Ben Roethlisberger - Misunderstood or Monster?

Apparently, he's been accused of rape.

Again.

This time, the alleged victim didn't wait a year before reporting the incident to the police. This time, the alleged victim went to the police right away.

According to the Associated Press, something happened on Friday night.

We don't know exactly what happened...yet. However, just because we don't know anything with certainty, we can certainly infer a lot of things.

For example, we could infer that the alleged victim is lying. Much has been written by better writers than myself of the dangers of celebrity, that there are people who will take advantage of a celebrity for money. Considering the damage to Tiger Woods' reputation, it's no wonder that a rich and famous athlete might cut a check or two to keep someone's lips sealed, even if they are not guilty of any malfeasance. Public opinion works both ways.

We could also infer that the alleged victim is not lying, and that something darker occurred.

Rape is difficult to prove under the most objective of circumstances, but one thing we are fairly sure of is that most rapists are not one-time offenders. Most rapists will rape again and again because they are wired differently than the rest of us. They are impelled to rape, as much as we are impelled to breathe.

This is what's troubling about the current Ben Roethlisberger situation. It's the second time we are hearing his name in connection with rape. There is nothing good about that.

It's troubling because we will now be asked to believe one of two things. We will be asked to believe that Roethlisberger is the victim of circumstance, the same circumstance, yet again; or, we will be asked to believe that Roethlisberger is a monster, guilty of one of the most heinous crimes a person can commit against another.

No one wants to believe that Roethlisberger is evil, but it beggars the imagination to think that two different people decided to accuse Roethlisberger of rape as a means of extorting money from him. Why that particular crime? Why only him?

Since we are asking, it's only logical to ask why a professional athlete would want to go to a bar described as a local college hangout in the AP article. I can think of an easy answer: easy pickings. A college sophomore in a small college town that might have dated her T.A. is probably a lot easier to impress than a business school graduate in Atlanta that has dated an investment banker.

Rivers are crooked because they choose the path of least resistance, after all.

Whatever the case, it sez so right here that we might finally have found a story salacious enough to bump Tiger Woods from the tabloids.