Of footballers and Herald columnists...

[highlyeccentric]

Miranda Devine < Sam de Brito < Annabel Crabb.

Devine distinguishes herself by making an ALMOST coherent, albeit infuriating, argument for increased sexual decorum on the part of ladies (in order to moderate teh menfolks, who clearly can't moderate themselves).

De Brito makes half a good argument: he argues that 'it's not about consent, it's about what's right', but while he's talking about it just not being right for older, famouser footy players to gang-bang young drunk women, and how you wouldn't want it to be your sister or daughter, he seems to be operating on the assumption that 'consent' means utterance of the word 'yes', or not uttering the word 'no'. Even if you're drunk, and surrounded by football players. If he'd stopped to think about why he felt it was wrong, and why he wouldn't want it to be his sister, he might've got somewhere.

Annabel Crabb is <3.

But surely somebody, at some point, needs to cut through the forgiving fug of psychoanalysis and evaluate this quaint league tradition (apparently it's called "bunning", a new word for most of us) for what it is.

Strip away the fame and the adulation and all the trappings.

Strip away the girl, even, and ask the obvious question.

Which is: Why would a group of blokes come together, as if drawn by some invisible gravitational force, and gather in a room to masturbate with each other?

What do we ordinarily call that behaviour?

Much criticism has been made that the players who engage in "bunning" are exploiting these girls for bestial sexual purposes.

I don't know.

Those girls are being used all right, but I reckon they're being used as beards to disguise the otherwise perfectly obvious, screaming queerness of what's going on.

Come on. Are you kidding?

Let's say it out loud: it's the gayest thing ever.

And these are the same blokes who can't wait to climb into dresses for stunts on The Footy Show. Don't think we're not putting two and two together.

So come on, chaps.

If you want to get together and celebrate your oiled, toned bodies in the celebrated Greek tradition, then go ahead.

Just leave the ladies out of it, will you, and do us all a favour?

(Is this flippant use of homosexual stereotypes for the purposes of shaming and regulating straight behavior? Should I not be laughing? *overanalyses*)

Comments

[shenniefish.livejournal.com]

I was reading these today at school -- it was in Legal Studies, so relevant. I didn't see most of the 4corners doco, though.

But yes, Annabel Crabb is win.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

These are, er, about all I've read of Le Scandal. And headlines. I'm slightly ashamed of this fact, but my first thoughts on seeing a "Matthew Johns Sex Scandal" type headline were "oh, no, not a nice Newcastle boy..." *headdesk*

[shenniefish.livejournal.com]

Hee. We did have a bit of a discussion in school, but it was basically:

"I'm an idiot and I keep making myself look like more of one by basically saying that she deserved it and then saying that I didn't mean that!"
"I like football, but I have an okay view about this."

Me: "WOMEN'S RIGHTS WOMEN'S RIGHTS *facepalm*".

While we're overanalysing...

[sea-of-tethys.livejournal.com]

This comes with the caveat that I'm not familiar with the case in question, and this is just what I'm piecing together from what you quote above (and vague awareness of the many similar stories in the British media over the last few years), so please forgive me if I'm totally misinterpreting anything from your post.

What makes me uncomfortable about the quote is the line "strip away the girl". It seems like the consensual or nonconsensual involvement of the girl is sort of the point of the discussion. Imagining that she was never involved means imagining a totally different incident to the one that took place, and then starting a new discussion based on that theoretical incident.

It just... I don't know that it helps us to understand what took place in real life, and it seems almost like discounting the importance of what happened to the woman in favour of a thought experiment that's intended to raise a different point entirely.

(And I'm really sorry if this seems like I'm attacking you for posting this, that's not what I'm trying to do at all, and I really hope I haven't offended you by criticising a quote you liked.)

Re: While we&#39;re overanalysing...

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, you're right - that isn't particularly nice phrasing. It does kind of make the point that we sort of know already: the girl ISN'T the point, not for these guys. This is becoming something of a routine undertaking in Australian rugby, and in the case of one team it's incident after incident: different girls, same guys. How is a ritual macho team bonding sex rite at all about the girl involved? She just happened to be there when a bunch of footballers felt like affirming their mutual masculinity...

Re: While we&#39;re overanalysing...

[sea-of-tethys.livejournal.com]

Hm, I suppose it makes a bit more sense in the context of this one group of players who keep doing it. Yeah, I guess it's just an example of particularly unfortunate phrasing :)

[phrasemuffin.livejournal.com]

I'm ok with her calling a spade a phallic tool used to make other men blow their loads. I really, truly, honestly am. If in doing so she ends up shaming "straight guys" and their "straight behaviour", then I'm still ok with it. Seriously, it is pretty gay.