With the overbearing presence of this election in practically all forms of media, it is likely that at this point you have heard that thing Donald Trump said.
No, not that thing, the other offensive thing. No, not that one—the one where he sexualizes women. No, not the one where he calls his daughter “hot”—I mean the other time. You know, the one where he sat on a bus with Billy Bush and said, “I just start kissing [women]. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything… Grab them by the *****. You can do anything.”
Unless you have practically no social awareness you understand why this is bad. Essentially our old pal Donald just boasted to Billy Bush about how he can use his fame to sexually pursue women without their consent. In other words, good ole’ Donny just bragged about sexually assaulting women.
If you heard this first part, then you likely heard Donny’s apology, which seemed like he was videotaping in a room with a bunch of restless chimpanzees that would go ballistic if he made any change of intonation or displayed any sense of emotion. Trump’s indifferent tone emanated its own wave of controversy. But the sticking sound bite has been Trump’s dismissal of his comments during the debate on Oct. 9, claiming they were merely “locker room talk.”
I am not an athletic person and so this statement confused me. I have not been a locker room in years, so I am not a person who knows what is talked about in there. I do not remember jokes of unconsented crotch-grabbing, but maybe I was blind. Could that be what is talked about in locker rooms? To find out I went straight to the most credible source for what is talked about locker rooms: Wootton athletes themselves.
The results were different from what Trump said. The athletes say they generally talk about the actual sport they are playing rather than joking about sexually assaulting people. “I wouldn’t say [our type is] the type of locker room talk he’s talking about, it’s more about the team, not necessarily about girls all the time. His locker room talk… It’s very different to other people’s locker room talk,” sophomore varsity football player Ralin Lewis said.
Cross-country also seemed to have a different definition of locker-room talk than Trump. “We just talk about clothes, cause we always need some specific apparel for practice,” senior Omar Nuñez said.
The female cross-country members did not show any sign of vulgar conversations either. Senior Valerie Hubert’s typical topic of conversation: “How I hate my life.”
The swim and dive team also keeps their locker-room talk appropriate. “We talk about the practices we just finished and how we did, or what happens with the coach that day,” senior Regan Westwood said.
In fact, this “locker-room talk” is quite insulting to the athletes. “I think it’s horrendous, it’s just perpetrating sexual assault. The whole boys will be boys logic is tragic and we need to hold people accountable for their actions,” senior varsity lacrosse player Jules Jacobs said.
It seems that joking about sexually assaulting people is not something athletes talk about in our locker rooms. It seems Trump was attempting to normalize his behavior by attributing it to athletes, but the mistake he made with his analogy is that he forgot people aside from him have a moral compass.

Sarah Fagan

Profiles Editor