Sam Newman Presents…
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13 Comments
FD. How gloriously apposite. Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. THEY EXERCISE RESTRAINT. Not so our pig-shit footballers. Male bonding as an indoor sport; a gang-bang whilst on-lookers masturbate on the unfortunate victim. Shudder, shudder. Shudder shudder. Carn Aussie Oi oi oi!
As for Sam Newman-actually I’ve never seen him on TV, as I happen to loathe footy but I did see a painting of him at Joels. I quite liked it. /there’s our Sam naked and displaying his v good body. It was also a v good sort of visual pun with sporting references.
I can’t help but think the guy is gay. His bitchy anti-female comments are a dead give-away.
PS.Once again, many thanks for your help.
Lotsa luv
Venise
PS. Why can we not print the occasional comment any more? I don’t mean the writers of blogs, but the people who comment on these comments. If you know what I mean.
Oh brave and noble dog.
It takes a lot of courage to finally display those elephants in the room without their eyes blocked out!!…………..They’ll never forget you.
Venise - thank you for so eloquently expressing my views entirely! Also, these men who see themselves as more manly than most participate in ‘group sex’ as a homosexual activity, the aim of it is to enjoy your fellows (not the woman who is denigrated, a whore, not a goddess). In spite of FD’s consideration of this act throughout the species, cant help but suspect that this is an Australian cultural value and practice of manhood - a tradition passed down from the days of the gendered conquest, mateship forged in societies notable for the absence of women and of course convictism. Men, who assume they are in control, as victims of historical tradition, now there’s a twist…
Hmmmm, FD, I like the cartoon, and I’m only replying here because there are few other forums.
This whole mess, from start to finish stinks like so much elephant dung. I suspect very strongly that the Cronulla boys have done the wrong thing, in Christchurch 7 years ago. But, really, they’re only Rugby League players, so what do you expect?
On the flipside, I think Johns has been treated disgracefully, particularly by the media. The ABC doco was a hatchet job reminiscent of the halcyon days of ACA and foot in door journalism. His treatment and commentary in the media have made it virtually impossible to have a fair trial, and also, it’s removed any chance of the others involved stepping forward.
There’s been some dreadful moralising in the media as well, suggesting that group shagging, under any circumstances is objectively wrong, and the boys should have known this. This is straying into dangerous territory, where other sensual deviancy becomes the fodder of newspapers to tut tut anyone not involved in missionary-hetero-sex. Miranda Divine, I’m looking at you.
Sorry for the tirade, in what is a pretty funny cartoon, but we need to be careful to fully identify which issue exactly we are responding too. 2 wrongs definitely don’t make anything right, and hanging Johns out to dry in public humiliation and destruction does nothing to change the past. I just hope to Christ he doesn’t top himself.
OOh…I totally agree with some things posted here but am internally cringing at others: yes, Matty Johns has been made a scapegoat in this instance, but consider the message any alternative response, by the media, by the network, would have conveyed to the public, to current and up&coming elephants and to women of all ages. Evan, we shouldn’t expect LESS of our elephants because they play Rugby League….it is a myth that the male of the species cannot control their sexual impulses, their “biffo” instincts or their self-restraint when it comes to indulging in alcohol or drugs - the Code they play it totally irrelevant….and, while I take your point about the dangers of the media moralising about “group shagging,” this was clearly NOT a case where the shaggee had as much power as the shaggers (irrespective of whether the initial group activity was consentual.) Furthermore, Matty Johns has suggested as much by stating that he apologised to the woman involved after the event. Why the need to apologise if it was all a big Consentual Elephant Orgy?
I do feel it is unfair that Matty is bearing the full brunt of the media frenzy…I think it states oodles about the lack of courage and integrity of his fellow “bulls” that they haven’t come forward…they could easily have done so to support his claim that the “herd bonking” was totally consentual. But they haven’t.
F.D., The unmasked elephants in a pornographic “scrum” was a brilliant bit of symbolism.
Hilarious FD but way over Sam Newman’s head. According to wikibunkum it’s an oft used selection process in male sporting codes where players performance on and off the field is monitored by the hierarchy. All sorts of euphemisms such as team bonding, sorting the men from the boys, sharing the experience are used to allay parental fears about touch sports. The scouting movement is much the same - men showing boys how to survive.
Hi Kerrie, you are of course right, and I agree mostly. My comment on friday was supposed to be a little bit comic, cause this is a comic after all.
I don’t think they did the right thing, and Johns needs some sort of punishment, but we need to remember while we’re doing it not to remove other people’s rights in the process. Namely, their rights of sexual expression and right to a fair trial, other than in the Kangaroo court of the media. Some commentators have suggested that group sex and infidelity should be virtually illegal, and I think this view would represent a roll back of sexual rights that we definitely should not support.
On the right to a fair trial, Johns is baring the brunt of a public dislike of a hopeless culture, but one where he is by no means the worst offender. As Crikey mentioned this week, and Fitzsimmons did on Saturday, in the NRL there have been lots of worse things happen in the last couple of seasons that have gone unpunished, and it’s like they’ve offered Johns as a sacrificial lamb to cleanse their other sins. So I would argue that burning Johns achieves nothing except classic eye for an eye justice, which I for one do not support.
This is a muddy matter.
Love the inclusion of micro-organisms as wanton shaggers.
Hi EV, you don’t think that as Captain the man is as week as kitten piss?
Why have no media commented on the vicarious liability that the NRL/AFL Board, Chairman/managers and trainers share in this sort of pack activity. Irrespective of who the players are, surely there have been enough education programs run in-house to ensure the people at the top know this. Here’s the Pepsi challenge: who can be the first to say they will not treat women only as objects? I challenge any man to wish such ‘bonding’ activities on their own daughter/s.
Denise Muir-McCarey: The managers, trainers and the rest of the retinue, are no longer the youthful players they used to be. Haven’t you noticed the insider’s smirk so often on the faces of these men on the outer? Sure, they’ll pay lip-service to current political mores, but deep down they curse their fate at no longer being able to behave as badly as their charges.
Also, don’t forget there’s a strong element of homos-xuality in the football scene. Which is very confusing for the men involved. On the one hand you have emasculated males-rendered thus by marketing women as being beautiful for the size of her t-ts. On the other hand a man is only as good as the size of his budgie-smugglers. Then there’s the s-xuality given off by the gay culture as well.
Think about it Denise: Footy players tend to be somewhat stupid. All their lives they been pressurized by their families, or their Church, to try to do the right thing. Since when would the Church know what was right in the first place? I offer as evidence the degree of sodomy prevalent in a theocracy extraordinarily
dominated by chastity, one which regards women as unclean and inherently inane. Oz culture precludes interest in or knowledge of women. Can you imagine a football player actually seeking out a woman because he happens to like her?
Put together this mixture of stupidity, an Australian culture which is inherently dismissive of females, the limited intelligence of fourteen to fifteen year old boys, bodies riddled with raging hormones; what do you have? A pack animal waiting for it’s leader (Matthew Johns) to make the first move. We all know what happens next.
As for the trainers and hangers-on. Shear envy, sugar-coated, but envy is the dominant thought.
Sorry to be a pessimist but the whole of working-class culture will continue to prevent looking at women as people as long as there is an advertising/movie/womens’ mags/ mens’ mags/ devoted to keeping women as s-xless Barbie Dolls, and men who are only as good as the size of their budgie-smugglers. What a cretinous take on the people of Oz.
Anyway you get the general idea.