Gay rape used to scare rugby players

Gay rape used to scare rugby players

Last night Four Corners revealed the National Rugby League uses depictions of gay rape to explain issues of sexual consent to young rugby players.

Rocked by repeated allegations of sexual misconduct by players against women, NRL CEO David Gallop said they were trying to educate players that it is wrong.

The material from the NRL seminars include a DVD scenario of an intoxicated woman who goes home with two men and agrees to sex with one of them, but not both. Young players from Newcastle’s under-20s team responded by saying, She put out first and that, as she flirted with both men, it was OK for both to have sex with her.

The second version has a drunk man subjected to homosexual rape. The players have a very different reaction.

You don’t really ask for trouble if you have too much to drink and get raped by a bloke. You don’t ask for that, one player responded.

Mark O’Neil, a former A-grade rugby player, was running the seminar.

Can we see that there’s some sort of double standard that may apply here? he asked the players. The girl’s gone out to have a drink. No one said that she didn’t ask for it but yet the male goes out and has a drink and it’s crystal clear that he didn’t ask for it.

info: The Four Corners episode Code of Silence can be viewed at abc.net.au/4corners.

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15 responses to “Gay rape used to scare rugby players”

  1. Anon, what a great name your parents gave you. You are able to have all the uneducated opinions you like in Internet forums and never suffer any directed recourse.

    A word for the wise! A non-homophobic person would never say (and I quote):

    “The Gay rights issue is soo long in the tooth it is pathetic” (Because all people in Oz have the same rights regardless of sexuality, mate stop deluding yourself)

    “if it was natural people a womb would of been placed in your rectum” (Umm that would means yours too!)

    “And no I not homophobic.. its just an unatural process and all this gay crap on tv really should be banned” (Homosexuality appears a lot in nature so Epic Fail there buddy and a non-homophobic person would welcome diversity on Television)

    “get over yourselves and your insecurities” (People like you are what has caused homosexuals to have insecurities)

    “I don

  2. A good article as it expresses problems faced with rape. For all those gay people that think this has anything to do with them. Get a life. The Gay rights issue is soo long in the tooth it is pathetic.

    I don’t care what Gay life choices you guys and gals make, but if it was natural people a womb would of been placed in your rectum.

    This seminar sounds good as it gives blokes in the league a good understanding of how it may feel to be raped. And no I not homophobic.. its just an unatural process and all this gay crap on tv really should be banned. Political Correctness has gone too far.

    Get a life and to the NRL congrats on looking and educating these young men to be better REAL men who treat women with respect, and bugger of you insecure Gay People.. we get it your proud to be Gay.. big deal.. get over yourselves and your insecurities. I don’t care, not everything is about the gay community and if gay sexuality was genetic all gay mens would have gay children.. if they could!!

  3. This whole sorry mess is the over-riding reason why Germaine Greer left Australia back in 1973 or therabouts-she said that Australia was ‘hopeless’.

    Sadly, it seems that nothing has changed.

  4. Lara:-

    I am with you most of the way on this one…and the apology in the car park tells you John’s knew something wrong had occurred.

    But there are consensual sex practices that are degrading that both parties seek out(Piss parties, aspects of group sex, S & M, the legendary Troughman).

    Sex you later on regret doing, or even feel used by, well haven’t most of us been there.

  5. Not everbody who has been rapped see’s it as a rape straight away, and some may believe they have brought it on themselves and the victim at the time may even say it was consensual sex as strange as it sounds. However deep down the victims know it was rape and its common for victims to go to the police years later after the offence was committed, thats even if they choose to report the offence and I suspect most dont.

  6. In response to Steve – let me help you get it.

    In the example Mark O’Neil shows the players, the girl consents to have sex with ONE of the two guys – and then the two guys collude to trick her into having sex with the OTHER guy, which she DID NOT CONSENT to. So, I’m sorry to give you indigestion, but it’s apples AND apples, not APPLES and ORANGES as you claim. Both scenerios are about non consensual sex. “Yes” to one does not mean “yes” to everyone. Even Matt Johns apologised to “Clare” afterwards in the carpark for “everyone else” coming into the room. If he said he was sorry, then he admits he did something wrong, wouldn’t you say? And this is where “consent” becomes a very blurry issue indeed.

    The issue also at hand here, and that should be addressed in our society, is the power of coersion, which is an ugly, ugly, scary thing to go experience.

    And even worse here is the lechery and distain these men display towards these girls – either girls with low self esteem or girls who are too drunk to know what’s going on. It’s praying on the weak, which when you really look at it, should make you sick. A bunch of strong men v’s a single girl.

    In the case of “Clare”, if this young girl had self worth she would not have found herself in this situation – it is only EVER girls with low self worth that find themselves in this situation, and the fact that these men find it hilarious to exploit this lack of self worth in degrading sexual activity says a hell of lot about the attitude of these men. As “Clare” said, they never even spoke to her! They treated her like she was worthless – and that’s what they prayed on. It’s premeditated, it’s organised and even worse, it’s inculturated into the psyche of MANY Australian men, that it’s OK to take advantage of women – to prey on the weak.

    THIS is what needs to stop.

