Dear Jason Whitlock…Go F*ck Yourself

Dear Jason Whitlock,

Go fuck yourself.

Okay okay, I’m sorry, that wasn’t nice of me.  I guess I’m with Jon Stewart in believing sometimes people are just so ridiculous with the things they say, do and write that expletives are the only appropriate way of really expressing how you feel.  See, I’m a “raw emotion” kind of guy and as such, sometimes my raw emotions aren’t filled with intellectual wit or calm and collected retort.  Sometimes the only thing I can do is give an exasperated, foul mouth response.

I have to be honest, your column on FoxSports.com, “Big Ben Pays For Wrong-Headed Decisions”, had me cussing about half way through the article.  About three quarters of the way through,  I wanted to punch you in the throat.  Yeah I know “violence is not the answer” and it’s such a “primitive” reaction but again, the statements you made in this article were so insulting, a primitive reaction is all they deserved.  To be honest, you being who you are, I can believe that you wrote such a horrendous article but what I can’t believe is that your editor actually let it go to print.  If every woman who has ever been raped comes to your house and knees you in the nuts, I can’t say you didn’t have it coming.

I’ll call a spade a spade.  You’re the kind of guy that gives the rest of us guys a bad name.  I’ve been called a sexist before.  Wrongly so sometimes and sometimes rightly so.  Sometimes we guys tend to make comments that we find funny or innocent but in reality are offensive to women.  It’s wrong but it happens.  Some women throw out terms like “sexist” and “misogynist” against any man who disagrees with them.  That’s also wrong, but it also happens.  But this isn’t one of those times.  Nope.  This was the definition of a sexist and misogynistic article without a doubt.  It’s as if you took every compliant women have about men when it comes to the issue of rape and doubled down just to erase any doubt that “I am man, hear me roar sexism.”

Let’s step through some of the problems with your article, just in case for some reason you’re completely oblivious to your idiocy (I refuse to believe you are).

“When the Georgia police released the details of the notes it took during its investigation of Roethlisberger, the media cherry-picked and repeated the alleged “eyewitness” accounts as though they were as unimpeachable as a video replay.”

First off, I noticed what you did.  Putting “eyewitness” in quotation marks is a not so subtle way of calling the women who supported the accuser’s claims “liars”.  It’s a way for you to already start to cast doubt on the entire story despite there being witnesses who gave statements.  Secondly, while eyewitness testimony can be unreliable, it is also routinely used to convict people of serious crimes. Between that and the fact that this is the second time Roethlisberger has been accused of a sexual assault/rape, of course the media is going to cover this story.  I have to wonder, did you take this “Well the ‘witnesses’ are unreliable” stance when the news broke about what happened in the Wizard’s lockerrom with Gilbert Arenas?  Also, in comparison to the Tiger Woods scandal (which involved no criminal case or charges) this case wasn’t even a blip on the radar until the D.A.’s press conference and Goodell’s decision to suspend Roethlisberger.  So to try to suggest that the media was whipped up in a frenzy over tainted and unreliable “eyewitness” accounts is a little bit misleading.  It wasn’t a frenzy, it was a developing story that they covered with much less fanfare than say Gilbert Arenas’s lockerroom gun play or Tiger Woods’ infidelity.

“It was completely irresponsible. Statements made by drunken sorority girls are not facts. Statements made by sober sorority girls about an evening spent bar-hopping and drinking are not facts.”

Whoa wait, umm…hold up.  Okay, maybe…MAYBE…I give you the line about statements made by drunken sorority girls…but sober ones too?  The implication you are making is that sorority girls, sober or not, cannot be trusted to make a factual statement about what happened…because they are sorority girls.  That’s a dangerous assertion.  This is where you go from flirting with the edge of being moron to jumping in head first.  You state that being a sorority girl means anything a woman says should be challenged and called into question.  Statements made by sorority girls can in reality be fact.  They may be uncorroborated, but they can still be fact.  You’re obviously using your preconceived notion of what a “sorority” girl is form your judgment as to whether they can tell the truth about being raped or not.  That might fly for a Hollywood script about sex crazed college girls from the Valley, but writing it as fact in reality is just absurd.

“Late last week I received an e-mail from a former sorority president and current advisor to a sorority. She warned me that the media were being foolish for believing the allegations of drunken 20-somethings. She explained what she’d witnessed firsthand as a student and what she now deals with as an advisor.”

“I don’t believe a bunch of hammered sorority girls in this situation,” the former sorority president wrote. “I’ve seen too much bad behavior amongst them. It’s all about having fun and then making sure you’re not held accountable and your reputation is still good.”

