How a cum-gargler of ill repute sent an innocent man to the gallows.
Does this sound like the words of someone completely motivated by "exposing the truth"?
As of yesterday, Matthew Johns has been fired from two positions of employment, with the Channel Nine network and NRL team, the Melbourne Storm respectively, has had his family life torn apart, and probably had his marketability ruined beyond repair. All this, and yet, did not commit any crime, nor was he found guilty of any crime, let alone charged with one. This is in stark contrast to the average sentencing of rapists to a five year prison sentence. To say that the penalty does not fit the crime is not even close to being accurate, as obviously, no crime has been committed.
As has been confirmed by both, the victim and Johns, the intercourse that occurred between the two, was consensual. However, the only potential sticking point from a legal perspective, is that up to twelve other Sharks players entered the room and proceeded to have sex with her (according to the female in question, four other Sharks players had sex with her, whilst the rest watched).
Unfortunately, the woman in question could only identify Johns as one of the men involved. How fortunate and convenient, that the highest profile of the lot, and the only one making any decent level of money is the only one named. You know they're Sharks players, how hard is it to obtain a team poster, and go through photo by photo until you have your others. But, of course, these blokes are all mostly out of top-flight football and now are either playing lower leagues, working behind the bar at your local pub, or nothing at all. What good is shaming those types, when you don't have the national pastime of cutting down tall poppies behind you? Following this logically, watching a sexual encounter take place, is not a crime either. So, for arguments sake, let's frame this as if it were in fact a pack rape, of course...
What we have here, is a case of buyer remorse. This is not a matter for the police, the courts or anything of the sort. We have all done things in the bedroom, that the morning after, we regret. The author of this included. Unfortunately, this is not rectified by legal recourse. The woman in question, who has made these claims, has stooped well past the level of unethical behaviour that she accuses these men of, by making these malicious claims on national TV for purely her own personal gain. Has she, or the ABC not considered for a moment that her claims and subsequent, shameless cash grab could be seen as being insulting and disrespectful to those who are genuine victims of rape? That the underlying message here is that the topics of rape and sexual assault are only worth discussing, should there be a celebrity to cut down in the process?
That the "victim" fails to take any personal responsibility in her interview with Four Corners, is yet another damning blow to the credibility of this story. This woman, under her own accord, went back to the hotel room of Matthew Johns and another footballer. Why, in the name of remotely competent journalism, was it not asked why this woman went to their hotel room, and what she was expecting to happen? Obviously, as this woman later admits, that she was keen on having sex with at least one of them, if not both. However, the majority of her argument appears to surround the quality of the foreplay in question, dismayed at how rough a kisser one of them was, and the distinct lack of intimacy, noting that "When you have sex with someone and it's nice and you talk and you touch and this was awful. This was nothing like, nothing like that."
Well, lock them up and throw away the key. She may have been up for a "bun", as it's been referred to in NRL circles, but only on the proviso of decent foreplay, and a bit of intimacy, or at least as much intimacy that can be afforded to a groupie in a hotel room with eleven other of your closest mates. I might as well go turn myself into the local police station, in the hope that they're lenient on my past crimes of poor foreplay skills and lack of understanding of intimacy from seven years ago. I didn't even have the excuse that eleven of my mates were in the same room.....
To hammer home the severity of the pain this has caused the woman in question, it is noted on the Four Corners program just how self destructive she became, how this lead to her alcoholism, the loss of friends, and of course, she even bought a rope to kill herself. However, as the New Zealand police officer overseeing the case, Neville Jenkins inadvertantly notes, he or anyone else didn't know what she was like before the incident took place. Why was this woman's full mental history not explored to the full extent? And, who goes out to the supermarket to buy a rope, with the full intent of killing yourself, and then not proceed with it? People who intend to kill themselves, do not put that much thought into it. It is an irrational, emotional, spur of the moment decision, one that is more consistent with doing it with whatever is available to you at the time. Buying a rope, instead, smacks of attention seeking and putting out the feelers to see if anyone cares if you are going to do it. It seems someone did care enough to give her a disability pension, just the same.
However, it is unfair to put the full extent of the blame on this one girl, especially when there are plenty of cynically motivated people out there more than prepared to use these types of situations for their own gain.
Surely, the Prime Minister of this country would support Matthew Johns, right? Ruddy is spot on in his comments that "The bottom line concern here is to ensure ... we underline the absolute importance of treating women with respect.", and of course, Rudd, being no stranger himself to unsavoury activities that could be considered unfaithful to his wife, would be more than happy to come out and remind us that no-one is perfect, and that we all make mistakes, as he was more than happy to do for Andrew O'Keefe? Good thing there's not a Federal election on the horizon....
And then we get to the real source of the problem. The women's rights groups that have fuelled this, well beyond any realm of necessity. The same women's rights groups that threaten the civil liberties of the individual (even if those civil liberties extend to the right to enjoy consensual group sex..), and certainly, the same women's rights groups that do not speak for the majority of Australian women (and to their credit, is in no small part due to the fact that TV and newspaper executives are shit scared of feminazis to begin with).
Was anyone not expecting the usual suspects, such as Jill Singer and Rebecca Wilson to come out the woodwork with their usual agendas being beaten to death?, however nothing holds a candle to the comments made by Tracey Grimshaw on last night's A Current Affair, which took unbiased investigative journalism to a new low, even by their own minimal standards.
"What if the woman just wanted to feel special, she wanted some of your fame and adoration to rub off on her - how would you feel about that? .......Did it occur to you that the girl was somebody's daughter or sister, with hopes and dreams of her own?"
Where do you begin with ridiculously simplistic comments like that? It's typical hypocracy of "their" agenda. A woman is no longer somebody's daughter or sister, or generally speaking, less of a woman, if she's sexually promiscious (in this instance, keen on group sex), but it's not her fault, it's the pseudo-rapist male of course. And of course, there's the assumption that this girls' hopes and dreams didn't solely consist of being the meat in a celebrity sandwich, which we can't deny, is evident within the groupie minority of society.
In contrast, Liberal MP, Pru Goward's comments are interesting to me, and a mixed bag of agreed and disagreed sentiments. On one hand, Johns is under no obligation to name names, and as I've already pointed out, isn't too hard to be found. Cronulla Sharks player, on the list in 2002, at the camp in New Zealand. Colonel Mustard in the library with the revolver stuff. On the other hand, her quote of "dangerous sexual situations do not equal a white wedding" are spot on. Some women, do enjoy these situations, and realise the ramifications and the situation that brings them around. Others, do not, and some of these, fail to take responsibility for this. Group sex, there's nothing illegal about it, but more often than not, ends bad, one way or another. Bit like auto-erotic asphyxiation really. Pretty sure the prostitute in the hotel room the day Michael Hutchence died wasn't charged with anything either, and rightfully so. Hutchence knew the danger of it, and chose to go ahead accordingly. Individual responsibility. What a novel concept.
I for one, at the end of this, have simple, yet unrealistic hopes for the resolution of this matter. I hope that the young lady involved finds peace within herself, preferably not through vindictive means. I hope that Matthew Johns is brought back onto TV, I enjoy him as a performer, and TV is poorer for his disappearance from it. I hope that people restrain from judging him for a poor choice of behaviour as much as humanly possible, rather than label him a rapist. More importantly, and even more unrealistically, I hope for a day when the media deals with issues such as these on their face value, rather than pandering to the views and agendas of the unrepresentative minorities who can caw the loudest.
