Btw, I didn't realize that there were women who didn't file a lawsuit (based on the article) that said Deshaun made sexual advances to them during their massage sessions. One of which was a friend of his. Sounds like similar behavior to the allegations, and I have no reason to believe they could be lying since they aren't a part of the 24 lawsuits.
While that might not be admissible for the civil trials, it kind of does strongly suggest that Deshaun was being inappropriate. Not that I thought differently, but.... ugh, doesn't feel good to have this dude on the team.
Although I'm suspending judgement until this has reached some kind of conclusion, I do have some assumptions based on everything I've seen and read, just like everyone else does.
I assume there's some fire to all the smoke, and Watson made a habit of trying to convince LMTs to finish him off in any way he could get it. It
is possible that he did it only a few times. Or maybe more than a few, or maybe all of them. I won't even try to guess. But from the start I've wondered why someone with his money who wants that kind of action didn't just hire consenting, discreet professional sex workers.
If I had to assume, it would be that Watson is and always has been an over-entitled jock who is used to having women fall all over him because of his wealth, status, looks, and so forth, for free. I assume this has been the case since high school, continuing through college and into the pros. At the same time he professes to be a righteous Christian, even wearing it on his sleeve, being baptized in the Jordan River, and so forth. I assume at a minimum he is self-deluded and he has convinced himself that if he gets a hand job or a BJ during a massage it's not the same as having "sexual relations", in the same way Bill Clinton claimed after the Lewinsky scandal. He might even believe it. I assume Watson doesn't just hire professional sex workers because he wants "clean" girls, not sex workers... maybe an effect of his self-proclaimed religious philosophy, IDK. That's how he can somehow claim he did "nothing wrong" with such a straight face and stick to that story. And I don't think he's the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to his own perception and self-awareness of how his advances are received/not received.
It's either something like that, or the other possibility is he's just a stone cold psychopath and sexual predator, who gets his rocks off by putting "clean" women in a position where they have to either be assertive saying no, or give in to what he wants. Call it thrill of the chase or whatever. I honestly doubt this is the case, and the first case I laid out is more likely.
Either way, unless he is somehow completely innocent and being framed (which I clearly doubt) he still didn't seem disposed to using actual force to get what he wanted. Following the idea that he still sees himself as a righteous Christian, use of force is apparently a bridge too far in his mind. So that calls the illegality into question even though it is unethical and morally reprehensible. Needless to say I don't hold a high opinion of Watson as a human being as things currently stand. But if off field stuff for every player was a factor I would have quit watching football years ago. They're modern day gladiators providing a real life version of Madden and nothing more, sorry to say.
Maybe future facts come out to change this but for now that's my best assumption, the only way any of this makes any sense to me.
I still think any adult LMT could have and should have ended the session and left the room because he didn't use force. That doesn't mean I blame them, but them claiming to be traumatized doesn't carry as much water with me if they didn't do that much to remove themselves from the situation and apparently a few did. The ones who ended sessions and left have grounds for a suit because their actions in real time proved their revulsion. These are all grown women who gave massages, hands on bodies of strangers, for a living (absolutely nothing is wrong there, but spare me on them all being shy, timid flowers... it takes some confidence/assertiveness to do that line of work, period, and they're used to seeing naked or near naked bodies). The other ones were probably somewhere between not being "too offended" (not the first dick they've ever seen) and some were probably considering taking him up on the proposition of sex even if they ended up passing on it. For those cases I think their motivation for joining the suit is $$$$$.
