Media moralists miss tough questions on group sex

luke says:

07:38pm | 31/05/09

Nicely directed ideas, but that all finished a bit quick dontcha think? Whats the word limit on these blogs are they entirely freeform as per the www.

Nadia Montague says:

11:32pm | 31/05/09

She does deserve a Walkley - and we must remember that this is a societal problem the sexual objectification of women - by men from all different subcultures in Australia. It is interesting to see how many women are protecting men who are abusers. We need change.

pcs says:

12:00am | 01/06/09

Q: “Do you think some responsibility lies with the women who throw themselves at footballers?” A: “Do you mean to say that if I invite someone to play movies loudly in my house I can’t complain to the police if someone plays movies loudly in my house?”

Nikki says:

09:36am | 01/06/09

These men(boys) in NRL are being paid to play football and to be role models for our youth. The NRL Administration has an obligation to set the standard of behaviour they expect of these players. These players are not normal members of society, they are paid to represent the sport and the NRL and so should be held to a code of conduct. The problem stems from the NRL’s reluctance to do so. They seem to overlook any off field bad behaviour so that their “gladiators” can give their all on the field. What is the NRL’s expectation of players off field behaviour? The answer to that is bathed in confusion. In contrast, its clear what Australian Swimming’s expectation of their swimmers behaviour is after the Nick Darcy incident.

The NRL has an obligation to these young men to set the expectations for their off field behaviour and provide non negotiable boundaries. This is part of what players are being paid for. If that’s too tough for them then perhaps they should rethink their career.

Garry says:

09:50am | 01/06/09

I agree with PCS, the example given in the article - “Do you think some responsibility lies with the women who throw themselves at footballers?” - isn’t a logical equivalent of the issue.

The example is also very vague. Does “throw themselves” mean a willingness to engage in some form of sex; flirting, or merely being fannish at club functions or other social situations?

I am just happy the debate has moved towards teaching teenagers the finery of social interaction, sexual negotiation and agreeing boundaries.

Eric says:

10:17am | 01/06/09

What about all the women who make false allegations of rape? They are the real criminals.

Peter McFarlane says:

10:19am | 01/06/09

Historians say the warrior Celts (Picts) painted their bodies for battle with blue woad mixed with semen. This woad painting ritual involved group masturbation (at which a female may have been involved).
Just like a rugby league ritual - so it seems nothing has really changed! 
Perhaps we need Geneva Convention like “Rules of Engagement” when “two tribes go to war”? Perhaps those who break these rules and assault women would then be tried as war (sports) criminals?

kevin phillips says:

01:41pm | 01/06/09

A woman chooses to have sex with 2 footballers. Other footballers break into room and watch and woman chooses to have sex with some of them too. Woman brags about encounter to workmates next day. Woman feels regret years later goes public and ONE of the original 2 footballers is crucified in media and loses job, other footballers left alone and woman given saint status. Did I miss something?

Casey says:

01:55pm | 01/06/09

For someone who is hired as part of a pro bono team that deals with these issues, you spend much of your time here not dealing with these issues, but rather,  pointing your reader elsewhere - , to culture at large,  to the cheap ‘morality of the media - anywhere but at the problem raised by Sarah Ferguson in her excellent report.  So to get back to the code, and your job dealing with these same issues,  what are you going to do about the organisation itself?  It was this aspect of the problem, which was raised very early in the Four Corners piece.  I quote from the Four Corners transcript:

STEVE BURRASTON, CEO NEWCASTLE KNIGHTS: When we want them on the field we want them to be aggressive. They’ve got to make tackles, they’ve got to be fearless, then we want them to do things that other people don’t do. So we attract an aggressive, young, risk taking male.

We give him a shower, put a suit on him and then say now we want you to be you know a submissive male. We want you to go out there and not have any problems, it’s very difficult to do that.”

What do you think he could possibly mean by ‘a submissive male’ Dr Lumby? Could you comment on this?