Okay so now you’re interjecting statements from an unnamed, unverified source claiming to be a former sorority president and current advisor.  Do I really need to point out why this is journalistically unethical?  Well…considering you wrote it in your article and used it as evidence as to why “sorority girls can’t be trusted when it comes to rape allegations” I think I do need to point out why.  First off, one person’s experience on a campus in a student organization can be a complete 180 from the experience of another student on another campus in the same student organization.  So while the girls that this former “sorority member and advisor” speak of could be “fast and loose”, girls from another university but same sorority could be “prim proper and wholesome”.  Not to mention, just because a woman has acted like a slut in the past doesn’t mean she’s lying about a rape that happened to her.  The other problem with quoting this “advisor” is that…well, how do you know they are really an advisor?  I’m in a Fraternity myself.  I’ve gone to my school and claimed I was the “advisor” when truth be told, I didn’t have the authority.  I just told people I was one.  So you’re using the statements of a person who claims to be an advisor and who has no personal knowledge of the accuser and her sorority sisters and using them to not only claim they are liars but that all sorority girls act irresponsibly.  Are you serious?  Did you really think writing those kinds of blatant stereotypes was a good idea?  How does this advisor know the girls were all “hammered”?  That’s right, she doesn’t.  Earlier in the article you blast the media for jumping on eyewitness accounts as “facts” without proof but here you are using an email from a random unnamed/unverified “sorority advisor” as the basis for your conclusion that sorority girls lie, live recklessly and can’t be trusted when accusing someone of rape.  Are you kidding me?  You have to see the irony and hypocrisy at work here.

“Some young women use alcohol as an excuse to be sexually aggressive at fraternity houses and nightclubs and then quickly concoct a story of sexual assault when confronted by their disapproving peers. Most of these allegations never make it to police headquarters. The allegations are too sketchy and the accuser’s immediate jury of peers reject them.”

*faceplam*

Okay, let me show you why that line is bullshit.  I’ll pull a broad generalization out of my anus too:

“Some young men use alcohol as an excuse to be sexually aggressive at fraternity houses and nightclubs and then quickly concoct a story of “She wanted it” when confront by their peers.  Most of these allegations never make it to police headquarters.  The accuser is usually too embarrassed to come forward and the only evidence is ‘He said she said’”

See how easy that was to flip what you wrote.  This is the same kind of bullshit I see from Republican fearmongers about the black community.  They’ll say things like “Some women use abortion as birth control” and use that as their reason for not supporting a woman’s right to choose.  The problem with that kind of statement is obvious.  You’re turning a micro situation into a macro and applying it to a whole group based off of the actions of a small group.  Yes, some women falsely accuse men of rape, but let’s not act like making a false accusation of rape is such an easy thing to live with.  The scrutiny and invasion of privacy that comes with a rape accusation can be as mentally debilitating as the action itself.  For men to assume that most women would take that route instead of just living with the fact that they slept with a man they didn’t want to,shows why some feminist think we live in a “rape culture.”  Again, yes there are some women who will do that but what you’re saying is no different from when a racist tries to attribute aggressive, thuggery to all black men due to the idiocy of a few.  Here’s the question I have though Mr. Whitlock:  If it was a child would you feel the same way?  Child testimony and accounts of molestation can be faulty and inaccurate.  Do you feel the Catholic Church is being wrongly persecuted for “accusations” of “molestation” from children who didn’t say anything until years later?  Of course you don’t.  Because for some reason when  a child turns 18, we go from automatically believing any story they tell about sexual assault to becoming immediate skeptics and even blaming them for what happens to them.  It’s pretty disgusting.

“Big Ben’s accuser was allegedly wearing a name tag that read DTF — “down to f—.” She engaged in a lewd and highly flirtatious conversation with Roethlisberger.”

Jesus dude…are you serious?  Are you really going with the “Well she was dressed like she wanted to fuck so it couldn’t be sexual assault” defense?  This is such a blatant example of “blame the victim” and it’s pretty ridiculous and absurd.  I’ve gone to plenty bars and talked to plenty of flirtatious women.  However, at no time did I take those “lewd and flirtatious” comments as an invitation to follow a woman into the women’s bathroom, have my buddy’s block the door and whip out my penis.  Not to mention, rude & lewd shirts are the thing to wear on College campuses.  A woman wearing one isn’t an invitation to start humping her leg like a horny dog.  I have a shirt that suggests a coin flip to see if I get fellatio or intercourse but that doesn’t mean every time a coin goes in the air I pull my cock out.

“It’s 2010 not 1910. Women vote, drive cars and knock boots at their own discretion. The popular R&B singer Usher makes songs targeted at women. His 2008 smash hit “Love in this Club” was most popular with women. Getting busy in the bathroom or getting a special “bottle service” at a VIP table are nowhere near as rare as joining the “mile high club.”

