I'm gonna go with the facts as they are and they're already bad - Araiza created a situation where a minor engaged in group sex. Is it honestly a big deal that Araiza is a social pariah? Big deal - he lost his job.
The guy, at 21 years old, gave a 17 year old drinks, had sex and then invited his friends to join in the event. Regardless of how violent this was, he's a scummy person who seems to come from a scummy family willing to blame anyone but their boy.
Ethan then equates this act with a minor to the popularity of group sex. Group sex with all adults =\= to group sex with a minor.
Matt, I agree with what you say here whole heartedly on the facts you’re referring to. Everything we know is horrible.  I don’t understand your framing, as I don’t think it’s fair to treat this article as “reporting the event”. This is media criticism.
I think rather than equate it, Ethan highlighted that this is not a rare type of event in pro/college sports. If this group sex with one or two women is not rare in these settings, then that is one part of the discussion about Araiza - The problem is no other outlet felt the same way. They explain the story as a violent gang rape. They left out key facts in the case in order to make their argument more convincing. Now we’re left with a story that’s much more nuanced. The first wave of outlets that cover the story have no interest in going back to right their wrongs.
This is a problem. It’s a breakdown of the structures that package and deliver information to our households. If the water company stop caring about testing for E. coli, would you trust the tap? If we want to have a society capable of creating robust wealth opportunity for all, we need trusted sources. When the highest levels of journalism produce epistemologically offensive crap, it’s not just a bummer, it’s destabilizing.
As for Araiza, i’m left not knowing how to feel. Losing his job? I don’t know if it’s fair, I would prefer if people’s employers assumed  The court systems are a better place to resolve guilt than Twitter or the New York Times, but it’s within the bills rights to do so, and if it were my team I would probably want to do the same! I think the scummy person from a scummy family bit is a little dry. If you were implicated in something like this I would hope your family would be there to support you.
To close, I don’t want to steel-man Araiza and his actions, or his lawyers arguments. I don’t care. I want to put a coat of arms on this straw-man you created here and give it a fighting chance. Ethan is Dead. Long live the House of Strauss.
/I think rather than equate it, Ethan highlighted that this is not a rare type of event in pro/college sports/
I disagree that this is just media criticism from Ethan. Everyone talking about the event is reporting on the event.
Of course there's sensationalized reporting but there's also a lot of people de-sensationalizing the story as being just a crazy party and some of those people are in these comments.
Ethan uses his knowledge that pro and college athletes engage in group sex which says that what Araiza and his friends did was normal. The problem is in this scenario, there's a drunk 17 year old that Ethan brings up in the context of professional athletes' sexual conquests.
As for the family, just because a family defends their kid out of love or loyalty, it doesn't mean they're not scummy. The family saw what their son did to a minor and blamed cancel culture. They're using the PR machine to keep their kid in this job. I recognize why and still think loyal families can be scummy.
I don't think it's my job to straw man Araiza. Araiza could have steel manned himself by not engaging in an act with a drunk minor and then getting his friends to join.
Scuttlebut here in the San Diego legal community states that the (alleged) victim is caught on video claiming that she's over 18 (I don't believe she was) and was (allegedly) DTF. She was also apparently heavily inebriated. None of that justifies gang rape, of course, but she's not the kind of witness that will prove helpful in a criminal case. And that, along with unconvincing DNA evidence, is more than enough for a Prosecutor to refrain from going to trial.
The (alleged) victim's civil lawyer did her no favors by publicly trying to bolster his case via overt media pressure on the DA's Office. A lurid complaint might make salacious reading, but treating pleadings as fact is a mistake our media makes all too often.
I'd heed your own advice and be patient here. The video evidence seems to have convinced prosecutors that they couldn't get a jury conviction. That's not the same thing as Araiza doing nothing wrong -- either legally or morally.
So I'm interested to see what the Bills and other NFL teams do. It would seem likely that whatever is known to have happened will come out if someone signs him. Embedded within a team's calculus to do so is whether or not Araiza is worth the PR backlash from those facts.
Your point on the media taking a more measured approach is a good one. I just think we need to know more here before declaring that Araiza is owed full apologies.