How do you deal with a mindset within the organisational structure that suggests the athletic psyche is somehow different from the ordinary person’s psyche and that this goes some way to explaining why these athletes treat women as expendible objects of sexual gratification? What is the inference being made here - that these football players are exempt from the same ethics that others are bound by?

It seems to me that until the officials who run the game change, not much else will Dr Lumby. Sexism and mysoginy are threaded throughout the structure of th organisation. Media reports quoted many anonymous sources in the days following the Four Corners program suggesting as much.

Amused says:

02:10pm | 01/06/09

Is a male objectified if he has group sex with multiple women?

Would we be having this ‘debate’ if Matthew Johns had engaged in group sex with multiple women?

Maree says:

02:32pm | 01/06/09

Great story Catherine, and all the best to you in regards to the work that you do.
I’m a female rugby league fan who was very disturbed by some of the attitudes and acts of some rugby league players in the four corners program.
I was much more disturbed however, by the opinions and comments of male & female friends and co-workers and their views on the incident.

You are spot on in regards to pointing out the attitude problems on a wider scale. Society is the main problem, Rugby League players are a just a juicy headline when they become involved in a scandal.
The topics and debates on this issue have revealed more than ever that there is a massive gulf in Australian society in regards to what people find acceptable behaviour towards women. I’ve found the whole thing a massive worry, and hope people like yourself can continue the good work in bringing these issues out in the open so hopefully answers can be found.

Richard Ure says:

02:35pm | 01/06/09

Kevin,

Since you asked, the point you missed is “the woman chooses…” What do you know about the quality of that choice? None of really know, but until we hear otherwise, it would be safe to assume it was Hobson’s choice.

Ginger says:

02:44pm | 01/06/09

@ kevin phillips: Yes, I believe you did.

Sam says:

03:50pm | 01/06/09

So many do-gooder, would-be feminist are constantly talking about women being ‘objectified’ by men and how common it is in our society.  But they are only propagating the notion that objectification is something that happens to women, by men.

When any woman goes home with a football player or any man for a one night stand, or a bit of fun, the objectification is surely mutual.  The woman does not consider the thoughts, feelings and soul of the man, no more than the man does of the woman.  Both are viewing each other as sexual objects that they are using to gain sexual pleasure.

What drives me insane as a woman, is that the premise the entire public discussion of this issue has been based on, is that sex is something that only men enjoy, and that in any given sexual encounter women are helpless, and being objectified.  Even if they are choosing to participate, it surely must stem from some underdeveloped ego or some deep unmet need - that they are somehow seeking ‘validation’ or ‘approval’ or ‘fulfillment’ by sleeping with these men.

Did anyone ever consider the possibility that women might enjoy sex, just for sex?  Not within society’s approved confines of marriage or ‘relationships’, or even involving more participants that society dictates is appropriate?  But just sex for the sake of sex, where any men involved are merely ‘objects’ used to satisfy a woman’s desires? Yes you read that right… woman have desires!

I am not claiming to know the specific ins and outs of the incident in question, nor can anyone claim to but those who were there, but I am pointing out that the ideological framework in which this issue is being discussed is inherently sexist, one in which men have sex for pleasure, and women have sex to please men.

Moralists from the media and every other walk of life need to step outside their narrowly defined ideas of what is and isnt acceptable sexual behaviour and realise that there are women out there who enjoy and solicit sex, often involving more than two positions and participants!

Paul says:

03:53pm | 01/06/09

ABC reporter: There have been stories of a culture of group sex in rugby league. What do you think of group sex? Do you think it’s OK if it’s consensual?
Lumby: Speaking as an academic, I think that there’s no problem with any behaviour which is consensual in sexual terms.

“No-one has ever told the players that group sex is a good idea or that they should ‘go for it’. (I’ve never told the players anything as a matter of fact because I don’t deliver the education programs.)”

Apart from the cop out of you saying that you never personally said it in the “education programs”.  How do you explain your comments on ABC radio, that anything goes including GROUP SEX

Peter says:

05:05pm | 01/06/09

It will be a sad day when Matthew Johns reappears on our screens carrying on like that video. I hope Reg Reagan is dead. He is only sorry he got caught.

