Outside the panopticon
Howard, Media - - Posted on July, 3 at 4:44 pm by Tim
UPDATE ZONE: There’s a transcript of the incident here, along with some good commentary.
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John Howard thinks Big Brother should be taken off air in the wake of the (alleged) sexual assault of one of the members of the household.
Perhaps the two guys involved should have draped themselves in an Australian flag. Maybe then the prime minister would have defended them, as he did with the thugs involved in the Cronulla “race riots”.
I also like this comment by the prime minister in regard to the matter:
“I don’t like heavy-handed regulation.”
Says the man responsible for the 1000-odd page Industrial Relations legislation, WorkChoices, which is the most heavy-handed anti-union legislation in the Western world.
Regardless, it seems bizzare that the prime minister reduces the issue of what transpired in the Big Brother house to one of regulation and “good taste”, for heaven’s sake. Here’s his answer in full:
HADLEY: I can’t imagine that you and your wife on a Sunday night put your feet up and have a look at Big Brother on a regular basis, but you know that they’ve taken you and other politicians off the front page of newspapers over the past few days, along with Eddie McGuire, as I mentioned earlier. But what about standards? I mean I respond to listeners to this programme and callers to this programme by saying the oldest weapon is the remote, you just switch it off or change channels, but there does seem to be a shift away, particularly on the Ten Network, which is aimed at a much younger demographic, to things that we wouldn’t have accepted, maybe three, four, five years ago.
PRIME MINISTER: I agree with that. You can give too complicated a response to something like this. I think it is just a question of good taste and I don’t like heavy handed regulation. The business community is always saying to me let us self regulate. Well here’s a great opportunity for Channel Ten to do a bit of self regulation and get this stupid programme of the air.
Too complicated a response? Would it be too complicated to at least mention the fact that a woman was assaulted and that that is the real issue? It might have even been a good time to remind people what he wrote in the Forewood to his government’s Office of Women initiative dealing with violence against women:
The Australian Government believes that families are the backbone of a strong and healthy community, and loving supportive relationships are at the heart of happy, well functioning families. Families are the best places for children to learn about love and respect, and how to build and maintain healthy and caring relationships.
Relationships founded on fear and violence cannot sustain or nurture either partner or the family they might hope to raise. Tragically, when a young person’s early relationship experiences include violence and sexual assault, the consequences can resonate beyond the immediate feelings of hurt and confusion.
These experiences can destroy an individual’s sense of self-worth. Some come to accept violence as the norm, thinking they deserve no better. Violence can become a learnt behaviour, destroying people’s capacity to form healthy relationships, now and in the next generation.
When parents talk to their children about what makes a good relationship it helps young people develop and clarify their own values. It can provide an opportunity for children to talk about things which might be worrying or confusing them.
This booklet is a resource for young people, parents, friends and the community at large. It provides information on how to identify and avoid violent and abusive situations, how to build and maintain healthy relationships and who to contact if you need protection or advice.
It is not the role of government to tell people how to live their lives - relationships are personal and private. But violence against women is unacceptable. It diminishes the lives of all those it affects and it tarnishes any community that tolerates it.
But no. Just some twaddle about regulation and “good taste”.
Kim Beazley, I might add, wasn’t any better. And Andrew Bartlett also devotes too much angst to the side issue of interventionist tendencies of politicians. Though at least he does include this sentence:
If anyone in the Big Brother house broke the law in this latest incident, then it should be dealt with by the legal system.
Meantime, the police have decided there is insufficent evidence to support a criminal investigation. Can someone explain to me how that is the case, and isn’t that the thing we should be concerned about?
July 3rd, 2006 at 5:02 pm
But they’re really nice boys, just doing what boys do, and it was all a big joke. They were just having a bit of fun, everyone should just lighten up.
(Good post, Tim.)
July 3rd, 2006 at 5:03 pm
I didn’t know Road to Surfdom was still alive, my RSS for it hasn’t updated in months.
Now take away the cameras and the possibility of the broadcast and impose the same restrictions. You get the same housemates doing the same thing and dismiss it as mucking around. No action is taken because no one feels there is a need to.
Bartlett hits the nail on the head but not only should he use politicians but people that are beating up this issue.
There’s only an issue because it is on film that may have or may not have been broadcast. An issue Bartlett also addresses.
Apart from the Housemates themselves, the issue is over with and does not concern us. We should all stay out of it.
July 3rd, 2006 at 5:13 pm
As long as Channel Ten continue to brazenly and unethically use the issue and the housemates’ reaction to it as ratings bait on national television it is not over with.
July 3rd, 2006 at 5:28 pm
Industrial Relations legislation, WorkChoices, which is the most heavy-handed anti-union legislation in the Western world.
Tim, is this a bad thing? I would have thought it was a good thing, no?
July 3rd, 2006 at 5:33 pm
cmon get a grip…
the (victim) said it was trivial”or words to that effect”.
any ideas on how to run a prosecution apart from third party moral indignation
cheers
con
July 3rd, 2006 at 5:41 pm
The whole beat-up is such stoopid populist politics, convenient political cash cow that ignores the realities of sexual assualt etc.
I actually think Andrew (Bartlett)’s got some good points, and in regards to the lack of prosecution, I assume the police would know far more about the issue than me - presumably they looked into it, saw decent quality footage, spoke with people, etc.
Channel ten did the right thing in evicting the housemates with no money etc.
The thing that puzzles me is, if channel ten really wants an end to sexual assualt in the house, they should simply stop putting stupid chauvinist dicks in. I honestly don’t think ratings would suffer if they got some more intelligent bogans…
July 3rd, 2006 at 6:22 pm
My first reaction is to question the type of society we live in that attempts to normalise what is clearly a sexual assault - Two guys hold down a woman and slap her in the face with their cocks without her consent. That is sexual assault, isn’t it?
Secondly, I want to point out that the two guys didn’t like her. Unfortunately I watch BB, and these guys have constantly nominated her for eviction, commenting how much she annoys them, and how much they want her to leave. Surely that puts a different spin on it?.. Two guys “turkey slap” a young woman they dislike. That’s not ‘good fun’ that’s a deliberate attempt to degrade her, whether she believes it or not.
Thirdly, the police should have been called immediately. Though the incident was only seen via Internet streaming, someone was still filming it.
What would happen if some person witnessed a similar assault, filmed it at put it on the internet to make money?
July 3rd, 2006 at 6:32 pm
Well hey now, I think we might have just the man Ch10 are looking for
July 3rd, 2006 at 7:20 pm
I had a uni Eng Lit lecturer who was a jazz muso from Adelaide and he always said the layout of Adelaide was an example of the panopticon. Which explained alot about the city.
Just sayin’.
July 3rd, 2006 at 7:32 pm
Adelaide (city and surrounds) is laid out on a grid, a small gem of useable, human-scale city planning. It is surrounded by a rather nice and functional green belt. There’s a lot to mock about the place, apparently, but I doubt being a panopticon is one of those things. Really, without doing the whole defend Adelaide schtik, it seems like a weird thing to say.
