Last week, Melinda Tankard Reist argued right here on The Punch that the “Pippa Middleton Arse Appreciation Society” set up on Facebook constitutes “virtual sexual harassment”.
She re-published some of the more hideous comments people had placed on the fan page, and claimed this is part of a trend that stems from our increasingly “pornified” culture:
When Karl Stefanovic let all the men present know in his Logie acceptance speech that his wife had “the best arse”, frequent comments were made that if a woman had made the same comments about a man, no one would mind. But a woman making a comment about a man’s backside does not carry the same weight or intent as the reverse. We don’t hear men being told to “shake that arse”. We do not hear of a man’s backside referred to as “booty”.
If a woman does comment on a male bum, she is not usually thinking of doing all the things to it that Pippa’s fans are salivating over. Because of a pornified culture, references to a women’s ‘arse’ are mostly not compliments but have underlying pornographic meanings.
But women are expected to welcome it – thanks to the proliferation and globalisation of pornography, women’s bottoms have a very specific and often nasty meaning, as the Facebook comments attest.
Now, thanks to some previous to-and-fro between Tankard Reist and myself, you might assume I’m here to disagree with everything she said.
Well, not quite.
For one, I totally agree that the comments Tankard Reist quoted from that Facebook page are horrible. They have no value, and serve no good purpose in our society.
I also think much the same way regarding some of the nasty comments made in response to her article. ‘Australia’s Best Conversation’ ought to be far more civilised than that – some of you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.
However, where I do disagree with Tankard Reist’s article is her assessment of the significance of this example, and that it constitutes evidence of a real ‘trend’.
I think she has merely picked up on a few extremely rude, disgusting voices at the fringe of our society, which are in no way representative of how the vast majority of men (and women) think.
As horrible as they are, such comments are not indicative of the very normal, positive attitudes most men have towards women.
In a sense, this really is the Melinda Tankard Reist modus operandi: to seek out the worst parts of our culture (however marginalised they are in reality), suggest that they are representative of society at large.
What Tankard Reist highlighted in her article is awful, awful stuff, but I would argue that a few (admittedly, very sick, inappropriate) comments on a Facebook page do not constitute adequate proof that our culture has been “pornified”.
It’s like suggesting that because violent robberies do occur, our nation has become ‘criminalised’, and everyone should therefore be treated with suspicion.
Or conducting a survey at a Klu Klux Klan meeting, and then claiming that those results are conclusive prove that everyone in society is a complete racist.
There will always be a tiny group of sickos, whack-jobs, and nut bars out there. The rest of us, who are nice, civilised human beings, should not be judged on their behaviour.
Ten, one hundred, or even one thousand years ago, those “slobbering masses” probably fetishised “the female backside” in the very same ways. They just did it in private, probably out of any woman’s earshot.
Now, though, their disgusting comments just happen to be visible for the whole world to see. It’s not an attitudinal “trend” – just a different level of visibility.
I really wish those attitudes, like those reprehensible Facebook comments, didn’t exist, and I am not defending them in any way, shape or form. Got that, folks?
However, I’d say we’re better off ignoring cowardly trolls who think that relative digital anonymity is a licence to spew noxious bile, rather than give them satisfaction by publicising their unwelcome thoughts to the overwhelmingly civilised world.
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