A final word on Austin Scott

Austin Scott's fate will be decided in a court of law and we won't know too many of the details from now on since a gag order has been issued. So what details do we know? We know that Scott was called by the accuser from a bar early in the morning and Scott picked her up took her back to his apartment where they had sex. Scott claims it was consensual the accuser disagrees. We also know that the accuser had a similar encounter with another man 4 years ago in which they had consensual sex once but later the accuser said they had sex again without her consent. In the other case all charges were eventually dropped. That's what we know for sure, the rest is all speculation and rumor. For now let's assume Scott is innocent until proven otherwise because that's how our legal system works. Having said that Scott should be off the team, not because he's accused of sexual assault but because he has had far too many chances and he continues to screw up. He broke team rules by breaking curfew and this is hardly an isolated incident. If this had been Scott's first mistake I would have rooted for Paterno to stick by him until the trial was over but Austin has screwed up for the last time in my mind. You can only give a person so many chances.

As a single man though, this case scares the Hell out of me. If we assuming Scott didn't force himself on the woman, that is to say that there is no physical evidence of forced sex then this becomes a case of he said/she said and I can completely see myself getting in the same situation. While I've never received a booty call late at night from a drunk "friend" at a bar I've certainly taken a woman home from a bar a time or two (stop laughing, it's true! It's tough sneaking her past my mom to the basement where I blog from). Now I would never force sex on a woman and I've never had a woman say "no" or "stop" after getting her home but that doesn't mean that she won't wake up the next day and decide that she made a mistake and cry foul, and at that point it's my word vs. hers. Once a woman accuses a man of rape that sticks with him the rest of his life no matter what the outcome of the trial is and there's the problem. It's far too easy for a woman to accuse a man of rape in this day and age without any consequences. I'm not saying it should be more difficult for a woman to accuse a man I'm just saying it's a double edged sword, one that I could find myself impaled with someday. I have plenty of female "friends" that I think I know and understand but you can never be too sure, like I said this case scares the Hell out of me.