July 3rd, 2006 at 7:35 pm
I guess after Canberra and D.C being defensive about your town must come naturally …
July 3rd, 2006 at 7:40 pm
Yeah, maybe, though DC is pretty nice too. I could live without seeing Canberra ever again, except for friends and family anyway. I’ll defend it on one level, though, ironically, not on town-planning grounds. Adelaide I haven’t been in long enough to feel defensive about. The panopticon thing is just a really dumb description.
July 3rd, 2006 at 8:02 pm
It was said tongue in cheek. Anyway, didn’t mean to create a controversy just a little Monday night flippancy.
I love Adelaide. I left my heart on Rundle St.
July 3rd, 2006 at 9:48 pm
a) Big Brother: who cares? It’s a product of its demographic.
b) what the PM said: who cares what that lying piece of dog dropping says or thinks?
July 4th, 2006 at 7:28 am
I’m no fan of BB, I’ve never watched it except for the odd snippet like this one… but it didn’t look like assault to me.
Tacky, yes.
Uncalled for, maybe.
Unexpected… hmmmm…
But, if you watch the tape, the woman got into bed with the boys and was snuggling up to at least one of them, in - shall we say - “a not entirely innocent” way. Apparently she was trying to curry favour with them as they had voted her off the show a couple of times.
She may not have been asking to be “turkey slapped” (a term she used, and so we can presume was familiar with), or for outright sex, but the air was definitely not innocent. They were having some sensual “fun”, fairly typical at any party or wherever else a group of bored, hormone-soaked kids get together (adults too, I’d warrant).
The main problem is that it was broadcast on the net and that the Wowsers are running with it.
It was a tasteless joke, one that went wrong, gross even (especially to watch)… but hardly formal “sexual assault”. The proper response should have been for the woman to say something like, “Crude, rude and unattractive”, get out of bed (she stayed there), and for things to be left at that.
The police had perfect evidence: a full, close-up camera view, immediate interviews with all three participants… yet they still did not charge anyone. I think this backs up the view that the whole thing has been a storm in a teacup.
July 4th, 2006 at 9:36 am
It’s an example of how most sexual assaults are perpetrated by someone known to the victim and not reported.
By all accounts the victim of the assault doesn’t want to proceed, which means the police shouldn’t. Proceeding against the wishes of the woman who’s been assaulted has traditionally been a punishment for women who ‘make a nuisance of themselves’.
They’d have to put her on the stand as an unwilling witness where she’d be subjected to unplesant questioning from both the prosecution and the defense and the quickest way for her to end it would be to say she consented to it. Which would be absolutely a worse outcome all around.
Besides, other than the media cycle hype - there’s no rush. There’s scope for her to change her mind and make a complaint in the future.
And Aussie Bob, with respect, I’m dissappointed by your attitude. You *are* running a “she was asking for it” argument and trying to spilt non-existant hairs about ‘tasteless jokes gone wrong’. Would the assault have been “formal” if the boy’s bits had been erect? What level of tumescence is required for formality?
July 4th, 2006 at 10:43 am
Darryl, your incorrect characterization of my agument as one of the “she was asking for it” variety, presupposes that there was a sexual assault. I guess you think I was saying “she was asking for it” (the “it” being to be sexually assaulted) so that gets the boys off the hook. But this kind of argument is usually when the “victim” is complaining, and others are saying he or she “deserved it”. In this case the victim is not complaining, nor, according to police who investigated, being offered any inducements to abstain from complaining.
It was quasi-sexual horseplay, Darryl. The woman made the initial move by voluntarily walking across the room, getting into bed with two boys and allowing them to cuddle and caress her in a state of near nakedness. As for the “Turkey Slap”? Surprising. Unexpected. Inappropriate. In poor taste. “Something you or I wouldn’t do” etc. etc., but horseplay nevertheless.
The woman didn’t make a complaint (in fact she remained in the bed with the two boys). The police found no charge to proceed with, despite clear video evidence. How much counter-evidence to a charge of “sexual assault” do you need?
There are all kinds of shades of grey to the concept of “sexual consent”. Explicit, legally enforceable, even written consent is for porn stars, making commercial films, but not all the time for real people, in real-life sexual situations.
Sometimes when benign or even pleasurable sexual incidents occur the participants do not have that outcome in mind. Sometimes verbal consent is not sought, but consent nevertheless is inferred, and correctly so. Sometimes it is not given, but is assumed genuinely under a mistaken impression that it was.
We have all been in such situations. I’ve been in a few myself - in younger and happier days - both as the instigator and the “victim”. But none of them has ever amounted to sexual assault, as is the case with 99.99999% of these situations. Usually a firm “No” when one or the other partner has gone too far is sufficient to draw the boundaries around what is and what is not permitted on the occasion in question. A firm “No” can be a much better indication than an implied “Yes”. I have no problem with legal proceedings being undertaken after a firm “No”, if that is the wish of the victim.
Nowhere in my post did I say the woman deserved to be sexually assaulted. Firstly I don’t believe she was sexually assaulted in the eyes of the law. I also believe, from seeing the tape, that she was playing around with the two boys in order to make a good impression on them so that they would not vote her off the program. And I believe that her choice of inducement was borderline sexual, certainly physically sensual in nature. She took it one step, one of the boys took it further, she continued, then the second boy went too far for decorum’s sake, not the law’s. Yet still she did not leave the bed. This is hardly the conduct of someone who has just been “sexually assaulted” because (as you allege I allege) “she was asking for it”.
Lighten up Darryl. And please don’t tell me that no woman has ever said, “Oh yuck!” or “Not tonight” or “I don’t like that” to something you have done while naked or semi-naked with them in a hormone-charged situation.
Anyway, she got her wish. They won’t be voting against her. They’re off the show.
July 4th, 2006 at 11:02 am
I think it’s very hard to read too much into the fact that the woman involved didn’t press charges. Clearly there are enormous pressures on her not to proceed, more so than the usual stigmas women face in such a situation.
July 4th, 2006 at 11:42 am
This soap opera has apparently sucked in Honest John, or should I say the cunning turd realises that large quantities of young ozzies consider this contrived crap “reality” has put in his two bob’s worth. I used to get home, park arse on couch, scotch&soda in hand winding down at 7:00PM one evening there appeared a bunch of young blokes and sheilahs talking about a program they were making..(Thinks , hmm that’s strange, WTF are they on about, and what happened to Seinfeld) Next night, same scenario, but by then I realised THIS IS THE SHOW! -I’d rather watch Karaoke.
July 4th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
Why wouldn’t the PM weigh in? If I was him, having nasty things said about my beautiful, shiny new IR legislation and horrible people publishing cruel things about my slumping popularity, I would go out of my way to draw attention to some stupid argument over some even stupider show just to get nasty people off my back.
July 4th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
Aussie Bob, I usually read your comments with some amount of agreeance but you have to be kidding me? Since when is a man rubbing his genitals in the face of a woman not sexual assault. Camilla was made to feel guilty because the boys were kicked out and imagine the pressure having this play out on national tv. I saw the footage. It was not a harmless joke. What would your reaction be if it was the other way around, a bunch of girls held down a guy while one of them rubbed their genitals in his face without his consent (which they didn’t have otherwise they wouldn’t have had to hold her down). Goes to show how accepted this sort of mysoginist behaviour is in our society.
