After more than 2 years, MLB pitcher Trevor Bauer has been exonerated. After a Cy Young season in 2020 and a great start to 2021, Bauer was accused of sexual assault and suspended without pay for 194 games. It has now come out that his accuser sent texts to friends before the accusation that revealed that this was planned beforehand. Video has emerged with her lying in bed peacefully next to Bauer the morning after the alleged assault. She had no obvious injuries and a bit of smirk on her face.
Bauer was innocent but even though he beat the rap, much damage was done. He lost $37 million in salary during 2022 and was released by the Dodgers after the suspension ended. Another team could have signed him for pennies on the dollar, but he was deemed to be too toxic and went unsigned by even the worst of MLB teams. He ended up playing in Japan in 2023. I bet that Bauer will get an MLB deal in 2024 but will have to take a big pay cut with a zero-tolerance clause. His reputation will be forever tarnished by the false accusation. What will happen to his accuser? Probably nothing. There must be laws in place such that if you make a false accusation of rape, you go to jail and pay a hefty fine especially if you attempted to extort money. Bauer ended up paying more in legal fees than the proposed monetary settlement to the accuser. I admire him for standing up for himself and his innocence no matter what the cost.
Obviously, I've never experienced anything like this but yes, I've been burned by the Believe All Women narrative. When I was about 12, I was playing with a pair of cousins. One was a 15 year-old boy who was much stronger than I was. The other was a 10 year-old girl. Not surprisingly, the older cousin roughed me up a bit and I believe that I could have been hurt pretty badly if he kept going. Fortunately, after several minutes of pleading, he finally stopped. The 10 year-old thought it was cool and wanted a piece of me as well. She proceeded to accuse me of injuring her shoulder and asked permission for a free shot on me. It was a total lie but almost everyone in the family proceeded to yell at me without so much as even asking me for my side of the story. It was I that was beat up and now I had to take this crap. Needless to say, I was REALLY HURT and dreaded family gatherings for years afterward. Nobody apologized for not listening to my side either. To their credit, the parents of the girl really didn't yell at me. I think they knew that their daughter was lying.
I have a couple more issues with the MeToo movement, and the double standards applied to men. Sometimes I walk to the convenience store to buy a protein bar or a muffin for breakfast after morning sprints. I'm wearing my workout clothes and have gotten whistles and suggestive comments about my legs from women in their 50s. I didn't really mind a little harmless flirting and just laughed it off. Now, what would happen if I made a similar remark to a woman in her late 20s that was out of my league? That's a rhetorical question. No need to answer it. It's gotten to the point in which some men are afraid to tell a female co-worker that she looks nice after a new haircut. That is ridiculous.
There have been many reports of women wearing nothing but sports bras and short shorts to the gym, then they proceed to complain when guys look or stare at them. What do you expect when you dress like that? Have I looked before? Sure, I have but I do try to be discreet. One hilarious example came out a few years ago when a scantily clad woman actually complained to the manager of the gym about a man staring at her. It turned out that the man was BLIND! LOL! All she had to do was tell him not to stare because it makes her uncomfortable. No reason to go to the manager. I'm sure that she felt pretty stupid for accusing a blind man.
Suppose that a girl who is flirtatious and is known to make suggestive comments in jest to other guys. She should not be surprised to get occasional unwanted advances. Does that constitute sexual harrassment? Depends on the situation. Did the guy know or should have known that it was unwanted. If he has a friendly or a least a cordial relationship with her and she has made similar comments to other guys, just tell him not to talk like that. Don't tattle to the boss. If it continues after you are told not to make jokes like that, YES that is a problem.
What happened to Trevor Bauer also underscores my point about not having sex with people that you barely know. Though he committed no crime, Bauer was awfully foolish to jump in bed with someone that he just recently met. That said, I am firmly on his side in this matter and wish him luck over the remainder of his baseball career.
Rape is indeed a shitty crime and I have nothing but sympathy for the victims. That said, I would certainly advise people to take precautions to avoid putting themselves in a position in which they are more likely to be a victim. Word spreads quickly on a college campus and a girl with a promiscuous reputation is far more likely to be a rape victim. Drunken idiots will think that because she did it with so and so, she’ll do it with me. Sometimes girls will consent to sex then regret it the next morning and proceed to cry rape. Again, if a guy doesn’t have sex, he won’t be falsely accused of rape and his reputation will remain clean. Think of it this way. Advising a guy not to get drunk and wander the streets of a dangerous city is certainly not the same as blaming him after he was a victim of robbery or assault and battery. Men are 3 times more likely than women to be murder victims but that’s a rant for another day.
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