I think the whole point of the piece is he is owed apoligies for the irrationally judgemental behavior regardless of whether or not it happened to be right.
If I am a bouncer indsicrimnately kicking out black dudes with low hanging jeans on the basis they are gang members, I owe them apologies whether or not they are gang members. The process is the problem, not the fact I may or may not be wrong.
It is not healthy to go from "person I barely know is a hero because he can kick a ball far", to "person I don't know is a world class villain because of some accusation I know nothing about". Both sides of that equation need to be toned down.
The guy's not a world class villain but that doesn't mean he doesn't deserve to lose his job or the public shame.
A 21 year old gave a 17 year old at a party drinks and then invited his friends to join in fucking her. I'm not gonna cry for the guy or his stupid family that blames cancel culture for their son and his friends taking advantage of a minor.
I am noticing a very weird dynamic among media sports libs. It comes out that somebody wasn't, in fact, brutally gang raped. Good news, right? No! To the media sports lib, the primary response is not relief, but palpable disappointment or just utter disbelief. That is how tied they are to their own public recriminations. Personally, I am glad to have leaned that a young woman was not brutally gang raped, but I guess I am the weirdo!
The 17 year old wasn't gang raped but does no one else see that a 21 year old giving a 17 year old drinks and then inviting his friends to join in banging her is wrong behavior? This girl is in a highly pressurized environment and is a minor.
Eisen, in particular, seems prone to these kinds of histrionics. He really needs to tone it down especially in regard to civil lawsuits (where everyone who isn't a complete rube knows full well that the veracity of civil lawsuits absolutely require independent verification).
I’m a SDSU alum and witnessing bad decisions made in sloppy off campus house parties are no stranger to me.
It’s easy to say now that nothing good can come of those parties and that anybody, let alone a future NFL player, is better off locked in their dorm room a la the Bosa brothers, but good luck telling my 20 year old self that.
The best you can hope for are parents that drill it into their kid’s head to not put themselves in bad situations without crossing into Bosa/Marinovich territory. Good luck.
People won't revisit because this guy is a punter and he isn't worth a damn in sports. Deshaun Watson is still playing on his 300mil contract, rape allegations only ruins people who don't matter.
Some of the dynamics at play are due to the current baseline morality shared by highly-educated folk. On sexual issues, this can be summarized as: "consent isn't everything, it's the only thing." On one hand, anything consensual is sex positive and all that, and on the other hand, any time that consent-o-meter shows red it's a ghastly horror. The sexual behavior/actions can be the same, but how we judge it is now completely dictated by "consent". With this moral incoherence underpinning how we signal our judgement, it's like we're hanging out near the asymptote of a tangent function. Someone can wind up on either side when the "lack of consent" seems to emerge after the fact. The "he said, she said" is not about actions, no matter how disturbing, but about consent. The culture setters can act aghast and repulsed but they're largely using the only outcome they're allowed to measure ("she didn't consent!") as pretext to act so disturbed about the process and pile on with grisly details. The exact same thing is happening with the Trevor Bauer situation. Bauer and the lady sliding into his DMs are both perverse. She texts him that she wants all this physical pain during sex, then after sex she texts it was great and she's wants more. They do it again, and then even after that beating she's texting "I'm just glad you are showing that you care" while she's dealing with her injuries. The first time there is any accusation it gets levied after the second episodes, and she states that Bauer violated her consent the first time they had sex. (.....) Cue Chappelle's skit with some minor modifications: "Oh, nuh uh. Wait a minute! Just because I texted you to bring the pain and 'rawr' does NOT mean that I meant that..."
The leagues and the media are going to continue to react the way they do because they, like society writ large, have increasingly incoherent and bipolar moral foundations. We're in the middle of a rapid transition away from many moral foundations to very few. The consent-obsessed playbook for healthy sexual relations crossed with highly sexualized and deviant culture is, to quote Chappelle: "f-ing confusing". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL-1kHxsavI
It was an interesting read right here. Something I knew nothing about until you brought it to my attention, Ethan.
It just reminds me how these sports entities just need to fill content. And the ex-punter of the Bills and sexual assault accusations certainly fills content. And it makes sense they used this is in August (during the dog days of summer). But, by the time NFL and CFB season was in full swing, how frequently was it mentioned on any of these big sports shows?
