I don’t know what happened in Christchurch. I have never watched The Footy Show. And I missed the interviews on the television.
But I did hear a lot of conversations in the weeks after the latest football ‘kiss-and-tell’, both on talkback radio, in the press and (amazingly enough) even in real life.
It struck me as rather odd that the feminist lot seemed to expand it to all Australian men (of whom the footballer is apparently a subclass) needing to learn to respect women.
Now, of course, once that card has been laid on the table, it is difficult to object to it, for who wants to go down as objecting to respecting women? The opposite is clearly damnable: “What, are you saying we should disrespect women?”
It is also a tricky issue to discuss in the recent unpleasantness, because objecting to the feminist rhetoric (which so quickly swamped the details of the case in a grander feminist vision) could be taken as defending the philandering for which Rugby League seems to have a growing reputation for (perhaps indicating that the NRL is hell-bent on showing that it is not the game that will be played in heaven).
So, to be clear, I am all for respecting women, and I am all against all kinds of immorality.
But, that said, I still find the feminist rhetoric rather odd at at least two points:
Yes and no
Firstly, the rhetoric shows the absolute poverty of a view of life that is based purely and simply on a person’s choice/consent. To be fair, this is not just the domain of the feminist, for it is foundational to western individualism in both modernist and postmodernist variations. Dare I say, it is therefore probably no surprise that it also riddles our churches too, and supposedly ‘Christian’ morality. But that is another story.
From all the scuttlebutt that I have heard in the last few weeks, nobody at all is suggesting that what went on in Christchurch was not consensual. The men, the woman, the police (in their investigations both at the time and in the present review) seem to be united on this point. So, to put it simply, from all accounts, the woman said, “Yes”.
Now it has taken a long and concerted campaign for men to learn that when a woman says “No”, she means “No”. ‘No’ always means ‘no’. But now, at least, according to the feminist spokespeople commenting on this incident, ‘Yes’ doesn’t always mean ‘yes’.
Now, I happen to agree with them on this point. There are all kinds of reasons why ‘consent’ is not really consent, and I would love this debate to go elsewhere—down to the ‘Age of Consent’ question, to how teenage promiscuity is masked as normal experimentation, and other such sexual issues, and then more. But the point here is that this incident has brought out the utter uselessness of a morality based on ‘consent’ or ‘choice’.
In theory, if I can live dangerously for a minute, when it comes to this ‘consent’ issue, the only people respecting the woman in this incident were the men, who let her yes be yes. Her feminist defenders are, in fact, overturning the long tradition forged by the ‘no’ case by saying, “She said, ‘Yes’, but she really meant ‘No’”. Now, is that really respecting the lady’s wishes, actions and words? Is that really respecting her?
One or more
The second oddity comes from the group sex thing. Some of the feminists I heard chattering away apparently suggested that the group nature of what went on in Christchurch demonstrates the sort of disrespect for women that they are opposing. I found myself wondering why.
Okay, time for another caveat. I am definitely against sex in any other context than between a man and his wife, full stop, end of story. That is my Christian morality. But this is not the morality being pushed by western feminism. To suggest that one woman ‘belongs to’ one man is to demean women by suggesting ownership. Just as men have been promiscuous, so too women should have the right to be promiscuous. But if that is true, then a group experience must be immoral, or at least objectionable, simply because of its timing. That is, a series of men can have sex with (or watch?) the one woman in a sequence stretching out over time (whatever that interval may be), and that is her feminism-given right. But if this sequence is contracted into one moment, then the men involved are not respecting her.
Living dangerously I may be with this post. But it appears to me to be even more dangerous to live outside of God’s ways. When a political slogan becomes a substitute for good ethics, moral confusion and real moral damage to real human beings can be the only result.
God’s ways are much easier to understand: if you are not married to him/her, then leave him/her alone. That is self-respect, female respect, male respect, human being respect, marriage respect, children respect, society respect and God respect.
Great post, Peter.
I must say I also found it interesting that the (consensual) group sex was considered disrespectful to women while Johns’ adultery against his wife didn’t seem to attract much comment.
Ephesians 5:18
I’ve always viewed “consent” as a legal term and “choice” as a personal/moral term. They basically mean the same thing, but there seems to be a slight difference. Consider these statements:
I consent to being his wife.
I chose to be his wife.
As for respect, I don’t want people to respect me just because I’m female (or black/white, rich/poor, educated/not). I want people to respect me for the same reason I respect them. We are eternal beings. We will lose these bodies, but we will all rise again to be brought into the Kingdom of God or sent to the fires of Hell. Either way – we are eternal beings and should be respected as such.
At the risk of being accused of being a “feminist chatterer” I’ll wade into this debate.
If you watched the 4 Corners Program, the issue of consent was not so clear cut and I”m sure that for legal reasons media could not accuse the men involved of committing a crime.
From what the Police officer and the woman said it appeared to me that whilst she might have consented to sex with one person, it wasn’t clear that she agreed to the group encounter.
Onto the wider moral issue you raise and not the specifics of the football incident above.
There is no doubt a view of life/morals that is based entirely on consent or personal choice is impoverished and not one a Christian can endorse-but the greater evil is to ignore importance of consent in one’s moral framework and a Christian should not do this either.
Ignoring the notion of consent, leads to the sort of inhumane and rule based ethical systems that should be anathema to Christians.
Not to mention gross injustice, eg if you ignore consent, then a woman who is raped has committed the sin of adultery (and in some Non-Christian countries she’d be stoned to death for it too)-unless of course she’s raped by her husband and if we ignore consent then I guess the husband hasn’t sinned at all.
I have to say, this is a very crude caricature. To make such a strawman out of “Western feminism” doesn’t really do anyone any favours.