July 4th, 2006 at 2:18 pm
I’m backing you up there Anna. Aussie, your argument is only one small step away from the “she was wearing a short skirt” argument.
The issue isn’t what the girl did - it doesn’t matter if she took all her clothes off and gave them a lap dance, it’s what the guys did, and they did _not_ have consent to do that.
Merely because this kind of thing goes on in real life all the time (and frankly, I don’t know that it does, I’m certainly not going to extrapolate my individual sexual history to encompass a nation of people), doesn’t mean that it _should_ go on all the time, or that it’s okay that it does.
It shouldn’t, and it’s not okay, and I actually think channel ten have behaved pretty well, dealing with the incident before the uproar, and before we cancel BB, can we please cancel the utter shite of A Current Affair and Today Tonight that precedes it? Please?
July 4th, 2006 at 3:11 pm
I don’t think we’ll ever agree on this.
To my mind it’s a matter of taste, not law. The police concurred, as did the “victim”, who is now less likely to get voted off the program because her chief antagonists have been expelled. Plenty of people do much worse - legally - for the chance at a million dollars prize money. That’s the problem with Big Brother, not the acts in question.
You can read all kinds of coercion, corruption, behind the scenes skullduggery etc. etc. into why they weren’t prosecuted. In my view - and in the view of the relevant authorities and participants - watching the same video as others have here, the actions of the boy in question didn’t amount to a breach of the law. Etiquette, yes. Law, no. Tasteless, yes. Criminal, no.
I’ve been around, seen a lot worse, as I’m sure have many of you. The usual reaction to gross behaviour like this is to say, “Piss off hairy legs,” NOT call the police. If this warranted prosecution, then half the drunken, horny, Ekkied-out young males and females in real society would be behind bars. Take a look around next time you’re out clubbing.
Anna, since you ask, I’ve been in a similar situation (underneath, not on top). My solution was to ask the women (two flatmates with too many wines under their belts who came home horny from a party late one night) to desist and go to sleep. Which they did, eventually. Embarassed looks all round next morning, but no cops involved.
You guys are too cut and dried. I don’t believe the woman has to be kicking and screaming (or similarly emphatic) before it’s sexual asault, but by the same token, this was pretty tame stuff, when taken in context as agreed by all relevant authorities and participants. The woman got a fright, or a shock, that’s all that happened.
I can understand you not liking the type of person some people turn into on Big Brother. I can understand not wanting to watch the show. I don’t myself, religiously. It’s tacky, yucky and a complete gross-out. I have not the slightest interest in it or its “stars” (how many ways can I say this?). But that’s no reason to ban it.
The proper course of action is to not watch it, and for its producers to regulate embarassing or extra-contractual misbehaviour on the show by expulsion, which is exactly what they did.
Howard’s trying to turn this into a political issue. Nothing he says or does is not political. The same reasoning - that “bad taste” or “gross behaviour” is a prosecutable offence - is why David Hicks languishes - uncharged, untried, abandoned by his government - in Gitmo: Howard thinks he can whip up a bit of cheap outrage out of marginal - but not illegal - behaviour.
And he’s right.
Anna and Patrickg… you’ve fallen for the oldest spin line in the book. The Right is merciless, relentless. They give no quarter, relying on a morality they care nothing about themselves to score points over their wet opponents. Look at Gitmo, look at Iraq, look at the IR legislation - monstrously immoral all of them - and realise that this faux outrage by Howard is an attempt to one-up Beazley (who merely called for this to be the last series), and to distract the public from serious issues of state. It is designed to wedge the many fools who fall for the same old crap every time. Don’t you understand? We’re talking about a trivial issue that Howard wants us to talk about! Again!
It’s not his country. He isn’t the Father Of The Nation. It’s our country and we need to remain broad-minded about things other people do, even though we mightn’t do them ourselves.
Yes, sexual assault exists, but grow up on this one and save your moral opprobrium for something more serious than dormitory antics - sexual or otherwise - on Big Brother.
And please stop telling me what I “really” think.
July 4th, 2006 at 3:51 pm
Aussie Bob, i’m not saying the show should be banned. Even though it is a complete waste of digital space. I agree that the politicians are using this to further their own agendas whilst missing the point entirely and I don’t agree with political censorship. However the point is shoving your skanky dick in a woman’s face while she’s being held down is sexual harrassment. Sexual ? yes. Harrassment? yes. They did it to degrade her. The reasons the police and Camilla aren’t going forward we might never know. I can empathise with Camilla not wanting to press charges since can you imagine the crap she’d have to put up with from half the nation when she left the house and inside the house for that matter. And as far as the police go, the boys club they run isn’t exactly the height of morality and who knows what’s gone on behind the scenes at channel 10.
July 4th, 2006 at 4:23 pm
Aussie Bob,
You’re talking about Gitmo, IR reform, whether channel 10 acted right - a whole lot of stuff that has nothing to do with the post I was responding too.
I _agree_ with you about most of that stuff, very strongly, as it were. What I was responding to was this:
“It was quasi-sexual horseplay, Darryl. The woman made the initial move by voluntarily walking across the room, getting into bed with two boys and allowing them to cuddle and caress her in a state of near nakedness.”
“I believe that her choice of inducement was borderline sexual, certainly physically sensual in nature. She took it one step, one of the boys took it further, she continued, then the second boy went too far for decorum’s sake, not the law’s. Yet still she did not leave the bed. This is hardly the conduct of someone who has just been “sexually assaulted””
These words imply that Camilla somehow initiated getting someone’s penis rubbed on her face, and that her subsequent actions are somehow determininate as to whether it’s sexual harrassment or not.
I disagree with that emphatically. And also your call of sexual consent being shades of gray. When Camilla said no, and had to be held down, what, really, is gray about that?
July 4th, 2006 at 4:35 pm
Bob, I don’t think you’re trying to get anyone ‘off the hook’. My mild dismay comes from you not believing there is a hook at all. It’s very mild dismay, and I’m already pretty light about the whole thing. My view is it was a bluntly sexual display of contempt for the woman and a depressing example of the misogyny in our communities (this is so common there’s a *name* for it? Jeebus.) No one was physically hurt but I’m pretty sure that if she had been prepared to pursue the complaint we’d see a different reaction from the wallops.
I am surprised that you think there is some sort of consent-like process in the woman’s behaviour, but you don’t like the implication that she was asking for it. You write:
“The woman made the initial move”
“allowing [the boys] to cuddle and caress her in a state of near nakedness”
and “her choice of inducement”
but this doesn’t add up to her asking for it? There’s a logical break there I don’t follow. But it’s your argument and I don’t propose to dissect it further. I do think you’ve got a bit of doublethink going on, but that happens to the best of us in all sorts of situations.
I will tell you though, that your confident assumptions about what victims do immediately following a sexual assault are not so accurate. Different people, different circumstances, different reactions.
all the best,
d
July 4th, 2006 at 4:47 pm
AB says “And please stop telling me what I “really” think.”
Heh. Will you stop telling us what Camilla “really” thinks?
“Anyway, she got her wish.”