It's not that these people want to set the record straight, but rather - nobody cares if they do or not, as the Cowboys are playing their in-State rivals Texans today!
If it turns out that the guy did not commit an assault as alleged— his life is likely ruined by this. Opportunity to provide for himself and his family has been incalculably reduced. Would truly be a shame.
But if (big If) it was a setting of -of aged- people so the assumption is not minors present, AND the participant was not coerced or assaulted then yes I think it is a shame that the incident in question ruins a life— current and future work prospects.
Even though I think the group sex thing is awful behavior, would never encourage, and definitely cannot co-sign. I don’t believe a life should re ruined in the situation I describe.
If it doesn’t meet the criteria I laid out then sure— consequences be the consequences. Thems the breaks as they say.
/But if (big If) it was a setting of -of aged- people so the assumption is not minors present, AND the participant was not coerced or assaulted then yes I think it is a shame that the incident in question ruins a life— current and future work prospects./
We all know that house parties on a campus can be free for alls with very few rules. You shouldn't assume that a house party doesn't have minors in it. It was also in Araiza's home at school. It was his responsibility to know.
extremely well-written. I like the forensic analysis of Deadspin (have thought Carron was a huck for years) and the NYT leaving out the video is damning.
So good journalism does exist. Thanks Ethan, this was a treat.
I'm gonna go with the facts as they are and they're already bad - Araiza created a situation where a minor engaged in group sex. Is it honestly a big deal that Araiza is a social pariah? Big deal - he lost his job.
The guy, at 21 years old, gave a 17 year old drinks, had sex and then invited his friends to join in the event. Regardless of how violent this was, he's a scummy person who seems to come from a scummy family willing to blame anyone but their boy.
Ethan then equates this act with a minor to the popularity of group sex. Group sex with all adults =\= to group sex with a minor.
Matt, I agree with what you say here whole heartedly on the facts you’re referring to. Everything we know is horrible.  I don’t understand your framing, as I don’t think it’s fair to treat this article as “reporting the event”. This is media criticism.
I think rather than equate it, Ethan highlighted that this is not a rare type of event in pro/college sports. If this group sex with one or two women is not rare in these settings, then that is one part of the discussion about Araiza - The problem is no other outlet felt the same way. They explain the story as a violent gang rape. They left out key facts in the case in order to make their argument more convincing. Now we’re left with a story that’s much more nuanced. The first wave of outlets that cover the story have no interest in going back to right their wrongs.
This is a problem. It’s a breakdown of the structures that package and deliver information to our households. If the water company stop caring about testing for E. coli, would you trust the tap? If we want to have a society capable of creating robust wealth opportunity for all, we need trusted sources. When the highest levels of journalism produce epistemologically offensive crap, it’s not just a bummer, it’s destabilizing.
As for Araiza, i’m left not knowing how to feel. Losing his job? I don’t know if it’s fair, I would prefer if people’s employers assumed  The court systems are a better place to resolve guilt than Twitter or the New York Times, but it’s within the bills rights to do so, and if it were my team I would probably want to do the same! I think the scummy person from a scummy family bit is a little dry. If you were implicated in something like this I would hope your family would be there to support you.
To close, I don’t want to steel-man Araiza and his actions, or his lawyers arguments. I don’t care. I want to put a coat of arms on this straw-man you created here and give it a fighting chance. Ethan is Dead. Long live the House of Strauss.
/I think rather than equate it, Ethan highlighted that this is not a rare type of event in pro/college sports/
I disagree that this is just media criticism from Ethan. Everyone talking about the event is reporting on the event.
Of course there's sensationalized reporting but there's also a lot of people de-sensationalizing the story as being just a crazy party and some of those people are in these comments.
Ethan uses his knowledge that pro and college athletes engage in group sex which says that what Araiza and his friends did was normal. The problem is in this scenario, there's a drunk 17 year old that Ethan brings up in the context of professional athletes' sexual conquests.
As for the family, just because a family defends their kid out of love or loyalty, it doesn't mean they're not scummy. The family saw what their son did to a minor and blamed cancel culture. They're using the PR machine to keep their kid in this job. I recognize why and still think loyal families can be scummy.
