I don't think this is a Yes or No, she filled in Box __________ kind of issue.
The men could have treated her like a piece of garbage and she may have been in too much shock to say 'no'.
Does this mean it was rape?
Possibly not.
Was she willing?
Maybe not.
Can it be OK if a kind of public figure loses his job over acting like an asshole and treating a woman like a piece of shit?
I think so.
Imagine you are 19, or someone meeker than you if you are always tough and say no whenever you feel no. A famous person takes you to a hotel room. You have sex and then other famous men appear. You are uncomfortable, they talk about you like you do not exist. These men could overpower you while brushing their teeth and playing hopscotch. You are scared, ashamed, frozen. It is assumed you will let them fuck you. They do.
Is this rape? Actually I think it is.
Is it a rape that should lead to a conviction. Probably not.
Am I OK with the guy losing a job?
Yes, I am.
Pretty much hit the nail on the head.
His actions were deplorable. The whole team's actions were deplorable. They acted like a pack of sex crazed lunatics. I mean, climbing through the windows? Come on...
There have been sex scandals after sex scandals involving football players in Australia in recent years. There is this almost ingrained misogynistic attitude, where anything goes. This scenario involved a 19 year old girl, possibly star struck and who consented to sex with 2 men. During the act, other men streamed into the room, some through the bathroom windows. The pressure that would have been placed on this girl would have been enormous at that point in time. And these men were not small, but very large and strong football players who did not give her the choice of saying 'no'.
Was it rape? I would say yes. There are now calls to look at the laws of consent because this case proves, that it is currently inadequate and does not deal with situations like this. We aren't talking about a girl who felt embarrassed a few years later and is now trying to get some money out of it. Her identity remains hidden, all we know is her first name. She has attempted suicide and has been suffering from severe depression since this happened, so much so that she qualified for
public compensation. Obviously, she's not trying to blackmail or bleed the football club dry in coming forward. She was 19 and reported the issue to police, who would then have been faced with a plethora of club lawyers and all the money they needed backing them to get the players off, and they succeeded. When cases like this come up, there is this usual wall of silence and team members will tend to stick together and 'get their stories straight', and again, they succeeded.
Did Matthew Johns deserve to lose his football coaching career and his TV career because of this? I think it is a small price to pay to be honest. He got off lightly. Astounding still, even in his apology, he has also not named the others who were in the room with him at the time. Again, that wall of silence and attempts to protect his former team mates takes precedence, which makes me question whether his apology was really that honest or whether he was attempting to save his own backside. A friend of Johns and a fellow TV presenter on the show which Johns hosted made this fairly pertinent comment:
Gould said the incident should be the final sledgehammer to wake up the people involved with the game after a series of alcohol-fuelled player incidents and their mistreatment of women in recent years.
"Our players have got to understand it doesn't matter if you think you are in the right," he said.
"It doesn't matter if you think you have the green light, if it is perceived that it is OK to go across with this stuff it's going to end in dramas - somewhere sometime it will come back to bite you on the arse and we're all going to pay the penalty for it."
http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/story/0,28383,25485489-10229,00.html
And now a point for Asguard..
ok james, you want to know what i think should happen to him specifically. nothing, just like i think nothing should happen to someone ACUSSED of murder but not proven. rember ignoring that little detail is what lead to gitmo
I want you to consider something. Johns is and was a part of a very rich organisation whose sole concern was to the safety of their players, and who would and have done everything in their capacity to cover up any scandal and to get the players off when needed. Are you surprised that nothing came of the investigation? I'm not. The Police would have been stonewalled and most probably were by a vast number of team and personal lawyers whose sole purpose was to protect those players.
I want you to imagine the scenario this girl was placed in. She consented to sex with 2 men. And then she was confronted with basically half the team, many of whom stripped off and began to have sex with her. They didn't speak to her but stood around her naked and spoke about her as if she were a piece of meat. Do you honestly think if she had said the word "no" or "stop", they would have listened? I don't. At the end of the day, it was her word against theirs. She was a 19 year old girl and they were part of a multi-million dollar organisation that did everything to cover up the story and ensure that their players were found innocent. Are you surprised that the police could not find enough evidence to charge them for rape? I'm not. The cover up and the 'getting their stories straight' would have been huge. So the police basically decided to drop the case. The girl then went on a destructive cycle that involved suicide attempts and severe depression. So it is quite blatantly obvious that she has suffered from the ordeal. For you to blame her is quite astounding to me. In your profession, if you are unlucky enough, you could find yourself having to face and help treat a young girl or boy like this particular girl. I would hope that you would show them a bit more compassion than you have shown this girl.
The demand is now in place for the other players in that room to come forward. They have not done so. The 4Corners report was about the 'Code of Silence' that exists within the 'Code' and this past week has shown it to be quite true.
Several women linked to various sexual misconduct allegations that have been publicised in the past broke their silence to talk to Four Corners about the NRL's "code of silence".
While no new allegations were made, it revealed disturbing details, in some instances, of what occurred, as well as a troubling reluctance of women to follow through their complaints for fear of being disregarded or looked down upon by authorities.
"Clare" said she suffered for years after her incident, when as many as 11 Cronulla players entered the room at the Racecourse Hotel where she worked and began touching her and themselves in a sexual manner.
"For years afterwards I was drinking a lot and crying a lot and losing a lot of my friends, and just doing quite destructive things to myself and to other people," she said.
"I just thought I was a useless person that I couldn't like."
NRL CEO David Gallop, on behalf of the game, issued an apology after last night's show.
"The distress of the victims spoke for itself and to the extent that the game can apologise for the actions of individuals then I offer that apology unreservedly,'' he wrote in the statement released after the program.
He said the program "dealt with issues that I would hope everyone in the game finds appalling and unacceptable''.
"It is important, however, to understand the very substantial efforts the NRL, the clubs and the players have made in changing attitudes, particularly since 2004.
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25465994-5019031,00.html
Johns is (or was) a man who was in a powerful position as an assistant coach, mentor to other young men and media personality. He was looked up to by boys and girls. His actions have shown that he is not a role model for children or young people who play or do not play the game.