    “Yes” is “yes” when both parties walk away satisfied with the exchange with feelings of worth intact. If these 12 men were all talking to her, asking her what she wanted and working together to give her an orgasm – then she would have walked away feeling like a princess, all giddy from the endorhpins that her sexual pleasure would have given her! But when you say “yes”, thinking you are going to be “considered” in a sexual exchange, but then walk away feeling like a blow up doll, having received no sexual fulfillment, just a big prick experience … you don’t need to say “no” to that – it just shouldn’t happen!!

    It’s not “risk-taking” treating a girl like that – it’s kicking a girl while she’s down which is just plain cruel. Even one on one, many women don’t say “no” in the middle of a sexual experience they are starting not to enjoy, realising that what they said “yes” to has just flown out the window. They put up with it wishing it to be over soon, so as to avoid a confrontation. And if that’s what many women endure one on one, try saying “no” one on twelve.

    It’s the whole culture of sexual exchange that needs an overhaul to prevent this kind of thing happening, alcohol or not. Sex is great fun and should be enjoyable for everyone! Degrading another person is wrong and getting a kick out of it should make you a candidate for psychological counseling.

    Shame on anyone who thinks this is OK.

  7. Steve, you probably do not get it as it is evident that you did not watch Four Corners’ “Code of Silence”. In the first scenario the girl goes home with a bloke and his mate and she disappears into the bedroom with ONE of them. He emerges from the bedroom and he goads his mate from the loungeroom to enter the bedroom — which he does. We then see her emerge in tears turning the first bloke, “I thought that was *you*.” Just because a woman “goes consensually” does not equal consent to sex! Just because a woman consents to sex with one man, does not means she consents to more.

    How do *you* know for sure that what took place in that NZ hotel room was consensual? Were you there?

    Even Phil Gould told “The Footy Show” audience that while she sgreed to have sex with two blokes, she did not ask to have another ten show up. Do you really think that a woman with 12 burly guys is gonna say “no”?

    In cases of assualt, many victims report that they were paralysed with fear and could not say a word, let alone “no”.I am not saying that an assault took place but it does not sound like that it was the pleasant experience that perhaps she was promised. Let’s be realistic; she was “not made love to” and pleasured one man after another. These men would have sodimised her and made her perform fellatio (in that order, thanks) and cheered while other ejaculated on her.

    “Making the point with an unwelcome sex attack from an unattractive woman doesn’t really communicate the force aspect that an attack by a male has.” Well said Barry. Men are, for the most part, stronger than women. Men have the, shall I say coyly, the body-equipment to intimately infringe on someone’s personal body space that women do not have.

    Juding from the comments made by many Australians in this saga, we are no better than the Taliban. The reckoning seems to be: if a woman has the temerity to leave the kitchen, she is “asking for it” and, conversely, as soon as man has wood, he has a licence to plunge it into any woman nearby coz boys will be boys. Too many Australians are no better than Sheik Hilaly and his “uncovered meat” attitude.

  8. Sooooooooooorry – I just dont get it! In the example of the girl she goes CONSENSUALLY – consensual sex is not rape.

    In the male/male example case there is rape because there is lack of consent. You are comparing apples with oranges and talking “digested food”.

    As for the Matty Johns case it was all consensual. Nowhere does anyone say she ever said “No” or “Stop” or “No More”. The NZ police say they investigated and concluded it was consensual and “case closed”. Now the girls workmate says she actually skited about the event at the time.

    Sure “No” means means “No”. But when is somebody going to stand up say “Yes” means “Yes” ?

  9. Kaye, i take your point about the underlying homophobia in this example, particularly in the footballers’ reactions. But i think what Mark was trying to show was an example of an *unwelcome* sexual attack. For a heterosexual guy, non consensual gay sex is a good example of that.

    Making the point with an unwelcome sex attack from an unattractive woman doesn’t really communicate the force aspect that an attack by a male has.

    It’s a damn shame that this kind of training is even needed. But I think Mark is trying to do something positive, and I don’t think that his example is necessarily homophobic.

  10. you people are looking for homophobia where there is none. I saw the segment in question and the double standards that some players held really hit home for them. A point well made.

    Let’s not pretend that just because a man does not want to be raped by another man he is therefore a homophobe.

  11. The use of gay rape to point out the extent of the crime of these NRL players barters on homophobia. Rape of either sex is never acceptable and certainly not grist for the mill in training sessions for elite sportsmen.

    This is not the first time gay sexuality has been used to illustrate perverse or criminal behavior. In Hollywood films, the camp gay guy is used to affirm the heterosexual credentials of the lead characters.

    Time to clean up your act NRL and AFL and start training sessions on homophobia.

    Kaye Sera
    Melb

  12. RAPE IS NEVER EVER OK REGARDLESS OF SEX – HOW INSULTING. Australia is full of homophobic, Nazi, hate-mongering racist thugs!!! Even Tasmania – or as I call it “bigot island”.

  13. I suspect the gay rape was used to expose a double standard in the guys, they are probably thinking about the dangers of getting drunk and raping a girl or raping a drunk girl while sober, chances are the rugby players never even gave it a second thought about potentially being raped by a guy while intoxicated. After watching 4 corners and seeing how the gay rape was featured on the show and in the context it was used I thought it was ok.