Time and time again we hear another story on the news about a high school/college student who is the all-star athlete who "allegedly" sexually assaulted his peers at, usually, a drunken house party. These athletes are usually the "all-American" guy: a tall, athletic, popular, conventionally attractive white male; a man's man. These are the guys that people are more apt to defend if a scandal comes up. From my observations, athletes get away with the most things. Flunking a class? Oh well, the coach will talk to the teacher. Cheated on your girl? It's cool, she wasn't good enough for you anyway. Raped someone? Yikes. Well, guys will be guys and they shouldn't have gotten so drunk.
No. We cannot allow this sort of thing to keep happening. We need to stop blaming the victim to save the athlete because they can help the team win the next game. Why do we as a society throw our morals away when it comes to sports? Sexism, of course, the root of most problems in the world today. American society (as well as societies around the world) already praise men more than women for simply being male. But if they're athletic, more points to them for confining to the gender norm that the more athletic one is, the more masculine they are.
When these men are confronted with "scandals," they are usually tried in court by the victims after they thought they could probably bribe the victims for their silence. The judge then usually finds them not guilty "because blah blah bright future blah blah mistake blah blah they were drunk." Then, they are usually let off with a slap on the wrist or a very small sentence compared to others who sexually assault. For example, Brock Turner, the "promising swimmer who made a silly mistake," only had to serve six months in jail confined from other cellmates for his safety. Another young man, David Becker, from a Massachusetts high school, who was charged with rape only has to serve two years probation, with the possibility of his charges dismissed after he serves. Even though his victims said "he shouldn't go to jail for it," the law is the law and sexual assault in any form shouldn't be tolerated. Then there was also a group of teen athletes from an Idaho school a few months ago who sexually, physically, and verbally assaulted their disabled black teammate who were then defended with the "boys will be boys" and "this is normal adolescent behavior." Um, the last time I checked, sexually assaulting someone is not normal in any way and raping someone shouldn't be a "boys thing," it shouldn't be a thing at all.
So in summary, you can pretty much get away with sexual assault by being a privileged, white male athlete with a squeaky clean track record, or you can at least get your town to defend you and turn against the victims with rampant and unnecessary slut shaming. A solution to this issue is to, of course, raise our boys to respect other bodies. We also as a society should believe and console the victim(s). Raising doubt in them and calling them liars only makes the accusers look foul because only 2-8% of rape cases are false accusations, according to the FBI. Definitely making a hard liquor ban as Stanford did doesn't help either, because people still are able to rape while sober. Drinking doesn't encourage rape however it does make rape easier to execute. But in the grand, total scope, just don't rape.