Group sex is morally repugnant in this situation. No ifs or buts.

And to say attitude to women are a societal problem is a cop out. Rugby League as a cultural construct promotes these attitudes.

Shaun says:

06:06pm | 01/06/09

@ Peter

The attitude to women is a societal problem. Anyone who thinks this is just a NRL issue are kidding themselves.

Witness the Four Corners episode where the young players were confronted by a video showing a woman sexually assaulted while drunk and then a a man sexually assaulted while drunk. This attitude is not just confined to league players.

Martin says:

06:53pm | 01/06/09

Dr Lumby - you promote a hypertrophied liberalism in your role as a public ‘expert’. When the results come in you can’t cry ‘the mob wants a scapegoat’!

The orthodoxy you promote while ‘speaking as an academic’ is the one that does not work in ordering male and female relationships. The social science is in. Yet as a stakeholder it pays the bills so you keep up the ‘personally opposed but publicly promote’ inverted hypocrisy.

Mary Eberstadt outlines the justice and equal protection achieved for women and children with the sexual revolution. It is exhausted yet you still speak for it, as a chief priest of this cultural orthodoxy I would be finding my collar feeling pretty tight round about now.

I mean we can’t even reproduce ourselves how fundamentally must things being going wrong? Western Europe is likely in a demographic death spiral, Japan certainly, Russia and Eastern Europe similarly. Islamic foundations are being laid for Europe simply because it is a monotheism that does not destroy its children in the womb nor contracept. Nor does it believe marriage is ‘socially constructed’ or that the state has the same interest in homosexual partnerships as it does in heterosexual partnerships. It cares little for your ‘equal opportunity’ or for homosexual tolerance, or religious freedom.

Deranged Rawlsian liberalism is a death embracing creed that does not work in the world and history will simply name it as the deracinating creed that slashed and burn old growth Western civilisation in preparation for Mohammed’s yoke.

To try and prevent this you can madly try and export abortion, and heavily promote contraception. Get the kids as early as possible out of families and indoctrinate them with your beliefs in primary school. You can’t try and tax families to death so they can’t raise children, with carbon footprint taxes for example. But time is running out. I think you and your regime are history, and what a rapid decline it was.

Most right thinking people understand this:
http://www.firstthings.com/article.php?year=2007&month=12&title_link=christ-and-nothing-28

But you won’t change.

Craigo says:

07:15pm | 01/06/09

“The law is there to set community standards”

So if group sex is legal, why is Matthew Johns vilified?

Why do we expect young men whose significant life skill is to catch, throw or kick a ball whilst simultaneously smashing into or being smashed by other similarly skilled young men to be leaders in setting “community standards”.

The business that is NRL (or pick any other high level sport) sets these young men up to be “gods” and the media support this to do nothing more than perpetuate the business. And for the media, there is no down side - they can sit in high minded judgment and get twice the bang for their buck when one of these young men fails to meet their new found “community standards”. Success sells, sleaze sells.

And if dragging up a 7 year old incident when no illegal activity was ever established was really the basis of a “current trends” story you really need to be asking harder questions of the journalists involved. This was nothing more than a crucifixion of John’s by a journalist. That should be the real story. Sadly, the reality of community standards and journalistic standards reside at the same base level

craigo says:

07:30pm | 01/06/09

Peter

Why are you offended by the Reg Reagan video?

It is a parody of the performance of “role model” starlets who also fall from grace but also make great stories that sell magazines at the check out counter of a supermarket near you. Starlets who are “role models” of anything is possible fame and fortune that your daughters aspire to emulate instead of the male icons of the sporting field.

Catharine Lumby says:

10:43pm | 01/06/09

@Casey: As someone who has spent most of my adult life as a feminist academic I absolutely understand your question about whether I or others working with the NRL (like Karen Willis who has worked in sexual assault prevention from the very early 70s days) understand the importance of broader culture in this. We do. You put it this way: “How do you deal with a mindset within the organisational structure that suggests the athletic psyche is somehow different from the ordinary person’s psyche and that this goes some way to explaining why these athletes treat women as expendible objects of sexual gratification?”.

