Counterfeit innocence

 We find our martyrs in the oddest places these days. Some of us do, anyway.

Just now the misogynists and other usual suspects are taking up for poor Trevor Bauer, the former Los Angeles Dodger pitcher who apparently likes beating up women during sex, and who settled with one of his accusers out of court yesterday.

This was seen as some sort of vindication by the usual suspects, even if it was merely an agreement between two parties who realized they couldn't win their respective suits. No matter. The usual suspects immediately hung poor Trevor on a cross, declaring he'd been ill-used by Major League Baseball (which frankly did go over the top with its initial suspension, eventually being forced by the courts to reduce it), and was as pure as the blood of the lamb.

"MLB should issue a formal apology and IMMEDIATELY REINSTATE HIM!" they howled. "His accuser was nothing but a gold-digger who should go to prison for lying!"

And also: "Every so-called journalist who tarred and feathered our boy in print should beg his forgiveness in print!"

I guess that includes me, sort of. Although the Blob wouldn't exactly be anyone's first choice for shouting from the rooftops.

Back when all of this happened with Bauer, see, I called him a sick twist. There'll be no mea culpa from me for that. He is a sick twist.

If he weren't, his original accuser wouldn't have wound up in the emergency room after their encounter with head trauma and vaginal bruising so bad medical personnel with decades of experience said they'd never seen the like of it.

If he weren't, three or four other women in various parts of the country wouldn't be accusing him of sicko acts remarkably like those described by his original accuser -- including such niceties as strangling them into unconsciousness.

If he weren't, Bauer wouldn't himself have admitted to "rough sex" with his accuser, claiming that he only did what she asked him to do. 

Now, we'll never know for sure if that's true. But even if it is, and his accuser indeed lied about it (and dropping her lawsuit in return for Bauer dropping his proves exactly nothing), it hardly means Bauer isn't a sick twist. Because if some woman said "Hey, Trev, beat me up and strangle me while we do it, 'cause I get off on that," what normal human wouldn't say "Ewww, what?"? 

Unless he got off on it, too, of course.

So, yeah: Sick twist.

And until the other cases involving Bauer are investigated, no apologies, no reinstatement, no nothing. And no making him some sort of half-assed martyr.

Because this tale isn't finished yet.