I don't think it's my job to straw man Araiza. Araiza could have steel manned himself by not engaging in an act with a drunk minor and then getting his friends to join.
Scuttlebut here in the San Diego legal community states that the (alleged) victim is caught on video claiming that she's over 18 (I don't believe she was) and was (allegedly) DTF. She was also apparently heavily inebriated. None of that justifies gang rape, of course, but she's not the kind of witness that will prove helpful in a criminal case. And that, along with unconvincing DNA evidence, is more than enough for a Prosecutor to refrain from going to trial.
The (alleged) victim's civil lawyer did her no favors by publicly trying to bolster his case via overt media pressure on the DA's Office. A lurid complaint might make salacious reading, but treating pleadings as fact is a mistake our media makes all too often.
This is a tragedy for all involved.
I'd heed your own advice and be patient here. The video evidence seems to have convinced prosecutors that they couldn't get a jury conviction. That's not the same thing as Araiza doing nothing wrong -- either legally or morally.
So I'm interested to see what the Bills and other NFL teams do. It would seem likely that whatever is known to have happened will come out if someone signs him. Embedded within a team's calculus to do so is whether or not Araiza is worth the PR backlash from those facts.
Your point on the media taking a more measured approach is a good one. I just think we need to know more here before declaring that Araiza is owed full apologies.
I think the whole point of the piece is he is owed apoligies for the irrationally judgemental behavior regardless of whether or not it happened to be right.
If I am a bouncer indsicrimnately kicking out black dudes with low hanging jeans on the basis they are gang members, I owe them apologies whether or not they are gang members. The process is the problem, not the fact I may or may not be wrong.
It is not healthy to go from "person I barely know is a hero because he can kick a ball far", to "person I don't know is a world class villain because of some accusation I know nothing about". Both sides of that equation need to be toned down.
The guy's not a world class villain but that doesn't mean he doesn't deserve to lose his job or the public shame.
A 21 year old gave a 17 year old at a party drinks and then invited his friends to join in fucking her. I'm not gonna cry for the guy or his stupid family that blames cancel culture for their son and his friends taking advantage of a minor.
OK maybe now he's owed those apologies! JFC
https://sports.yahoo.com/prosecutors-former-bills-punter-matt-araiza-wasnt-present-during-alleged-gang-rape-225211550.html
"racist rapist raiser"
Got this months $10 worth right there.
I am noticing a very weird dynamic among media sports libs. It comes out that somebody wasn't, in fact, brutally gang raped. Good news, right? No! To the media sports lib, the primary response is not relief, but palpable disappointment or just utter disbelief. That is how tied they are to their own public recriminations. Personally, I am glad to have leaned that a young woman was not brutally gang raped, but I guess I am the weirdo!
The 17 year old wasn't gang raped but does no one else see that a 21 year old giving a 17 year old drinks and then inviting his friends to join in banging her is wrong behavior? This girl is in a highly pressurized environment and is a minor.
I enjoyed the article. Thank you.
Eisen, in particular, seems prone to these kinds of histrionics. He really needs to tone it down especially in regard to civil lawsuits (where everyone who isn't a complete rube knows full well that the veracity of civil lawsuits absolutely require independent verification).
Apologies are so 20th century, get with the times. Shoot first, ask questions never.
That must have been his family's mentality.
"Our son plied a minor with drinks and then invited his friends to join...
Do we blame our son for taking advantage of a minor? No! Let's blame cancel culture!"
I’m a SDSU alum and witnessing bad decisions made in sloppy off campus house parties are no stranger to me.
It’s easy to say now that nothing good can come of those parties and that anybody, let alone a future NFL player, is better off locked in their dorm room a la the Bosa brothers, but good luck telling my 20 year old self that.
The best you can hope for are parents that drill it into their kid’s head to not put themselves in bad situations without crossing into Bosa/Marinovich territory. Good luck.
what did the Bosa bros do?
