Harassment Can Go Both Ways

In Carl Hiaasen’s 1995 best-selling novel “Stormy Weather,” the man who earlier had brought us “Strip Tease” created Edie Marsh. She was a money-driven creature who, in the wake of the William Kennedy Smith rape trial, sought to bed down any other Kennedy in anticipation of blackmailing him to evade another sensational public embarrassment of the clan.

That was a novel. Does this kind of thing happen in real life?

In the past few weeks, two somewhat sensational stories have infiltrated newspapers and newscasts; they deal with women who have accused famous, wealthy professional athletes of sexual misconduct.

They are but additions to a string of similarly accusatory stories - one even involving the president of the United States which is destined to have a shelf life as long as Cal Ripken’s durable baseball-playing record.

This is not an easy subject to write about, particularly if you are a male. Either you swallow whole the accusations or you are cast as some sort of chauvinist.

So, I am rolling the dice here.

What happens when it turns out that some of these accusations are false, are the stuff of which Edie Marsh was created?

In no way can I prejudge all these latest accusations or those against President Clinton. That’s why there are trials.

That’s also why there are out-of-court settlements on the civil aspects of such allegations.

It’s not the same, but do recall, please, the case of Michael Jackson and the little boy with whose parents a huge - and secret - settlement was reached. We’ll never know the truth, will we?

Dallas Cowboys football players, including the already notorious and on-probation Michael Irvin, were accused of participating in the rape of a woman. The alleged victim claimed Irvin had held a gun to her head to force her to have sex with the other player. Irvin denied he was even there. The woman added to her story, saying the men were using cocaine.

Now, Dallas police have ended their investigation of the players, saying the woman’s allegations are untrue. “We’ve determined conclusively that the allegations are not true and that a sexual assault did not take place. We also determined that Michael Irvin was not present at any time,” police spokesman Ed Spencer said last week.

Next, out of Ohio came a claim from two women that Cleveland Indians pitcher Jose Mesa and a friend had “fondled” them in a motel room. The men have been arrested and charged with “gross sexual imposition.”

In reading wire service reports of the allegations, it is revealed that the women had gone to a motel room with the men after meeting them elsewhere.

And so we come to the despised age-old conundrum: Were the women asking for it?

And that motif leads to another: What is the purpose of the miniskirt, of heavy makeup, of low-cut blouses?

That then leads to awareness of the ages-long practice by fundamentalist Muslims and Jews that their women, in order not to appear provocative, must be fully covered by clothing.

It is the prevailing legal and ethical opinion that enticement and/or provocation does not justify rape or other forms of sexual misconduct.

I would agree with that. A woman’s body is not a buffet table, there to be sampled on male whim simply because the presentation looks delectable.

But what happens when some of these women turn out to be Edie Marsh clones? What happens when some of these cases turn out to be entrapment, women using their female beguilement for malevolent purposes?

It was too soon to judge Michael Irvin, just as it was too soon to judge Richard Jewell on the Atlanta Olympics bombing.

But we did anyway. Irvin was a pariah before this latest accusation, so it was safe to assume he was there holding a gun on this woman.

That was our reasoning, and it was wrong.

It turns out that these Dallas Cowboys were falsely accused, and someone ought to throw the book at the woman who made the claims. And if it turns out that other men or even the guy in the White House has been falsely accused, someone ought to throw the book at those who have made those claims, too.

And not just Hiaasen’s novel. It’s not heavy enough.

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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Howard Kleinberg Cox News Service