Darren Sharper and the Myth of People Who Are ‘Too Sexy’ To Rape

The former NFL star is being investigated for eight sexual assaults.

By Jamilah King Feb 21, 2014

A scandal of monumental proportions is unfolding in the NFL right now and it involves former player and television analyst Darren Sharper, who’s currently being investigated in an eighth rape allegation. If he’s found guilty, it wouldn’t be the first time that a former professional football player was unmasked as a serial rapist; former All-Pro running back David Meggett is currently serving a 30-year prison sentence in South Carolina after being named in at least three different sexual assault investigations. In both cases, if you get past the downright racist comments on message boards, a troubling excuse has bubbled to the surface: these strong, powerful and good-looking men don’t need to rape anyone to have sex.

Erin Gloria Ryan takes that to task over at Jezebel. "Rapists do not want to fuck," Ryan writes. "They want to rape."

Despite the mounting evidence against him, some people seem to believe that a good looking man couldn’t possibly be a monster. If moral people aren’t always usually exceptionally good looking, then has Disney been leading me astray all these years? Sick garbage-people come in all colors, shapes, sizes, and, yeah, sometimes they’re handsome and maybe they once dated Gabrielle Union and maybe they do charity work. Maybe they have money and look really good in suits. None of this means they’re incapable of rape. Allowing an alleged rapist’s attractiveness and money to cast doubt on his innocence or guilt displays a profound lack of understanding of what rape is, what it’s about, and who does it. It also gives people yet another excuse to doubt rape victims. These hoes are lying, obviously. Because of course they wanted to fuck him. Because everybody wanted to fuck him.


Read more over at Jezebel.