“she was playing around with the two boys in order to make a good impression on them so that they would not vote her off the program.”
“The woman got a fright, or a shock, that’s all that happened.”
“she was trying to curry favour with them as they had voted her off the show a couple of times.”
:^)
d
July 4th, 2006 at 6:33 pm
The woman was out to ingratiate herself with two boys who had (apparently) tried to vote her off the program in the past. They tried to humiliate her by means of a “turkey slap”. The situation was quasi sexual, deliberately, according to the tape. After a minute or so of canoodling, one of the boys went too far, committing a gross act. My point is: bad manners, not a crime. It a rejection in ritual form (”turkey slap”) designed as male chauvinistic put-down. But male chauvinism is not a crime.
For all we know the boys may have been humiliated by her trying to sweet talk them. Who knows what’s going on in the boiler room brains of Big Brother?
Maybe they could have charged her with sexual assault, as she (obviously without invitation) got into the bed with them?
You have to take the whole situation into account… her actions, theirs, hers in response, the show’s background politics, her decision to continue in the bed - uninvited - with her “assailants”, the Police force’s opinion (probably including that of female police officers trained in this area), and so on. On balance they add up to a benign, if revolting interlude… for both sides.
These kids aren’t professors of ethics. They’re drongos, in over their heads, out to score a prize.
It’s not a good example to follow, but it is a reality show.
Apparently the ratings have already dropped. This may be the ultimate verdict on Big Brother.
July 4th, 2006 at 7:43 pm
AB I don’t know why this is so hard for you to understand. Shoving your genitals into a woman’s face uninvited is sexual harassment. Not that any woman would invite such behaviour in the first place. Camilla’s decision not to press charges would have been a big factor in the police decision not to go ahead with charges. If you want to go one step back by comparing Camilla getting into a bed with the boys as sexual harassment let’s go a step further towards the other way and say they put it in her mouth, forced fellatio. What would that be? It’s only an inch away. Literally. Obviously they didn’t and there are degrees to sexual assault but that these kind of actions are merely accepted by you and others in this society as just “mucking around” or “a bit of fun” appals me.
July 4th, 2006 at 9:43 pm
“Not that any woman would invite such behaviour in the first place.
Geez, Anna, which moonbeam did you come down on? Are there fairies in the bottom of your garden?
Anna, it takes all kinds to make this Big World of ours. When there’s a million bucks at stake people do strange things.
Tasteless. Gross. Awful. Impolite. Things.
Things that happen every day in societies in which you obviously do not mix, and nor do I.
I told you of a situation when some females got into my bed uninvited. I was polite, but firm (in the best, ethical way). We all went to sleep and woke up trying to forget what happened the night before. That was the extent of it. No hard feelings.
The boys did not put “it” into her mouth. You’re fantasising here. Whatever they did, they would have been aware of the million bucks going begging.
However, the show’s producers didn’t see it that way and out they went. The PM didn’t see it that way and has called for the show to be put off the sir. Beazley reckons it should be the last series.
Every Tom, Dick and Holy Joe is out screaming wowserish imprecations from the rooftops.
The point is: if you do not mind what’s happening (for whatever reason), then you continue doing it. If you don’t, you yell for the producer - who’s watching the cameras 24/7 - to come and rescue you. You prosecute. You make an issue of it.
Camilla did not. The boys did not (even though it was their space that was invaded… or don’t you believe that men can be sexually harassed?). The cops declined to intervene.
Why?
Was it because Peter Beatty intervened? Because all cops - including the females - are chauvy pigs? Because they vote Labor and didn’t want to give Howard the satisfaction? Because the girl didn’t complain? Because the boys didn’t complain? Because turkey slaps are the norm in Queensland?
I don’t know.
Neither do you.
Forget it. Go back to the fairies.
End of story.
July 4th, 2006 at 10:04 pm
So, by your reasoning, Bob, if someone doesn’t want to report a sexual assualt, or sexual harrassment, it didn’t happen?
That’s insane.
You keep going on about how she basically invited it, but if that’s the case, why did they have to hold her down? When did she say, “Please rub your dick in my face?”, implication is not enough here, Bob, and it never will be.
Once again, I’m not saying that Channel ten did the wrong thing, John Howard and Beazley are not dickheads, but, this was a clear case of sexual harrassment, and arguably assault. The decison not to charge has nothing to do with it.
July 4th, 2006 at 10:50 pm
Trackback.
July 4th, 2006 at 11:26 pm
“…forced fellatio. What would that be?”
In Queensland it’s called “indecent assault—grievous sexual assault” which carries a maximum penalty of life (s117a of the Qld Criminal Code).
More generally, ‘assault’ is when a person directly or indirectly strikes, touches or moves another person without consent (s113). So on the face of it, the boys assaulted Camilla, by holding her down and striking her (leaving aside the question of consent for the sake of definition).
‘Indecent assault’ has a common law definition along the lines of ‘an assault which a reasonable person would consider indecent’. Any dissent to whether that applies to Turkey Boy? I didn’t think so.
Now we have an indecent assault, that brings the ’sexual assault’ section (s117) into play. Since Turkey Boy had company (177(b)i(C)) we’ve talking about ‘indecent assault—aggrivated sexual assault’ (maximum penalty of 14 years).
So why, in the face of such a serious crime (s24a), did the wallops not charge anyone? Probably because the woman who was assaulted did not want to proceed. The police have quite wide latitude about how to proceed and these days they take the attitude of the victim into account. (no reference, sorry. I can scare something up if anyone *really* cares.) If the victim doesn’t want to do anything, it usually goes no further. This doesn’t mean no crime occurred just that no further action will be taken, which isn’t very satisfactory but better than the alternative.
This afternoon I was pretty light-hearted about it all. I thought Bob was wrong and said so, but lots of people are wrong about lots of things all the time. In the wider scheme the Turkey Affair isn’t a big issue.
But Bob’s trenchant (and perverse) defense of the indefensible really gets my goat. He writes persuasively (and at length) about ‘progressive’ issues, but his sincere concern for human rights and the law seems to falter when we move from issues of state or class power to the everyday relationships between men and women. Bob is arguing that a crime punishable by up to 14 years imprisonment is ‘benign’. It’s just ‘horseplay.’ That holding a woman down and striking her in the face with your penis is only a ‘quasi sexual’ act. Even that maybe the woman subjected to the assault should be charged for having the poor judgement to move into close proximity to Turkey Boy and his mate. That’s a disgusting thing to say, with or without sarcasm.
It’s terribly sexist and it’s unacceptable. It is wrong, depressingly wrong and I don’t have anything else to say.
July 4th, 2006 at 11:43 pm
hang on anna..
i haven’t seen the incident and so can’t comment on it, but AB’s argument is not without merit. some of his words might have been more carefully chosen, but we’re not in the courtroom here, we’re out back blagging.
there certainly are degrees to sexual assault (or not sexual assault) and sticking your penis in someone’s mouth without their consent certainly is not the same as getting it near.
i don’t think AB’s description of camilla’s behaviour amounts to an attribution of consent and AB has shown himself to be a well reasoned, considered and intelligent commenter who deserves the benefit of the doubt you afforded him earlier in this conversation. AB wasn’t desribing a sexual assault as ‘a bit of fun’ but was providing his assessement of a set of circumstances that at times might be deemed sexual assault and at other times might not.
i don’t believe it should be for the law to decide if such an offense has been committed. if the individual concerned, an adult i assume psychologists have confirmed is of sound mind, doesn’t have the right to decide if an offense has occured, what right does anyone else have to tell them they’re a victim?
