The Rape Waiver

6 Minute Read

In 2013, my financial advisor told me something unexpected: with my skills and personality, I could make far more money investing in myself and starting my own business than I ever could in the market. His advice was almost baffling in its selflessness. After all, I tend to approach most interactions with the question that guides so many of us—What’s in it for them?

For a financial advisor to suggest I pull money from my retirement—his source of income—and instead, go all-in on myself was a powerful statement. And he was right.

In 2014, I withdrew $140,000. By 2018, that gamble had turned into a business generating $12 million a year in revenue. I had $3.2 million in the bank.

By February 2019, I it was all gone - every dollar, every deal, every ounce of security I had built. One moment, I was on top, running a multimillion-dollar business, putting in an offer to purchase a resort at Lake of the Ozarks and the next, I was watching everything collapse like a house of cards in a hurricane. The bank accounts empty. The walls closing in. And just like that, the life I had built, vanished, leaving nothing but wreckage in its place. I was still breathing, adrift on an inflatable raft, but beneath me, the sharks circled—and the horizon offered no rescue.

Most people think capitalism means equal opportunity — the chance to control your future. It advertises meritocracy. The freedom to build something of your own no matter the circumstances you were raised in. Work hard, take risks, play smart, and the system will reward you. But that’s not quite right. That’s capitalism’s Tinder profile.  It’s good for a swipe right, but over lunch, it’ll try to gaslight you into thinking trickle-down economics works.

The truth is that capitalism is a myth of opportunity in a system rigged for those already at the top. Capitalism is a graveyard with Wi-Fi. It’s a treadmill with a leaderboard.

Most of us only participate in the economy as demand — consumers fueling the machine. To become supply—to build, create, and carve out your own corner of the market — you have to learn the game. You have to kiss the ring. You’re a villager building a village, hoping it grows into a kingdom. But here’s the catch:

Kings don’t want more kings.

They don’t want competition. They don’t want challengers. Just ask Blockbuster. Napster. Myspace. Gawker. The system is littered with traps. Some roads are less traveled for a reason—not because they lead nowhere, but because they’re guarded by the King’s assassins. And when they strike—when they leave you bleeding—they don’t stop there.

They weaponize the legal system. They twist your story. They make sure your name rots before the truth ever has a chance. They call the press—not to reveal, but to distort, so that doubt clings to your name like a permanent stain. Until one day, you find yourself like Lady Macbeth, scrubbing, whispering, “Out, out, damned spot.” It’s not just the system crushing you, it’s the psychological warfare that follows. You become consumed by shame, accusation, and public distortion that you start doing your own damage control - even if you know the stain can’t be removed.

I didn’t set out to fight a king.

I just built something I believed in.

But when it started to work - that’s when they came for me.

Friday May 24th, 2024 - 8:00 AM

I still hear his voice in my sleep. “Brian, today’s the day.”

I’ve been arrested by the FBI and handed over to the U.S. Marshals for processing. Someone thrusts a digital tablet into my hands, a document waiting for my signature. Everything around me moves in streaks of blurred colors. The room is a gray canvas, and the people swirling through it paint erratic strokes—yellow blouses, blue polos, khaki pants, white tennis shoes, brown holsters. They pivot, turn, disappear, reappear. It’s a dance—messy, yet choreographed—and I’m no more than an unwilling participant dragged onto the stage without a single rehearsal.

Shame has wrapped itself around me, swelling in my head like a balloon about to burst. For a moment, I think I might pass out, collapse under the weight of humiliation. Has anyone ever died from shame? Is that how this ends? Will I hit the floor before I even get my chance to fight back? My mind lags behind each head turn, banging against the inside of my skull like an echo I can’t silence.

The only control I have is how I respond. If they want me to move quickly, I’ll move slowly. Deliberately. Until I get my bearings. Thankfully, I’m numb to the suffocating tightness that shame puts on you. My body knows how to shut down in order to let my mind be free to do what it needs to do. But I can feel myself sinking.

“Stay present. Stay focused.” The voice inside me cuts through the haze.

I close my eyes. Breathe slow. Try to disappear into a meditative trance. I reach for something—anything—that might anchor me. Anger is always the first to answer. He’s never far - never has been. Not loud, not explosive, just steady. Familiar. A pilot light under my ribs, flickering, waiting. I don’t let it take over. I let it simmer, just enough to keep me from toppling over.

Then - the tablet.

I can feel its weight in my hands like I’m noticing it for the first time. Cool, hard, indifferent. Just a part of the process. Something about the way they handed it over though - quietly, efficiently, mid-chaos - like they hoped I’d just sign without reading. That’s what jolts me back to reality.

The document is written in pure bureaucracy—Medical, medical, the situation you’re in, medical, your rights, blah blah blah—lulling me into a fog of boredom. Then I see it.

A word.

I glance up, expecting a reaction from someone. A sideways glance. A smirk. A tell. Did I misread it? But no one is watching me. The marshal in charge is focused on his computer, directing the room. Small in stature, his face is lean and sharp beneath a neatly trimmed brown beard. He fiddles with his computer, connecting to the camera for my mugshot. Another officer prepares a cheek swab for my DNA. The others are just talking casually like we’re hanging at a bar during happy hour.

I must have read it wrong. There’s no way it says what I think it says.

I rub my eyes and close them for a moment to repair the dryness. I shake off the noise around me, and read it again—this time with absolute focus. Medical, medical, the situation you’re in, medical, your rights, blah blah blah… the word.

There it is.

It’s not an unfamiliar word. Everyone knows it. But it’s never been mine to fear. It’s a word women are warned about, trained to navigate around like broken glass. A shadow that follows them into parking garages, parties, college dorms, offices, everywhere. I knew what it did. I believed the stories. I knew it was real. It was a threat women learned to expect. But it had never lived on my list of dangers—not top ten, not top fifty. I don’t joke about it. I don’t invite it into rooms. I don’t dance with it. I’ve always seen it from a distance—like smoke from someone else’s fire.

But now?

Now it’s in my lap.

It stares up at me from the screen in my hands—clinical, bureaucratic, bold. Like it belongs there. Like it’s been there all along, just waiting for me to notice. It doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink. It stands in the middle of the room, smug or oblivious—I can’t tell which.

Maybe it doesn’t know it’s NOT supposed to be here.

Or maybe it does. Maybe it likes being seen. Maybe it enjoys the silence it brings, the way it steals the air from the room and dares me to breathe. Does it even understand the weight it carries? Or does it carry it proudly, like a badge, like a weapon? I mean if a word was to take on its own personality, then of course it would just stand there staring at me knowing that I had nowhere to run. Smug little fucker.

Either way, I suddenly realize that this word and I are not strangers anymore. We are enemies—because now it knows my name. I blink. I reread the sentence.

I look around the room like I’m expecting someone to stop me—to say it’s a mistake, a typo, a prank. But no one’s looking. No one’s laughing.

The Marshal is across the room still pretending to set up the camera for my mugshot, casually checking his phone, like I didn’t just read what I read. They are ignoring me so hard, so purposefully, that and I know that it’s part of their training.

And it’s at this exact moment that I decide — I’m not going quietly into the night, because the United States government wants me to sign a rape waiver.