States, C J Adams clarifies what is at stake in the punishment Taylor received for his crimes against a young girl:

When asked to side with a child who was forced into prostitution or a celebrity who raped her, our court system chose the celebrity, charging him with the misdemeanor of “sexual misconduct” and absolutely no jail time.  At his sentencing, his victim was present, but was not allowed to read her impact statement.  Imagine how it must have felt to sit in a courtroom and hear someone say that the act of paying to have you kidnapped, beaten, sold and raped is somehow translated into a minor offense of “misconduct” with no real penalty.

And let’s not forget to mention Kobe Bryant and Mike Tyson’s crimes against young women. Here’s an article to refresh your memory.

These are adult men. Now let’s look at college boys playing the same “games” without any repercussions.

In September 2010, two Michigan State University basketball players were accused of sexual assault by a young girl who claims that they raped her in their dorm. One of the players admitted that the other one continued to force himself upon the girl even though she was protesting, and yet, the charges were dropped because there was insufficient evidence.

In October 2010, a pair of Green Bay soccer players representing the University of Wisconsin were also charged of sexually assaulting a young woman in an on-campus apartment. This girls was drugged, experienced black outs during the assault, and at one time discovered two additional boys watching as she was raped. No charges have been filed, but everyone is taking this case “very seriously.”

There are more cases; just Google “athletes and sexual assaults” or “college athletes and sexual assaults,” and the list of sources is endless. What does this all mean?

It means that men and boys who are protected by professional sports teams and universities get a slap on the wrist when they use their power, fame, and privilege to sexually assault young women and at times, minors, without any punishment for the crimes they have committed. It means that coaches and the businessmen behind the scenes of professional players will do anything to protect their “products.” And this is what these ball players are: products, commodities, objects towards lots of cash. These players are rewarded with cash of their own, but their managers make a heck of a lot more; therefore, a silent privilege is awarded them for acting badly; acting like boys generally act. After all, boys will be boys. Except these boys think it’s OK to pay for sex with minors; they think it’s OK to drug and rape young women, collectively; they think it’s OK to watch and take turns climbing on top of girls’ bodies. And they think it’s OK to treat female flesh and orifices as if they have no identity other than servicing their privileged needs.

Universities are no different. They also have businessmen behind the scenes, and they make tons of money by offering college scholarships to kids with great ball-playing skills and nothing more. And there is an emphasis here on “balls” because these great and skillful players achieve greatness because they continue to act like boys playing with balls. It’s incredible the opportunities they are endowed, the special treatment they are afforded simply for never growing up. What’s more incredible is that some of these kids have criminal charges pending against them, but the colleges don’t care. They just want their teams to win. So it’s fine to put criminals in colleges so that they can roam the same halls with innocent girls. It’s fine to ignore their criminal backgrounds and it’s fine to ignore their ignominious behavior towards the young girls they share campuses and classes with. They are privileged and entitled, while the girls, their victims, get accosted, ostracized, and silenced.

According to Jeff Benedict’s Athletes and Accusations article, “The athlete’s social environment provides him with both protection and support. Accused athletes have money, powerful lawyers, public relations specialists, high-profile coaches and other popular personalities to come to their defense … The athlete’s support network is valuable even before charges are filed. Their prominence and influence often leads authorities to resolve cases without a public trial.” He posits that in most cases, the authorities believe the victims, but that evidence is lacking, so the athletes get off without going to trial or suffering any kind of punishment for their assaults.” This sentiment is echoed by Ken Dryden, Hall of Fame goalie for the Montreal Canadians, who states, ”It’s really a sense of power that comes from specialness, reputation, money, whether it’s an athlete, businessman, or entertainer – anyone who finds himself at the center of the world they’re in has a sense of impunity.”

The National Criminal Justice Reference Servises (NCJRS) conducted a search of the rates of arrests and convictions against athletes accused of sexually assaulting women. Although this is a bit dated, one can only imagine what the present day numbers equate to. Not to mention that this study only includes the rape allegations that were reported:

By using Nexus Lexis to scan daily newspapers from across the country going back to 1986, as well as daily monitoring of three major newspapers between 1992 and 1995, the researchers identified more than 175 cases involving accused sex offenders identified as college or professional athletes. Where possible, phone calls were placed to the respective county attorneys who had jurisdiction in these cases. These interviews often yielded information on additional cases. Ultimately, data were received on 217 felony complaints of sexual assault that involved college and professional athletes between 1986 and 1995. Of the 172 athletes who were arrested, 55 (32 percent) saw the charges against them dismissed. Prosecutors’ reluctance to seek an indictment after an arrest is typically the result of the prosecutorial screening process that weeds out cases unlikely to result in conviction. Eight (7 percent) of the remaining 117 athletes who were indicted saw charges against them dismissed prior to trial, and 43 (37 percent) reached a plea agreement; 66 (56 percent) stood trial before a jury. Fifty (76 percent) of the 66 athletes who stood trial were acquitted. Only 10 of the 66 athletes who stood trial (15 percent) were found guilty. Of the 217 athletes who were initially formally reported to the police for the commission of a felony sex crime, just 24 percent were successfully prosecuted.

And these numbers have only increased. The National Coalition Against Violent Athletes  ”cites almost 700 stories in the Nexis database about violent acts by college athletes against women, compared to 368 in 1995.”

And this brings us not only to athlete privilege, but male privilege. In Male Violence and Male Privilege, Dick Bathrick and Gus Kaufman, PhD, define male privilege as “a system of male control over women, a system of male privilege.” According to their findings,

Men batter women because they can get away with it. Until recently, men could batter women without experiencing consequences such as her leaving or their arrest,prosecution, conviction and sentencing. Most men know that no matter who starts the fight, they can generally overpower a woman. And finally, men have been socialized to believe we have the right and the privilege to dominate and control women. Physical force (battering and rape) are the extremes to which we resort if necessary to maintain that control.  W hen we say men batter because they can get away with it and it “works,”we are describing some of the workings of patriarchy.

Steeped in patriarchal pools of dominance, American culture privileges men over women so that women drown in its treacherous waters, oftentimes, their heads forced under by masculine hands and laws that look the other way. It is why women earn less than men when performing the same skills and having the same educational background. It is why an average of three women are killed per day by their own partners and why more than 600 women are raped daily.

In his 1992 book Power at Play, Michael Messner points out that sports teaches boys and men that competing against one another in athletics is equal to power and masculinity. Without sports, without competition, without the ability to assert physical power, men do not see themselves as masculine. Their identities are wrapped around this cultural notion so that men feel they have to overpower those inferior to them constantly in order to feel like men. Children and women, therefore, become their victims — oppressed objects and targets who submit out of fear, affirming predatory dominance in the men who control them with their depravity. Sadly, these lessons are acquired early in young men. In their scholarly work, Bathrick and Kaufman, while conducting their research on male violence, interviewed 1,700 junior high school children from Rhode Island to see how they perceived rape and violence towards women by men. Their results are shocking. Through the eyes of these impressionable and naive children, rape is normative behavior. So it’s no wonder that  by the time they make it to college, boys feel they have a right to take that which is their right, since it’s normal; since it’s their privilege; and since it’s in their power as males to do so. And our culture tells them that their behavior is acceptable because there are no repercussions. They’re athletes, they’re men, and they will not be punished for this privilege.