July 5th, 2006 at 10:03 am
I know there are degrees, and if you read my comment that’s what I said.
AB
I was attempting to gauge where you draw the line.
You invoked the image of Camilla getting into bed with the boys as sexual assault (even though I think you’ll find she was invited). I think you’re mixing up sexual advancement with harassment. I’m not sure what happened with you and those women flatmates of yours but I’m pretty sure they didn’t hold you down and shove there genitals in your face with intent to degrade you. Sexual advances happen all the time and if they’re not wanted that’s usually where they end. But what happened here is completely different to that. Clearly the boys weren’t attracted to Camilla and trying to get her to sleep with them. They wanted to humiliate her and they did.
July 5th, 2006 at 10:06 am
Thanks kez.
Lots of mention of “the law”, but none of “justice” in some of the posts above.
Out there somewhere, I presume there really are people to whom a “turkey slap” is not regarded as anything particularly bad, even if they are the “slapee”.
It’s a Big Bad World we live in, after all, and not all sexual activity is confined to loving and caring relationships which employ sex for the enhancement of that love, as The Joy Of Sex would have us believe.
Many other things - sexual or otherwise - are likewise regarded as permissable in the context of company, background and circumstances of the participants.
“Nice” people don’t indulge, but not all people are “nice”.
One would think that if the cops and the alleged “victim” chose not to proceed with charges then this did not qualify as a prosecutable assault.
Assault doesn’t have to involve gross acts that most of the public would not do. You can touch a stranger on the shoulder and say “Excuse me, you dropped something,” and that can be an assault in a technical sense. The question is: do we choke the courts with people who resent being touched on the shoulder, or shoved out of the way on a cramped commuter train, or even illegally tackled in a soccer game? Or do we apply common sense regarding these matters?
Darryl starts out from the position that the incident was a clear assault. He asks,
“Any dissent to whether that applies to Turkey Boy? I didn’t think so.”
After this assumption, he needs to make the subsequent facts fit his scenario.
In order to explain why no charges resulted he then has to concoct a regime of sniggering police, cowed and threatened “victim” and a sexual morality situation (his, and Anna’s apparently) where no person could see the incident as anything other than an assault.
Darrly believes that the question he asked is purely rhetorical. Surely no-one could see Turkey Boy’s act as anything other than an assault? Well, apparently the woman didn’t see it as warranting prosecution. Nor did the police, who thoroughly reviewed the incident. This is the sticking point in Darryl’s argument: no-one involved regarded the incident as a transgression of the law, especially the police, who - we must assume - have experienced officers (certainly including females) whose job it is to take a hard line on these matters.
Darryl further omits to mention that the woman got into the boy’s bed, uninvited, and proceeded to touch them in what could be construed as an intimate way. Was this assault? Darryl seems to think not. Maybe he believes women, including those trying not to get voted off the show, are incapable of such things?
Perhaps his sense of decorum is offended? Maybe, but the relevant sense of decorum here is the “victim’s”, and she’s not complaining, for whatever reason.
Let’s consider the “cowed victim” situation more closely. This usually applies to women who have been humiliated in private being put under pressure to drop the charges, lest the humiliation become public.
However, in this case, the woman’s “humiliation” was out in the open, on public television. She had nothing to lose, no pride to be shattered, no further humiliation to endure by pressing charges. Yet she did not.
Why?
Well never know. Perhaps she thought the “humiliation” was trivial. Perhaps she thought that complaining might affect her chances of winning the million dollars. Perhaps she decided that a million dollars - or the chance of it - was a reasonable price to pay for the incident, especially as her chief antagonists both lost their chance at the money, and got voted off the show, and thus were no longer a threat to her.
Critics of my point of view will answer that no woman would put a mere million dollars above the chance to prosecute two chauvy pigs who publicly humiliated her.
Oh, really?
Which planet have you been living on if you don’t think that people will put up with an awful lot for the chance, from a young age, of a future life of leisure?
Darryl and Anna: the show, Big Brother is all about humiliation. It’s about what happens when a bunch of yobs is locked up in a room together for months - sleeping, eating, showering and otherwise associating in all kinds of intimate ways - trying, by means fair and foul, to get each other voted off the show so that their chances of personally winning a million dollars is enhanced.
Who do you expect them to emulate? Saint Francis of Assisi? The Virgin Mary? Pope John the XXIII?
They revert to type, of course. Big Brother is about what people can become under the influence of greed, envy and close confinement. To demand prosecution for its participants - consenting adults all - for doing what’s expected of them is going too far. You may as well prosecute the World.
David Hicks, rotting in Gitmo, is there precisely for the same reason: the Wowsers have decided that his tasteless behaviour, although not prosecutable, requires punishment concomitant with those who have committed real crimes. This is why Howard slags Hicks off at every opportunity, and why he picks on Big Brother for the same treatment. Sex and terrorism are all he has left. Don’t give his reactionary views any more oxygen than you have already.
The processes of justice say both Hicks and the three BB inmates are not prosecutable under current law. They should be left alone, and free, to consider the choices they have made.
It seems this, today, is punishment enough.
July 5th, 2006 at 12:42 pm
Bob,
You’ve written another small novel! Once again, you bring up Gitmo and a whole lot of other stuff. I sympathise with your feelings of anger and frustration regarding those issues, but they have nothing to do with this one.
You still have not retreated from your original position that if a crime is not prosecuted, it is therefore not a crime. That is untenable, and clearly not true.
Your only refutation of Darryl’s quoting of the law is to say that people break the law all the time (so that makes it okay?). You then compare having someone rub their penis on your face uninvited with getting tapped on the shoulder…!?! Dude, come on.
Note that neither Darryl, Anna or I are “demanding prosecution” for what happened on the show. We are merely saying that what the boys did constitutes as sexual harrassment and arguably assualt.
This is a conclusion - however much you might rail against it - that can be reached independent of what Camilla thinks, or whether the police prosecute (and frankly, you make to much of the decision not to prosecute; against the victim’s wishes it would almost never happen in a situation like this).
No one is baying for blood here, but to deny what happened and reframe it as merely blokey hijinks and harmless shenanigans bought on by the victim’s behaviour is a terrible ellipsis, and sadly an all too common one in regards to sexual harrassment.
You are still unable to deny that what happened is sexual harrassment according to law, and that Camilla certainly did _not_ ask to have a penis rubbed on her face simply by getting into bed with two guys.
July 5th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
If it was my son/nephew/brother/best friend doing the ‘turkey-slap’ (in those circumstances) I would be having serious words to him because, regardless of whether it was illegal or not, it wasn’t nice and it is no way to go about building healthy social relationships, particularly intimate relationships.