What does this have to do with the price of tea in China?  You know what?  I think I figured it out.  You’re reminding me of Andy from the movie 40 Year Old Virgin.  Remember that scene where he’s at the Health Clinic talking about what sex is like but it becomes hilariously obvious he has no idea because he’s never had sex?  That’s you except instead of talking about sex; we’re talking about what women expect when they go to the club.  You have no idea what women want, what women like, what happens in the club or any of that.  You’re just going off of what you’ve heard and what you’ve heard is a song from Usher.  Come on man, that’s not reality. Just because women liked Usher’s song doesn’t mean they want every man they flirt with at the bar to follow them into the bathroom and pull out his penis.  Hell, I like listening to the Clipse but I have yet to go out and buy a Pyrex and an “Easy Bake Coke” set.  According to your logic when Akinyele came out with “Put it in Your Mouth” in 1996, a lot of women should have been walking around with cocks in their mouths.  Here’s what they don’t teach you in the “Hip Hop Music Video School of Love Making”:  If the woman says ‘No’, that means ‘No’.  Period.  It doesn’t matter if she just “dropped it low” and had no panties on.  It doesn’t matter if she flirted with you all night.  It doesn’t matter if she’s had a significant amount of drinks in her and seems “easy”.  If she says no, that’s the end of it.  Period.  You’re right, it’s 2010 not 1910…which is why I find it absolutely appalling that I have to still point out to you that “No means No.”

“But the ugly truth is Ben isn’t all that different from a lot of guys and girls who use alcohol as their aphrodisiac of choice. Any woman who has belonged to a prominent sorority has heard the lecture about safety rules to follow when entering a male fraternity house for a mixer/party.”

You say “aphrodisiac”, I say “legal submissive tool for date rape” but we’re talking semantics here right?

“Don’t drink the punch. It might be laced with a roofie.”

“Don’t go anywhere in the house alone.”

The rules are reminders that no matter how nice the guy might sound there’s a damn good chance he’s looking for one-night-stand sex or trying to set up a train. Some of the women are looking for the exact same thing.

“Don’t let bodyguards who outweigh you by 100 lbs block the bathroom door…”
I mean come on.  The accuser was in the WOMEN’S BATHROOM.  I could maybe…MAYBE see this point if she was at Ben’s house.  But she’s in the one place a woman should be free from sexual advances by men….a room specifically designated for women.  I can’t lie.  As a guy I’ve always wondered why women go to the bathroom in packs…well I guess I now have my answer.  Sure the rules you listed are rules that most women have had ingrained into their brain since puberty, however what you’re implying is that somehow the accuser didn’t follow “the rules” and deserved it. Completely reckless.  Also, if I may point out Andy, women looking for one night stands themselves…typically don’t cry rape.  They get what they want and roll out, just like a guy.

“PacBen is no different from Pacman. They run with dumb posses. I don’t know Goodell’s reasoning for the length of Ben’s suspension. But the commissioner should’ve hammered Ben for his “security” staff. Allegedly, Ben’s bodyguards kept the bathroom safe from intruders while Ben attempted to or did make “love in this club.”

Think about it. Ben basically hired men to hand him KY Jelly and condoms and stand guard while he had public sex. His instructions should’ve been this:

“Guys, if I get liquored up tonight and try to bang one of these girls, tackle me, drag me to the car, take me to my hotel, guard the door and make sure no one gets into the room with me while I’m drunk.”

The accuser’s sorority sisters were smarter and more mature than Ben’s “bodyguards.”

That should’ve served as the basis of Goodell’s suspension.”

And in your grand finale you finish off by finally getting to the point you were trying to make about why Big Ben deserved to be punished and in doing so you completed your “I’m jackass” qualifiers for the Championship round.  Saying that the real issue is that Roethlisberger didn’t have better security to keep him from exposing his genitals to a 20 year old in the women’s bathroom is like saying that Roman Polanski’s agent should have done a better job at keeping a little girl out of his house.  First off, bodyguards are bodyguards, not chaperones for adults.  Secondly, while the bodyguards were stupid for their participation in this fiasco, the number 1 issue in this mess was that Ben Roethlisberger followed a 20 year old college girl into the women’s bathroom, pulled his penis out and almost committed a sexual assault.  He put himself in a situation that was quickly approaching rape.  THAT right there is the single biggest problem and why he was suspended.

I think the most disturbing thing and why I think you give men like me a bad name is the way you try to defend your horridly written article and dismiss any complaints by women as just them “having a tantrum”.  Your article was supposed to be about Ben Roethlisberger paying for his decisions but instead it spent a good portion dismissing allegations of rape/sexual assault by “sorority girls.”  Do you really not see why women would be upset by this?  Its articles like yours and the responses you give in defending it that are part of why women don’t report rapes.  Add to that the idiotic men…excuse me…boys who cheer you on from the sideline and it’s just disgusting. The Department of Defense itself estimates that as many as 90% of military sexual assaults are not reported.  Why?  Because of the “good ole boy” network that treats any allegation of rape from a woman as some kind of underhanded attempt at getting men in trouble.  And your article, whether you want to admit it or not, continues to perpetuate that belief.

The ironic thing is, while calling the sexual assault allegations unfounded; you yourself used unfounded and unsubstantiated rumors and generalizations to make your “point”.  You stereotyped an entire group of women, “sorority girls”, as being loose, unreliable whores who have sex with men and then cry rape later.  And you based all that off of an email from some random “sorority adivisor”, a 2008 Usher song and an Andy Stitzer-like understanding of what women like to do in the club.

You know what?  On second thought, my original comment was appropriate and still stands:

Jason Whitlock…Go Fuck Yourself.