Bosa bros knew they were NFL bound so they lived sequestered lives at OSU to avoid any distractions or trouble.
https://www.si.com/.amp/college/2016/01/14/why-joey-bosa-spent-his-final-ohio-state-season-solitude
People won't revisit because this guy is a punter and he isn't worth a damn in sports. Deshaun Watson is still playing on his 300mil contract, rape allegations only ruins people who don't matter.
Some of the dynamics at play are due to the current baseline morality shared by highly-educated folk. On sexual issues, this can be summarized as: "consent isn't everything, it's the only thing." On one hand, anything consensual is sex positive and all that, and on the other hand, any time that consent-o-meter shows red it's a ghastly horror. The sexual behavior/actions can be the same, but how we judge it is now completely dictated by "consent". With this moral incoherence underpinning how we signal our judgement, it's like we're hanging out near the asymptote of a tangent function. Someone can wind up on either side when the "lack of consent" seems to emerge after the fact. The "he said, she said" is not about actions, no matter how disturbing, but about consent. The culture setters can act aghast and repulsed but they're largely using the only outcome they're allowed to measure ("she didn't consent!") as pretext to act so disturbed about the process and pile on with grisly details. The exact same thing is happening with the Trevor Bauer situation. Bauer and the lady sliding into his DMs are both perverse. She texts him that she wants all this physical pain during sex, then after sex she texts it was great and she's wants more. They do it again, and then even after that beating she's texting "I'm just glad you are showing that you care" while she's dealing with her injuries. The first time there is any accusation it gets levied after the second episodes, and she states that Bauer violated her consent the first time they had sex. (.....) Cue Chappelle's skit with some minor modifications: "Oh, nuh uh. Wait a minute! Just because I texted you to bring the pain and 'rawr' does NOT mean that I meant that..."
The leagues and the media are going to continue to react the way they do because they, like society writ large, have increasingly incoherent and bipolar moral foundations. We're in the middle of a rapid transition away from many moral foundations to very few. The consent-obsessed playbook for healthy sexual relations crossed with highly sexualized and deviant culture is, to quote Chappelle: "f-ing confusing". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL-1kHxsavI
The Duke Lacrosse case was a huge nail in a yawningly large coffin.
"Until Proven Innocent" is a textbook case and a great book on the same thing ES writes about so effectively here.
Corporate Media is disgusting. It's confusing to me why anyone pays attention to any of it.
It was an interesting read right here. Something I knew nothing about until you brought it to my attention, Ethan.
It just reminds me how these sports entities just need to fill content. And the ex-punter of the Bills and sexual assault accusations certainly fills content. And it makes sense they used this is in August (during the dog days of summer). But, by the time NFL and CFB season was in full swing, how frequently was it mentioned on any of these big sports shows?
It's not that these people want to set the record straight, but rather - nobody cares if they do or not, as the Cowboys are playing their in-State rivals Texans today!
If it turns out that the guy did not commit an assault as alleged— his life is likely ruined by this. Opportunity to provide for himself and his family has been incalculably reduced. Would truly be a shame.
Why is it a shame that a 21 year old who gave drinks to a legal minor and then invites his friends to join in group sex with her loses his job?
Abhorrent behavior in my personal opinion.
But if (big If) it was a setting of -of aged- people so the assumption is not minors present, AND the participant was not coerced or assaulted then yes I think it is a shame that the incident in question ruins a life— current and future work prospects.
Even though I think the group sex thing is awful behavior, would never encourage, and definitely cannot co-sign. I don’t believe a life should re ruined in the situation I describe.
If it doesn’t meet the criteria I laid out then sure— consequences be the consequences. Thems the breaks as they say.
/But if (big If) it was a setting of -of aged- people so the assumption is not minors present, AND the participant was not coerced or assaulted then yes I think it is a shame that the incident in question ruins a life— current and future work prospects./
We all know that house parties on a campus can be free for alls with very few rules. You shouldn't assume that a house party doesn't have minors in it. It was also in Araiza's home at school. It was his responsibility to know.
We really treating the Justice system as the equalizer ??
Hell No !
extremely well-written. I like the forensic analysis of Deadspin (have thought Carron was a huck for years) and the NYT leaving out the video is damning.
Fair or unfair, it's all about risk assessment, especially for anyone who has any chance of becoming famous.