Group Se*x incident(s)

I am appalled that so many people want to "get behind Matty Johns". I would have thought that six or eight or ten Rugby League players standing in line behind him to take their turn to have se*x with a young woman would have been enough?
Apparently not.

A Facebook Page has been opened, with a staggering number of people joining up. The Page says:

• "Following the incident, the players involved told police that a group of them participated in sex with the teenager and that it was consensual.
• "This may have been immoral but in no way was it illegal, and in reality he should only be accountable to his wife for his indiscretions. Matthew John's himself has come out following the revelations across many forms of media and has apologised and accepted the weight of his actions.
• "We must remember that everybody is human and Channel 9’s seemingly snap reaction far outweighs the ‘crime’.
• "We would like to invite you all to join us and get behind Matty Johns."

My questions are simple:

1. The first is an ethical question: Does Johns not have to answer to himself, first and foremost? Has he no conscience, or no sense of common decency?
2. The second is an aesthetic question - addressed to the nameless other players who stood in line (some apparently amused themselves by masturbating while waiting their turn). And my question is this? What is the attraction in standing in a queue, to be the second, third, fourth, or fifth or sixth or seventh or eighth, or ninth or tenth or eleventh guy to add your sperm to that primordial soup of ejaculant inside the body of that young woman?

The encounter cannot have been a meaningful encounter for any of these people, surely? It is likely that there was no "response" from the young woman's body to the numerous later "players" in the "Ga*ng Ba*ng". They may as well have been been playing with a rubber doll. And that would have been far preferable from the point of view of avoiding emotional harm to the woman they were having se*x with.

Above all, this reveals a grubby, mindless approach to the act of coition, which I for one think is demeaning to all concerned.
No wonder they don't want to come forward and be named.

And, by the way, the only male bonding going on here is that of cowardice - hiding behind that old mantra of "What happens on tour stays on tour".

Pathetic.

The Cronulla Club Board ought all stand down, if they do not vow, publicly to promote a code of ethics for their players, which brings an end to such gross behaviour.

My fellow Australians disgust me (well, some of...)

Sorry to write about "sport" in what was meant to be a political blog, but sport is getting more and more like Politics.

Winner take all!

As that 1936 Punch cartoon illustrates, this is not new in Cricket.

But what is new (for me) is that the Australian Cricket team lacks honour, and certainly they all lack dignity.

Australia did not deserve to win the Second Test, in Sydney, against India. Our team cheated. It is as simple as that.

Thousands of words have been written, but few have come out and called it for what it is. Peter Roebuck has come closest.

People say that it was the Umpires making bad decisions, but the reality is that our players tried to claim that they were not out.

• "Bucknor (Umpire) was humiliated in the first innings when Symonds said he should have been out on 30 and went on to make 162, and the players have clearly lost confidence in him."

Hang on - it was Symonds who clearly nicked the ball, but stood there, pretending he had not hit it. Then, apparently he admitted the next day that he should have been out. He should not have pretended that he did not hit it. He has no right to blame the Umpire for a wrong decision.

Symonds scored 132 runs illegally. We beat the Indians by 122 runs. On that basis alone, we cheated our way to the win!

And Rahul Dravid was given out on a ball he clearly did not hit. OK - bad Umpiring decision. But let us not forget that the rules of cricket require an "appeal" - the legendary "How's that?" before the Umpire makes his decision. And in the Dravid case the appeal was led by Gilchrist, the wicket-keeper, who was in the very best position to see that Dravid's bat was nowhere near the ball. A calculated false appeal, designed to influence a weak and demoralised Umpire. It worked. One of India's best batsmen was given out (falsely) at a crucial stage of the game. Without that bad decision, based upon a dishonest appeal, India would almost certainly have managed to draw the game.

In the words of Peter Roebuck: "Once justice and fair play have been ejected there is no point in playing the game."

Perhaps you can now see the similarity between "sport" and Politics?

These issues are just some of those relating to this awful test.

There is the issue of alleged racial taunts against Symonds, which has now resulted in Harbhajan Singh being suspended for 3 tests. But what about what Symonds said to him, just prior to his alleged comment? Symonds "said something" to Harbhajan after he allegedly touched Brett Lee "on the bottom" as he walked past him. We can all guess what that comment might have been about, can't we? The Indians are too polite (or sexually repressed) to repeat what was presumably the use of a favourite Australian term of homosexual abuse "poof*ter". The Australian cricket writers are loathe to report that part of the story. No wonder the Indians are coyly claiming their man was provoked!

This match might yet have true "political ramifications" as well as sporting politics.