If you’re not Australian you’re probably unaware of the big news story from last week involving footballers and rape.
It goes like this: Football team goes on holiday in 2002. A woman meets some of them while out drinking, including Matt Johns, who has since become a TV celebrity here. The woman agrees to have sex with him and one other guy. All goes well… until the rest of the football team climbs through the window and get their respective cocks out. Matt Johns leaves the room, assuming the woman is OK with fucking the rest of them. Six guys have their “turn.” Afterwards the woman complains of rape. The police say there are no charges to answer, the case is dropped.
Cue to last week, when the woman airs her grievances on current affairs program 4 Corners saying the incident has ruined her life. Matt Johns maintains it was all consensual and doesn’t apologise to her until after he’s been excoriated in the media and loses his job on TV. Many opinion pieces are written decrying the behaviour of Johns and wondering why the other men involved haven’t been named.
I should also mention that this isn’t an isolated incident. There have been at least six or seven similar cases of women pressing rape charges against one or more footballers. There is a culture within rugby league known as “bunning” which is apparently a team-building exercise that consists of the whole team having sex with one woman… whether she wants to or not.
The most recent rape case involving a football team occurred when a woman went to check on her sister who had gone into a hotel room with several football players. This woman was consequently raped by them. Not just one or two guys, but a bunch of them, all at once.
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Now folks, does this sound like OK behaviour to you?
Well, apparently it does to a lot of people. Because there’s a backlash. And this is what’s prompting me to write this post. I keep hearing friends and relatives saying “Poor Matt Johns, he’s got the rough end of the stick, it’s not his fault, give him his job back. That stupid woman, she consented to it, why is she playing the victim now? She should have known better, she was drunk, she was having sex with 2 guys, that’s risky behaviour, what did she expect.” Etc Etc.
Even the former sex discrimination commissioner Pru Goward helped to blame the victim:
Ms Goward said women had a responsibility not to put themselves into potentially harmful situations.
“If there is a young woman in Australia who does not now know that having sex with one or two men at once is not risky sexual behaviour she perhaps needs to go back and look at a bit more television,” she said.
“Risky sexual behaviour … does not lead to a white wedding.
Yeah, thanks for nothing, Pru.
It seems that plenty of people in this country subscribe to the idea that saying “yes” to 2 guys means you’re automatically available to fuck the whole football team. The idea of the “slut” is alive and well in Australian consciousness. If a female goes out, gets drunk and seek out sex, then she’s fair game. She’s voided her right to dignity or respect.
And it’s tied in with the whole “good bloke” thing. Footballers and other sportsmen like to cultivate a larrikin, good-fun image, they also like to be perceived as hard drinking, tough-guy “real men”, the epitome of admirable masculinity. No poofters, thanks, and hand me a meat pie, I’m a real Aussie.
And this “real man” idea also seems to include the concept of displays of sexual prowess, one that involves getting your rocks off in front of your mates. (No mate, they’re not poofters, I tell you, it’s a very macho thing to do!).
Interestingly, some of the media commenters were happily saying that it was group sex that was the problem – Pru Goward being one of them. Obviously women should only have sex with one man at a time, because anything other than that is far too kinky and slutty and therefore she deserved what she got.
The whole thing has me shaking my head.
Here’s the fact of the matter:
A woman has the right to have sex with whoever she wants. And that can include 2, 3 or more men at once. But it’s a question of consent, always. And if that woman says she didn’t consent to it… then she fucking well didn’t consent to it. So it was rape.
And my friends who are defending the guys… well, they’re upsetting me. Because I know several women who have experienced rape. And not dark alley, stranger rape. I’m talking about situations that started out OK but that turned into unwanted sex, and consequently caused emotional damage.
The people who are defending “poor Matty Johns” are denying the experiences of those women, saying it was their fault, not the rapist’s. And they’re also encouraging a culture of rape, by saying that what happened in that hotel room in 2002 was really OK. Even if that women is upset now, too bad, she should have known better.
That is an attitude we should not be encouraging. It’s one that needs to be denounced, loudly. This culture needs to change.
If you want to read more, here’s a bunch of articles and opinion pieces on the whole thing.
Sex, thugs and rotten role models: it’s not right if she’s not enjoying it – a great piece by Adele Horin
Betrayed by a moment of passion
Why sports stars like group sex – the gang bang is apparently standard
Two more players named in NRL sex case – more women coming forward with rape stories
Talk of Johns’ return as journos take sides – the bogans want him back.
No justification or defence for league’s sex scandals
Ethical men must fight for change: “A person must freely and voluntarily give their consent before sex. They must be able to give consent. They cannot be drugged or drunk. Consenting to a kiss does not mean consent to intercourse, and consenting to have sex with two men is not consent to have sex with 12.”
Pic is of a terribly offensive t-shirt that somehow sums up with too many people think. From this post on Feministing.
Great post – through all the backlash, I am really heartened to see so many men coming through and saying to other men that NO this is wrong and I’m not going to agree with you just cause I’m a bloke, there have been some EXCELLENT posts written by men on the issue. I abhor the idea in some guy’s heads that disgusting attitudes towards women are just standard for men.
Great list of links too – thanks for extra reading.
You’re right, of course, Tash. And I do think that what’s happened is ultimately helpful because it’s encouraging an open discussion about consent, including encouraging comments from men.
But I just feel despairing when friends on Facebook join the “Bring back Matty Johns” group. I’ve unfriended several people for it already. It’s that old “I’m surrounded by fools!” feeling. LOL
I know what you mean about the despair – luckily no one I know has joined any of those groups, and none of the people I’ve spoken with about the whole thing have showed any of the disgusting attitudes we’ve seen floating around twitter.
The strangest part is that when these people are confronted about their ideas on rape and “sluts”, they will always stand behind being able to “have their own opinion” but will call yours wrong.
As long as your opinion is oppressing others unfairly, I believe THAT is wrong.
Yes it is risky behavior, getting drunk and going off with two footballers, but no means no, and taking anybody against their will is a crime.
If I go into the city by myself and get beaten up and raped the fact that it was riskier than going with a group does not change the fact that it was a crime.
I find Johns to be a thoroughly pathetic individual.
Yes, great post. What happened to masculinity be measured by the strength of a woman’s orgasm? I just don’t understand why any man would assault a woman.
thanks for some sanity – the idea being promoted in the media that consenting to two men was somehow making it ok for 10 more of them to do her was making me so angry. I grew up with guys like these footballers – fond of the woman as piece of meat – has nothing changed since the 60/70’s? Apparently not.
Thanks for this post, though it upset the hell out of me and threw a huge spanner into the erotic story I’m writing at the moment (about a sports team, ouch…). This sort of thing has to be reported. Argh. What’s so difficult about Consent that so many people can’t grasp it?
Actually, I think I know part of the answer. If you blame the victim you don’t have to feel scared it might happen to you. If you blame the victim you don’t have to feel outraged at the injustice in the world. If you blame the victim you don’t have to face up to the fact that there’s something fundamentally wrong with the way men see women. It’s so much more comfortable to be able to blame the victim.
It’s wrong though.