However, I do think some of you are jumping on AB a little hard. He is clearly not justifying or trivialising sexual assault in general, and is just recognising the very real, substantial (and, I agree, often problematic) grey area that this particular example of sexual behaviour occupies.
AB is also absolutely correct in refusing to play the ‘woman-as-innocent-victim’ game—any mentally competent contemporary Australian adult woman who freely gets into bed with two unrelated adult males and cuddles up to them expecting it to lead only to platonic friendship, especially in the context of a publicly broadcast Big Brother show, is neither ‘innocent’ nor realistic. (Though neither is she ‘asking for it’ nor granting any kind of open-ended sexual invitation).
While any unwanted forced sexual activity is totally repugnant and should be strongly condemned, and where possible legally prosecuted, it is also true that adults do not have the right to be sexually provocative, then hold the other party entirely responsibile for appropriate restraint, or any adverse consequences, and expect society to automatically sympathise with and support the (alleged) victim.
Unlike the vast majority of (alleged) sexual assault cases, the woman concerned here had plenty of prima facie evidence to proceed with, yet still chose not to. It is certainly fair to say that (from her perspective) there might well be legitimate reasons why she wouldn’t press charges, even if they are sustainable in a court. Nonetheless, she chose not to proceed.
As to our politician’s usual pompous opportunistic self-righteous moralising over this issue, well, enough said…
July 5th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
“…it is also true that adults do not have the right to be sexually provocative, then hold the other party entirely responsibile for appropriate restraint, or any adverse consequences, and expect society to automatically sympathise with and support the (alleged) victim.”
But they do!!! They really do!
July 5th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
A very interesting discussion, and thankfully one conducted free of the usual left/right nonsense.
While I respect AB’s point of view on this issue, and in particular the political context of its exploitation, I think that in this case the wider social context is more important. In this respect we have a society where the exploitation of women (and men?)and sex has reached unprecedented heights. You don’t have to be a wowser to regard with distaste the commidification of sexuality and the kind of behaviour (cruise ships?) that this can lead to.
The fact that women and girls are often willing participants is not always the point, as I think that it’s a social trend that has the potential to degrade all participants.
In this context the behaviour on BB, whether open to prosecution or not, can be seen as just more evidence of a disturbing attitude to matters sexual.
Don’t know what the answer is, and it certainly isn’t censorship. But it’s certainly not tacitly (or otherwise) condoning it.
July 5th, 2006 at 2:55 pm
The fact that women and girls are often willing participants is not always the point, as I think that it’s a social trend that has the potential to degrade all participants.
Some truth in that. While greater freedoms are generally a good thing, including in matters sexual, they usually also have a down side that has to be dealt with.
July 5th, 2006 at 3:26 pm
It was sexual assault. No one invites sexual assualt, abuse, whatever. Women and men may wear what they choose and behave as they chose, but there is a line, crossing which makes the incident a crime. It may not be something that can be successfully prosecuted, and that’s a shame, more often than not. Network Ten did the right thing by ejecting the creeps even as much as they did the wrong thing by allowing the footage onto the internet. That the girl doesn’t want to proceed is as likely a result of her public humiliation - she’s fully aware that everything is filmed everywhere in the house at all times - as it may be that she’s naive enough not to consider herself to have been sexually assaulted.
Aussie Bob’s inane arguments show a remarkable level of obtuseness, something I’m surprised to find, as he’s usually more enlightened. Sexual freedom can’t exist until sexual equality does, but that doesn’t include harrassment, assault, or rape.
The PM weighs in on anything he’s asked about, but why anyone wants to ask him is what puzzles me. Who cares what he thinks about Big Bogan?
July 5th, 2006 at 4:31 pm
Comment by adrian
# July 5, 2006, |Quote|
“A very interesting discussion, and thankfully one conducted free of the usual left/right nonsense.”
I bet Lexy Downer was shouting “Do it to me, do it to meeee!!”
July 5th, 2006 at 4:34 pm
Thanks Seeker.
It must be a punishment for my growing up in the Sinful Seventies that I have such nonsense written about a viewpoint I thought I was careful to set out. If the Wowsers reckon they’ve nailed you to the moral wall, no amount of protest will get you off the hook.
But for form’s sake, I write the following:
Patrickg said:
“Once again, you bring up Gitmo and a whole lot of other stuff. I sympathise with your feelings of anger and frustration regarding those issues, but they have nothing to do with this one.”
Actually, the subject of Tim’s post at the head of this thread was in great degree the political capital made about the Big Brother show by none other than John W. Howard, and his attempts to set himself up as “Father Of The Nation” by calling for the show’s banning.
So I guess my linking the BB episode with politics is entirely on topic, Patrick, and it is you who is not seeing the connection, or at least not prepared to discuss it.
I drew a broader picture than Tim (who confined his comentary on Howard’s interference to the “regulation” aspect) by likening the public vilification of Hicks to the public vilification of the boys who were on BB.
The similarities between the two situations are manifest: no matter how much sections of society might not like the behaviour of either Hicks or the Turkey Slap Twins, they are not prosecutable under any law extant in Australia today. But this does not save them from a cheap slagging-off by the Prime Minister and other politicians.
And the Wowsers chime in, right on cue.
Oh yes, both Hicks and the Turkey Slap Twins could (I suppose) be hauled before some magistrate’s court for a hearing before a tut-tutting Beak, but in the judgement of relevant law enforcement authorities, they would be found “not guilty” and have to be released.
So why bother charging them? It’d be a waste of taxpayers’ money.
And why bother stressing out over whether they were guilty of assault, when nobody else - including the alleged “victim”, now closer to the million dollar prize than ever - seems concerned?
It appears to me that both parties - the woman and the men - invaded each other’s privacy and the police have played the “advantage” rule. That is: there was fault (if you want to call it that) on both sides… ref yells, “Play on”.
If the men had kicked the woman out of the bed immediately and called the police at that moment, they would possibly have had a very good case for sexual harassment to present.
Would there have been a public campaign against our new “Saint Camilla”? Would she have been chucked off the show? Would you, Patrick, have been vituperatively moralising about how “men can be victims as much as women”?
That the boys did not complain, and let her stay, is their business. As are the subsequent events where the quasi-sexual play escalated. It seems from the transcript that the woman knew a “turkey slap” was in the offing, yet she stayed around to see what would happen, in bed, caressing the boys.
For all you know, Patrick, there may be women to whom a “turkey slap” is a great honour, or is sexually pleasing. I don’t know any (or don’t think I do), but there you go… I live a cloistered life nowadays.
To claim that it is a manifest “assault”, in and of itself, denies the variation in sexual preference and attidudes that is present in our society.
For example, there is a very large and profitable industry devoted to manufacturing pornography on the subject of “humiliation”. So, I guess not all people find “humiliating” behaviour so bad.
This is not necessarily the case with “Camilla”, of course, but there is evidence that she at least was not too upset at the incident.
You have to take all the consequences into account, as apparently the police, and the participants did, in deciding not to legally pursue the matter.
As to the charge that I believe any crime not prosecuted is therefore not a crime, it is an absurd suggestion. Some crimes are not detected. They may still be a crime.
Some crimes rely on the victim’s opinion as to whether there was criminal hurt done to them.
