In a group-sex session between nine huge men and one “immature 19-year-old woman” is each of the men individually responsible for checking he’s not taking part in gang rape? This is the question which currently divides Australia
Or to be precise: when a woman agrees to have a threesome with two rugby players and six other players turn up and decide they want to take part, at what point does it become rape? If the woman at first “brags” about the act the next morning, but then later comes to regret it, does that mean it couldn’t have been rape?
Australia is currently having a mass debate about this issue because the men were all rugby players. Or rather, because one in particular – one of the original two – is a huge rugby star. His name is Matthew Johns and he and his brother Joey are NRL royalty.
The L stands for League, and to get your head around this whole issue you have to understand how big Rugby League is out here. It’s bigger than football in England, bigger than “football” in the States. It’s huge.
As are the men who play it. League is a big violent game where necks and brains are unwelcome diversions from the ferocity of running into and through the only men around as big as you. The physicality of the game has been used by some academics here to explain the peculiar nature of League sex scandals. You see, no one is surprised when these unintelligent young men spend the money that is thrown at them on fast cars and alcohol, nor that they attract a certain type of attention.
But what is surprising is that when these men copulate drunkenly in hotel bedrooms, they tend to do it in each other’s company. “Personally,” my mate Kurt tells me, “the sight of my best mate’s bum banging up and down would be the biggest turn off in the world”. Not so for League players.
When Matthew Johns and a “fellow, unnamed player” accompanied a 19-year-old New Zealand woman to her hotel room during a 2002 tour, neither of them thought it strange when their team mates came barging in for a piece of the action. Or so they say. The girl (operating under a pseudonym which confounds those claiming she just wants attention) says John’s took her to a taxi later and said “he hoped things hadn’t got too out of hand in there”. Now why would he think that?
What I find most shocking about this debate is the views of those around me. Women above all keep telling me “she obviously wanted it”. Even Kurt, who’s played a bit of rugby in his time, confirms that it’s a difficult issue because there are so many predatory women who’ll follow a tour. But my favourite quote of the debate is from a player from another team who said “The best way to avoid these scandals is to treat the girl right afterwards, make sure she gets a taxi for example”.
It’s not clear why this story has emerged only now, seven years after the event. What is clear is that the girl involved blames the events of that night for the collapse of her life. “If I had a gun I’d kill them all” she says. “I hate them.”
It is doubtful whether she will get an opportunity with a shotgun but she may well have done for the club. LG have withdrawn their sponsorship of the Cronulla Sharks and the club is suddenly facing bankruptcy. In the current climate no other sponsor is likely to step in and few expect the club to survive.
With Telstra (our telecom) threatening to withdraw its league-wide sponsorship, the entire sport is looking shakey right now. Peter Fitzsimmons, everybody’s favourite sports writer, wrote before this scandal broke that “unless NRL can drag itself into the 21st century its fan-base will desert it and it will die”. Few expected his words to come true so soon.
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