Important questions and ones we have thought about deeply. A few comments though. I don’t think it is evidence-based or even OK to differentiate the ‘ordinary’person from any man who plays football.I worry about the implicit class prejudice in that remark, coming from a deeply working class background myself.  It is very clear from our research that NRL footballers have many different backgrounds and values. Some of them are far more monogamous and religious than many ‘respectable’ middle class people are .

In terms of the organizational structure you raise I invite you to read the report we made public in 2004 which included a very forensic and cultural map of the whole organization and culture of the NRL. We, and by we I mean an interdisciplinary team who included people like Wendy McCarthy, Karen Willis and Kath Albury interviewed or got personal information from over 200 players but we also talked to CEOs coaches and trainers across the game. The team I assembled have always taken the view that you never simply work with a group, you work in and with the culture.

catharine Lumby says:

11:00pm | 01/06/09

@Maree; Thanks for your sane and insightful response.

To others who seem to be stuck in a battle between an ethically free zone ‘women who want it are for up for anything’ and a morally authoritarian relation to human sexuality “lock them up”.

If men breach the criminal law in terms of sexual assault I’m the first person who wants to see them locked up. But as a girl who got my law degree in the 80s I can tell you too little has changed about how the law works for women who have been assaulted. Charges are rarely laid (compared to other crimes) and convictions are rare.

As someone who cares about how others are treated I don’t think the law covers it.  Sex that doesn’t get prosecuted under the law can still be brutalising and unethical. We need to do a lot more with educating young people around negotiating sex.

In the meantime I think we are all obliged to stop pretending that sexual assault or unethical sexual treatment of women only happens in one sporting code or postcode. And to get involved in changing the attitudes and behaviours of young men - wherever we work with them or live with them

Paul H says:

12:12am | 02/06/09

Sick minded feminist perversion! If I threw the damned DVD at someone on the street would I have the right to complain to the police if they ran away with it? Get your similes right Ms Lumby or stay out of the gender game!

Many women throw themselves at the first hint of celebrity. It is the greatest status anyone can obtain - sexual power! This woman was even employed by the Hotel damn it and not one mention of this basic fact by the ABC! That in itself was an utterly disgraceful abrogation of her responsibility to her employer and journalistic integrity. Just what one comes to expect of feminazi loving, lefty centred Aunty. 

If you were really serious about discussing sexual etiquette Ms Lumby why don’t you start with those great paragons of virtuosity - the womens magazines? Do one sex vid and presto you are hot celebrity property! Why is it that womens magazines are filled with celebrity filth and sexual depravity? If they spent one hundredth of the effort afforded to beauty treatments and celebrity filth laden gossip with advice on career advancement women would occupy every top managerial position going today. The so called glass ceiling would be a glass basement.

This woman was only doing what the womens magazines instructed her to do - get pissed, find a celebrity or celebrities, shag them silly and then brag about it to your mates about what your feminist won freedoms have enabled you to enjoy. Then sit back and wait for the cameras! Unfortunately her “mates” expressed disgust, celebrity never came and she found herself in the uncomfortable position of being a social outcast. She simply chose the wrong celebrities! Had it been effeminate Mick Jagger and Keith Richards the story may have been different.

So if you want to start education programmes I suggest you start with stupid young women and leave the blokes alone. They are not the ones complaining!

Matt from Wodonga says:

01:38pm | 02/06/09

Q: “Do you think some responsibility lies with the women who throw themselves at footballers?” A: “Do you mean to say that if I play movies loudly in my house I can’t complain to the police if someone breaks in and steals my DVD player?” A ruminating silence always follows this response.

My ruminating silence is the result of trying to figure out what the hell you mean!