But in this case the “crime” was detected, the victim was interviewed, and yet still prosecution was declined.
What can we make of this other than that you seem to be more worried about it than the people involved were?
I think your beef is with the crassness of the behaviour itself, and its public nature. I’ll agree with you that it was crass, even insulting. It’s a pity people go around doing this kind of thing. It’s a pity there are TV shows where it can happen. It’s a pity people make unfunny jokes on subjects sensitive to the listener. Or tell “nigger” stories. Or fart in public. Or spit on the pavement.
But so what?
Claiming that is was an assault, in a legal rather than a semantic sense, is another matter altogether. That’s only Step #1. Then you have to shop around for a tribunal to hear the charges, like our Prime Minister is doing with David Hicks.
People assault each other every day, everywhere: buses, trains, footpaths, at sporting venues, over the backyard fence. It’s called “Life”. So why aren’t you complaining on this blog about the guy who pushed you off the bus the other day? Or the woman who barged in in front of you at the airport? Or the other bloke who shouted something nasty at you from his car on Tuesday? Or the girl you met at a club who wanted to fellate you in the alleyway outside, and you were horrified? Or the gay man who grabbed your penis at a party? Or vice versa (for all I know)? All of them assaults, all of them perhaps unsavoury, but you’re not in jail for assault yet, Patrick, nor are any of the people who may have “assaulted” you.
This Old Lefty, an pathetic relic of the Seventies Push, still clinging to outdated moral relativism, would prefer to worry about far greater “crimes” than this one, like the “Howard Slap” that has been delivered to David Hicks’ dreams of freedom from the Hell of Gitmo and Wowser-approved punishment without trial…
… especially as the participants don’t seem to be bothered at all… except that two of them lost the chance at the million dollars, and one got a lot closer to it. That’s a pretty high price to pay… or a good return on the investment… whatever turns you on, Man.
July 5th, 2006 at 6:06 pm
Aussie Bob,
you seem to think that Camilla invited herself into bed with them. SHE WAS INVITED. They called her over. She did not force her presence on them IT WAS INVITED!
As for most of the rest of your rant - you are WRONG. What was done was to sexually humiliate her, not in the spirit of a bit of boyish fun that went too far, but in a planned and intentional attempt to humiliate her.
Don’t bother responding with another of your long rants in an attempt to excuse yourself and your digusting ’she asked for it’ justifications for abhorrent behaviour because I won’t be bothered reading any more of you rubbish.
July 5th, 2006 at 6:09 pm
Please orang, it’s too close to dinner time.
July 5th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
Pollytickedoff: Another Howard Wowser.
Geez, when will you guys ever learn?
While Iraq simmers, Hick suffers, workers lose their pay and conditions…
The most important thing in Australia today is a stupid reality show and the morons who inhabit it.
You poor people. You fall for the spin EVERY time.
Big Brother does not matter. That’s un-real reality.
The world matters. And you can’t see it.
Enough…
July 5th, 2006 at 9:43 pm
You poor people. You fall for the spin EVERY time.
I think she was assaulted, that this is a bad thing AND I think the Howard government is involved in worse things. Geez, I must be some sort of genius to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time like that.
You know, Bob, just because people discuss this topic on a thread about this topic doesn’t mean they are idiots who can’t worry about other things as well. Might be an idea to at least extend them the courtesy of not questioning their intelligence just because they came to a different conclusion to you about this issue.
July 6th, 2006 at 9:18 am
If a man gropes a woman on a bus (or a woman gropes a man or a man a man or a woman a woman or whatever combination you want to try on) it’s sexual assault, or at least indecent assault, and it’s wrong. If a woman gets ‘turkey slapped’ on t.v. it’s sexual/indecent assault. There is no question of anything but sufficient evidence and a willing complainant to press charges. Yeah, it’s not murder in Iraq or torture in Guantanamo, it’s just plain ol’ everyday degradation of women. How does that make it o.k.? It doesn’t. Wake up, ‘Aussie Bob’, the swingin’ seventies are over.
July 6th, 2006 at 9:23 am
Fair point, Tim, I take back the “Howard”.
I’m listening to Pru Goward on the radio at the moment. She is the Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner. She is talking about this very incident.
Her point is that the sexual harassment involves objective and subjective elements.
She reminded listeners that the woman, Camilla, has no complaint (this is the subjective element), indeed has said (I paraphrase) “we were fooling around in a way we often do“.
Furthermore, when asked to stop, the boys stopped. Goward pointed out that a key element of sexual harassment is persistence after being asked to stop. She gave, in her words, a “tick” to the boys for this.
She further noted the objective involvement of the police who found no further action was necessary.
So we have objective and subjective conditions of sexual harassment not fulfilled. We do not have persistence in the offending behaviour.
Instead we have a bunch of people setting out to console a woman who needs or wants no consoling.
The patronising attitude expressed here, that others know what is better for her - a grown, adult woman - is more of a problem than the actual acts of the participants.
In order to sustain a charge or an accusation of sexual harassment, or even sexual bad manners (let’s forget about the formal, legal aspect), in the light of these facts, you have to turn the case on its head.
You have to show that the police were derelict in their duty; that the woman is a naive, immature girl who does not know what is best for her; that her story regarding her familiarity with the boys is a lie.
Why bother, Tim?
Patrickg, Anna and the rest are far too worked up about this storm in a teacup. The “victim” is not worried ). The police are not worried. The Federal Sexual Discrimination Commissioner - Howard’s special friend - is not worried, and indeed is giving “ticks” to the boys for stopping when asked. As she put it, “the message is finally getting through”.
How much more evidence do you need to realise that being “turkey slapped” is, in some sections of society, not that awful a thing? Perhaps a little crass and over the top, but not warranting any action other than asking the boys to stop, which they did.
You mightn’t turkey slap a woman. I mightn’t. Some do, and in some cases it’s no big deal, requiring no more than stopping when asked to. We should butt out of what is their business.
It’s only been whipped up because Howard sees a political advantage in marshalling the Wowsers to his banner, again. He’s now talking about changing the law, flying the flag of “Middle Class Morality” (as Alfred Dolittle put it so well) in yet another witch hunt out to distract us from the real problems in Australia today.
This is how Hicks got into - and stays - in Gitmo. This is how the boat people got sent off to Nauru. This is why people on the dole are vilified. This is why gays are discriminated against… because so many think that they’re morality should be applied to everyone else. And if the poor “victims” persist in their behaviour, or even restate their lack of concern for it, they are somehow deranged, misguided or cowed into submission by Dark Forces.
I would bet that no-one on this blog would support any of the things mentioned in the last paragraph, from the continued incarceration of Hicks right through to gay discrimination. Of course, we’re pretty cool lefties.
So Howard shops around for something that does get us whipped up. What better choice for Howard than turning the Big Brother molehill into Moral Mountain of amended legislation, radio interviews, newspaper articles and judgemental free kicks involving the latest wowser-induced “crisis” in our society?
And right on cue, we all chime in because we know what best for the “victims”, more than they do themselves.
Sometimes I despair for the Lefties, they’re so wet. The Hard Men on the Right are chuckling into their Scotches, having succeeded again in whipping up a piece of nothing into a national outrage, while the real funny business of Australia goes through to the keeper without comment.
