Deshaun Watson apologized yesterday. Sort of. Finally. For the first time.
I’m not judging his heart, but his discomfort was apparent. His delivery seemed forced, as he mouthed words that had been written, then rewritten and rehearsed, scripted by nameless professionals who get paid to write non-apologetic apologies for celebrities who are reluctant for whatever reason to utter them.
Watson’s remorse was offered in the most protective cocoon his handlers could devise: a planned dialogue with a team-paid young woman in a cavernous space before his debut in a Browns uniform in an exhibition game that would hopefully provide lots of distracting counter-narratives about the team’s other players.
Perhaps it was genuine.
It was, in any event, a start. The football star admitted sorrow for how his behavior “impacted” more than a score of masseuses he hired.
He didn’t mention that he hired them under false pretenses.
Watson had to apologize, either because he finally understands or has been persuaded that his only chance to get on a National Football League field this season when it counts was to show some contrition now.
Watson’s apology, however mechanically expressed, means we will hear no more of his denials, which had grown less believable with each additional allegation or detail.
For those who weren’t in the rooms, the details of what Watson did don’t matter past a point, but it is incontestable that he made unwanted and disgusting sexual advances towards dozens of women. While they weren’t criminal acts on the order of those committed by Jeff Epstein, Harvey Weinstein, or Bill Cosby, the transgressions were real, with potentially lasting consequences.
Unwanted sexual advances can be traumatic. I still remember the first time I was accosted by a sexual predator. Accompanying my father one day to his dental appointment, I wandered down Kinsman Ave. to the library at East 140 St. while he underwent some 90-minute procedure or consultation. I was a skinny and sexually unsophisticated adolescent, not close to understanding my own roiling testosterone impulses, let alone anyone else’s. I certainly had no sense that I might be somebody’s sexual prey on a midsummer day in a bustling neighborhood on a main thoroughfare.
But I was.
I didn’t recognize the advance at first for what it was. The man was much older, perhaps in his fifties and thus an authority figure to some degree. I think that some sort of psychological repression plays a role, even now, more than half a century later, in blurring some of the details.
What is unforgettable however, is my recognition of the danger, my repulsion, and my focused intent on escape.
What does remain is a vivid recollection of the emotional aftermath. Violation. Shame. Anger. Fear. Stupefaction. Bewilderment.
In today’s hypersexualized environment, I doubt if any those several dozen masseuses could have been as unprepared for Watson’s unwanted advances as I was for my close encounter in the library. There is a gaping deficiency in the professional training of masseuses if they are not taught that the uninvited exercise of male privilege is an occupational hazard.
Still, given Watson’s celebrity and aura of personal power, I do not doubt that even those prepared by training or prior professional experience were demeaned by him, and that their responses to him in the moment and thereafter were sone admixture of shame, humiliation, anger, and bewilderment.
They didn’t ask for it and they didn’t deserve it.
The whole sad saga is another chapter in the amoral universe that is the National Football League. No one should be surprised by the incredible ineptitude and hypocrisy on display throughout this sordid situation by the NFL and many of its teams and top execs.
The NFL posturing as a respecter of women in this situation? It won’t wash.
Jimmy Haslam. Jerry Jones. Daniel Snyder. Stephen Ross. Each of these billionaire owners has been accused of behaviors far more egregious than Watson. All of them colluded to blackball Colin Kaepernick for modestly and unobtrusively following the dictates of his conscience. They conspire to wrap their product with an over-the-top false patriotism. Many of them contributed millions of dollars in support of an immoral huckster who respects no woman other than Nancy Pelosi [because she regularly stomps his butt] and whose insatiable ego needs led him to foment an insurrection: a political Hail Mary pass after the game had ended.
I think the original six game suspension meted out to Watson was about right, especially considering he missed all last year in a kind of pre-trial detention. Had he apologized a few weeks earlier, that punishment would have been more defensible. Watson’s failure to show even a modicum of remorse or contrition proved to be his Achilles. He remained until last night a steadfast prisoner of his ego.
Buried in all the storm and fury about what Watson did and how much he should be punished are some perplexing questions.
Watson is rich, good-looking, healthy, and famous. Where is his girlfriend?
If he has a need for a certain kind of interaction, why didn’t he just pay for it up front, or have his enablers — the Houston Texans — do it for him?
I am inclined to see Watson as more sick than criminal. His greatest foe at present is himself. At some point he will have to defeat those internal demons that led him to prey on a profession.
And when he eventually gets back on the field, he will have to answer to teammates who will want some answers as to just what kind of dude he is.
In Watson’s pre-game performance last night, he said that he was working on being a person of character. More than his pro forma apology, that acknowledgment offered a glimmer that he might have some awareness that he needs to be better at self-control. If he can do that, perhaps he’ll be able to make the Haslams glad they decided to pay him $236 million and look the other way.
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