Kat O’Brien: I was raped by an MLB player

Name him. Without the name this is meaningless.

 

Bullshit.
This kind of thinking (and by extension, mocking the victim by calling what happened to her "meaningless") makes me nearly as angry as I was when Kat confided she had been raped. The courage it took for her to make her rape public, finally, is extraordinary.
If she named him, imagine the vitriol, the doxxing, that would come her way. All you have to do is read the comments on social media accusing her of all sorts of crap -- idiots saying it's a money grab or she just wants to be famous. The statute of limitations has long passed, and she's not suing him in any court. She already detailed all of the things she passed up (new jobs, different responsibilities) in sport because she feared the rapist had started a whisper campaign.

Tell us, brave @ThomsonONE, if you were in her shoes, how you'd prepare for the fallout after naming him. Tell me all the meaningful things you've done that will help me understand how you got to be so brave.

 

If you read that and think it's meaningless, maybe you should read it again.

 

"Meaningless"

LOL if that take wasn't so utterly pathetic.

 

In the last few months I’ve told a few people my story. The first two men I told (both people I am close to) first pledged that they believed me, acknowledged that what happened was horrifying and not my fault, and in the next moment asked, “But you really couldn’t get away?” They might as well have cut me with a knife. I tell no one for 18 years out of shame and self-blame, and now you ask me if I couldn’t have gotten away? From a professional athlete who weighed 70 or 80 pounds more than me?

I can't add anything to this, and I wouldn't try. But it hurts to read it.

 

Woman admits to being raped which carries a stigma all its own already. Woman admits to being raped by a member of a multi-billion-dollar organization home to vaunted athletes who get paid millions to heap piles criticism on herself on top of the stigma she already faces. And the first thought is all of this is meaningless unless she names names? That’s a special kind of douchebag right there.

Her story is enough. And hopefully inspires others to tell theirs to expose the utter misogynistic and toxic world of pro sports. And let’s not pretend there aren’t others or that everything is wholesome.

 

@ThomsonONE, I'm not feeling particularly patient or giving this morning, so I'll go there.

Go fuck yourself, you tiny-dicked, booger-eating, monosyllabic product of married first cousins.

 

Rape is horrible so I'll get that out of the way first. The rapist should be in prison for a long, long time.

I'll assume that because you are a member here that you are a journalist. This isn't any type of story without details. Naming the player is what will help to stop this behavior, and is what will force the player to face justice. This isn't a news story without any details. How many times has the media run with a story that later turned out to be untrue? Too many to count in the last decade. If no one named Harvey Weinstein he would still be out raping actresses. She is worried about having her reputation damaged by naming the player? That's weak. She will be held up and supported for naming him and any attempts at tarnishing her will be met with fury and will backfire badly on the player. Name him - that is the courageous thing to do.

 

Popping the corn, and in before the lock.