As a post-script, you might also consider who has benefited here, apart from Camilla, who now has two competitors less between her and the million dollars, and seems to have a modicum of public sympathy on her side to help her with later SMS phone-in votes.
With Ten’s highest rating show vilified, regulated and on notice to tone down its main feature - grossness - the Nine Network’s Jaimie Packer will be smiling as he eats his strawberries and cream at Wimbledon. He never had an easier win than this.
Thanks Mr. Howard. Jaimie owes you one.
July 6th, 2006 at 9:42 am
AB - too true. Howard wanted IR off the front page and thats what happened. Now North Korea is playing into the hands of the Neocons again, which will help keep it off.
Howard is the luckiest politician in history.
July 6th, 2006 at 11:56 am
\”Now North Korea is playing into the hands of the Neocons again, which will help keep it off.\”
Nah, another storm in a teacup. America wants to let skyrockets off on the 4th of July, why shouldn\’t North Korea? I think it was rather brilliant timing.
This is pure sabre rattling, including the \”threat\” to shoot down the missiles by the Yanks. I once visited the US Pacific Missile Defence base on the western coast of Kauai. They\’d be too busy drinking gin-slings in the Officers\’ Mess or playing golf on the private 18-hole course to shoot anything down. It\’s a resort, not a military base.
Shoot down NK missiles? They wish…
July 6th, 2006 at 12:22 pm
AB agree - but it helps Howard by pushing IR into the background while those N. Korean wackos do everything they can to help GB scare the pants off the US public in the lead up to US mid terms in November.
July 6th, 2006 at 12:29 pm
So no one wants to seriously look at the regulation nightmare? A Tv show’s internet stream (simultaneously available on your mobile) is captured and distributed under fair dealing as a news item. Tv is self regulated, and also through the Broadcasting Act. Internet is not, and if it were, could be hosted overseas. Mobile phone ‘tv like’ content is kind of regulated, and no one has any idea where an emailed link to a foreign hosting site with the video stands. The Prime Minister’s kneejerk reaction is typical of this country’s lack of digital media policies.
As to sexual assault or indecent beahviour. After watching the incident several times (my copy of the video was only 1 minute 43 long) my opinion is that Camilla expected the act, voluntarily went to the bed, mentioned the term turkey slap before it occured, had ample opportunity not to subject herself to it, laughed it off, remained in the bed, joked about it and generally didn’t look or act like a victim.
A friend got to the core of Big Brother for me the other day: It’s what non-university students do instead of the stuff that happens on college campuses. Frat pranks for those without the brains for uni.
July 6th, 2006 at 1:01 pm
“Frat pranks for those without the brains for uni.”
Whew!
Thanks Bjorn (suspiciously rhymes with “porn”)… you can take over being the resident “Ivan Milat” from yours truly.
Question of the Day:
Is Bjorn a “Brainist Pig” and intellectual snob or what?
What qualifies only the “stupid” in our society as Turkey Slappers?
Discuss…
July 6th, 2006 at 1:07 pm
AB,
So your suggesting that because we object to sexual assault we’re “wowsers”. I’m too young to even really know what a wowser is. I’ve got a headache so this won’t be the most eloquent of objections. Your argument is ridiculous and pig-headed. Something I think you don’t get is that just because a sexual assault isn’t prosecuted doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Rape and sexual assaults are the most under-reported crimes in our criminal law. The NSW attorney-general put out a report not long back because it’s so concerning.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/definition-of-sex-consent-splits-legal-world/2006/04/11/1144521339089.html
Are you seriously suggesting that when someone doesn’t press ahead with charges for rape or sexual assault it’s because it doesn’t happen?
July 6th, 2006 at 1:24 pm
…my opinion is that Camilla expected the act, voluntarily went to the bed, mentioned the term turkey slap before it occured, had ample opportunity not to subject herself to it, laughed it off, remained in the bed, joked about it and generally didn’t look or act like a victim. Bjorn
Furthermore, when asked to stop, the boys stopped. AB
And that is the bottom line.
Enough of this subject, please folks, we are giving it far more oxygen than it deserves, and are just starting to run around in circles and create divisions within our own side of politics, which is exactly what Howard et al want from this.
Let’s get back to the real issues. You know, IR, environment, health, democratic processes, etc.
July 6th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
ending the italics (my eyes!!)
July 6th, 2006 at 1:41 pm
Aussie Bob wrote:
“Frat pranks for those without the brains for uni.”
Whew!
Thanks Bjorn (suspiciously rhymes with “porn”)… you can take over being the resident “Ivan Milat” from yours truly.
Question of the Day:
Is Bjorn a “Brainist Pig” and intellectual snob or what?
What qualifies only the “stupid” in our society as Turkey Slappers?
Discuss…
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Ok, so it’s just as silly as the stuff people get up to at uni/college. My point was that I finally understood why so many people watch it, and why my interest waned after the first season: Me and my friends lived this stuff throughout uni, and I figure many others did too. I enjoyed the Animal House school of films and posit (and report my friend’s theory to which I sucscibe)that Big Brother is uni life, just without the uni. And somewhere in that is probably an assumption that people who go to uni are smarter than those who don’t. Shoot me (Mr Milat?!?). I enjoyed the debauchery and silliness of nude runs, indecent exposure and consenting s3xual assault (we called it flirting). These were a counter point to hard work at 2 degrees and some pretty stressful exams and learning. Big Brother has no counterpoint, it’s just the silliness.
My name also rhymes with horn, spawn and yawn, plus there are some great Abba jokes you can make (start with “Oh no, not Bjorn again!”.
The easy answer to your last question, is that there is no need to differentiate: all those willing to jump into bed with two guys, knowing they will get turkey slapped, should have the freedom to do so, doubly so if they want to do it on TV/internet/phone streaming.
July 6th, 2006 at 2:07 pm
“Are you seriously suggesting that when someone doesn’t press ahead with charges for rape or sexual assault it’s because it doesn’t happen?/i>”
No. I thought I’d cleared that up, Anna, but for your benefit…
The elements of the offence are objective and subjective.
Objectively: the police, in possession of compelling video evidence, declined to prosecute. The boys, when asked to stop, stopped.
Subjectively: the “victim” declined to prosecute, and I hear even defended the boys’ actions. She stayed around after the incident was over, continuing in a friendly manner to remain in the bed with them.
These are points made by Prue Goward, the Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner, this morning on ABC radio. It is her job to oversee the Federal Government’s response to such occurrences, expecially notorious ones, as in this case. They are also the positions of the police and the “victim”. Are they all misguided, corrupt or morally bankrupt? How come you know better?
Turkey Slapping may not be your cup of tea, Anna - it is certainly not mine - but some people don’t get so offended about it. It seems Camilla falls into this latter category.
Lots of people do, like or don’t object to yucky things sexually that well brought-up members of society like yourself would shun as “offensive”.
This is party what Big brother is all about: its shock value to those outside the demographic. That the Biggest Dag In Australia, John Howard, has condemned it will quite possibly give a boost to its flagging ratings.
You must be very