Casey says:

02:39pm | 02/06/09

.”. I don’t think it is evidence-based or even OK to differentiate the ‘ordinary’person from any man who plays football.I worry about the implicit class prejudice in that remark, coming from a deeply working class background myself. “

Dr Lumby, I am not sure how you got to class prejudice from what I said. I am sorry I worried you. Rest assured being the daughter of migrants who came out of a semi feudal peasant culture straight into the working classes of Australia, I did not intend anything of the sort.. What I asked related directly to the CEO of the Newcastle Knights suggesting that men who do play football are expected to be agressive on field and then expected to behave like ‘submissive males’ off field. I would be interested in your opinion of what he said regarding this idea on the psyche of the footballer, and indeed, what you think he meant by the term ‘submissive male’.

Catharine Lumby says:

09:09pm | 03/06/09

@Casey: I wasn’t suggesting your remark contained class prejudice. I was just reflecting on broader comments I’ve fielded in my work. I often have people remarking to me that these guys are “all animals” - that does smack of prejudice. I’m sorry if I ran that observation on unfairly from an initial response to your post. I found it interesting.  I agree with your comments about the CEO of the Knights. I share your questions and I totally disagree with that statement. I don’t think playing footy should give you a free pass in terms of how you behave off the field. I’d make the observation that these guys are expected to be extremely disciplined on the field - it’s not a free for all bash fest at all. One of the things we try to do is to get the guys to think and act more like a positive team off the field in the way they have to on the field. And it’s Catharine BTW (Professor Blah Blah to my cheeky sons)

Casey says:

12:28pm | 04/06/09

OK thanks Catherine. I do appreciate your continued engagement with me here on this issue, and I will endeavour to read the report you worked on.

John Greenfield says:

04:03pm | 04/06/09

One of the most nationally embarrassing aspects of the Matty Johns affair, and earlier similar to-dos, are the predictable reassurances that football players are to attend “sex education” workshops “facilitated” by academics. Thus, Catharine Lumby moves into a huge telephone exchange come TV studio, and stays awake for six days and six nights sermonising on “ethics”. Except on the seventh day, she does not rest!

She fumed in The Oz. “Nobody should walk away from a sexual encounter feeling blamed, or shamed, or hurt,” “It was completely wrong, morally wrong, and unethical.” 

Sex education!!?? For goodness sake, these are grown men. Who is a Cultural Studies academic to make such judgements on “ethics” sexual or otherwise? Professor Lumby is not a sex therapist or a priest. Rather, she writes middle-brow books on the porn consumption of bourgeois baby-boomers. A few years ago, she spent her six days and six nights telling us all how Sara Marie was the new Tosca, or was it Carmen, or…

We really are living in the worst of times, when some girls are no longer being reminded that when word gets out of their voluntary exploits and enticements, a lot of not very nice epithets will be used.

Memo to Professor Lumby:  It is these young women, who actively court seek out footballers and incite this behaviour, who need to be the ones taught the birds and bees. 

This whole Gender Studies fraud that men are just failed women needs rethinking. Unfortunately, the Gender Studies crowd are going to have to learn that testosterone and masculinity can not be vaporised in a seminar room. 

What is really disturbing is that the Lumby’s. have convinced themselves that in Australia, Cultural Studies academics have replaced the Holy Man!

 

Lord Ted Goodwin says:

05:21pm | 04/06/09

Yeah - John Greenfield - those priests are great role models - no sex there ... just ask those Irish kids

And as for Prof Lumby, yeah, who wants to listen to people who spend years doing research and reading books and getting qualifications ... what good is that when you can just rant like you

Catharine Lumby says:

06:13pm | 04/06/09

@Casey: Email me and I’ll send you the synopsis of the report. Happy to chat further anytime if you’re interested in this subject - which you obviously are in a genuine way. It’s clearly a topic that arouses strong feelings in people - see post above this one, for example - but I’m always keen to talk with anyone who has good ideas or wants to know more about what’s being done by those working with the NRL. We certainly don’t have all the answers but it’s heartening to know that there are others with a real interest in the quite complex issues at stake. My email is c.lumby@unsw.edu.au. I’m getting on a plane in a day so it might make more sense to email me after June 24 so I make sure I don’t lose your email in the black hole of my inbox on my return.

stephen says:

02:39pm | 15/06/09

Group sex? where?