We reject the silly caricatures we hear about Christians that secular people may make based on ‘some Christians they heard chattering away’ – why create them about others?
For example:
Who holds such a view of life? Only these feminists of your creation, so far as I can tell.
Utterly useless? What happens within marriage, ie the issue of marital rape, is a good example, as Melinda says.
It would have to be only in theory, as otherwise I think that’s a fairly awful misrepresentation of what allegedly happened.
Like i say – if we don’t want people misrepresenting us, we really shouldn’t do it to others.
As foci for mass-adulation, it seems celebrities may be particularly susceptible to finding themselves at risk of improperly exploiting their influence in debauched circumstances.
While I agree with earlier comments to the effect that positive ascertainment of informed consent is necessary to safeguarding the propriety of sexual conduct, peculiar considerations of Honour may also help in some contexts (on a gut level, I somehow reckon it’s downright caddish to take advantage of a fan’s patently delusional adoration of oneself.)
Thank you for posting, Peter.
I’m aware you sometimes write to be provocative and stimulate discussion. And you make good, solid points, with which mostly I agree at the end of the day. But, with due respect, I found this post really hard going and upsetting because of its heavy-handedness.
Yes, feminism has scored an own goal by setting certain parameters; the rhetoric may have failed them in this case. But there is more at play than merely ‘consent’ and ‘timing’, a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. As Melinda and yourself have said, the notion ‘consent’ is a very complex one. Technically, consent may have been implied and the letter of the law was unbroken. But it’s not unlikely that there was pressure, chemically induced disinhibition or other factors.
I’m not saying we have right to speculate on the circumstances or excuse anyone’s behaviour. But at least, let’s recognise that there was an enormous power imbalance between one very young girl and a group 10 buff, famous and adored footballers who work as a team. How would one go about arguing for equality of participation or guilt? Maybe it’s just my take on things. But it’s clear to me that they used her. Together.
Perhaps the political rhetoric is at a loss to articulate why this case is so messed up (which in turn shows how societal ethics + morals are messed up). But maybe we could work harder at proffering an alternative, a little more nuanced than what’s “outside God’s ways”, with more sympathy than polemics.
Thanks all. Yes, consent is a tricky thing (as I admitted in the post), and i think this latest issue actually shows its inadequacy (my basic point). Biblical sexual morality is actually delightfully objective and so free from these problems (my point in the last par, although admittedly truncated). It is also interesting, Kate, that rather than using the ‘our bodies will be gone’ rationale, exactly the opposite point is made (it seems to me) in 1 Cor 6-7: the body that will be raised on the resurrection day, so keep it from immorality, and (if married) give it to your partner cos that is what God has given it for (loose translations). As for lack of sympathy, Hon, sorry about that, but to redirect, I was really talking about comments around the issue, rather than the girl involved. I think (as i will say in another follow up) using the issue to raise bigger feminist political agendas is not really sympathetic to the individual, nor does the advice go far enough to actually help anyone in the future.
Thank you, Peter. Looking forward to the next installment.
Some would say the sentence remains equally true if you replace the word “feminist” with Christian.
Perhaps it would be better to leave well enough alone on this issue….particularly as you are only commenting on comments about the issue rather than even the media coverage.
Just a thought.
Melinda, i take it you are saying I am doing the same thing? Actually, from the beginning I have been talking about the comments raised by the event and not the event itself, sorry if that hasn’t been clear. And, of course, isn’t this okay to do? It is also part of the ‘media coverage’ since one of the people who raised the comments I am reacting to is Green Senator Christine Milne who quickly seized the opportunity and actually successfully moved a motion along these lines in the Senate as a response. (http://christine-milne.greensmps.org.au/taxonomy/term/98/all ). Shouldn’t we have public discussion about such further developments, now that the unfortunate event has now been overtaken by unfortunate ideology?
Peter, I don’t think you’ve suceeded in separating comments about the event from the event itself. The premise of your argument was
so the issues are merged in the post.
If you’re trying to initiate discussion on “further developments”, then surely the more loving thing to do would be to critique Senator Milne’s statement, or whoever else’s specifics comment are out there in black in white.
One of the fascinating sideshows to this tragic event has been listening to people, publicly and privately, try to explain why what happened in that Christchurch hotel room was wrong.
Tracy Grimshaw questioned the ability of “Clare” to give consent when she was only 19. Grimshaw also pointed out she was naked and in a room full of footballers. All this might make her vulnerable, but does not prevent her from freely giving consent.
Phil Gould said the problem occurred when other Sharks players entered the room. But this, too, does not prevent her from freely giving consent.
There was nothing in the Four Corners report to suggest the players did not have Clare’s consent – although the fact she complained to police does raise that issue. But the police investigation found no illegality. And the players claim they had her consent.
On the face of it, nothing seems to have been illegal, yet many people are saying what happened was “wrong”. But none can really give an adequate reason why.
A colleague of mine said it was wrong because “society says so”. But what society deems to be right or wrong depends on the time, the person and the society.
Listening to my post-modern colleagues searching for an absolute has been interesting – and even heartbreaking. They want to say that this behaviour is wrong – but can’t find a satisfactory reason on which to base that belief.
But this is what we as Christians have been arguing for years – a moral code without God is baseless. We know that what happened in that hotel room was wrong because God says so. We know that sex is only for a husband and wife.
So many people were hurt by that Christchurch encounter – but what a wonderful opportunity for us as Christians to explain to those around us that God has a perfect design for our lives!
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord. “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11.
Really, perhaps you need to get out more.
As I alluded to in my last post on the follow-up thread. What many Christian and non-Christians find objectionable about the behaviour is that the men colluded to treat a human being as an object with which to gratify their desires.
They had no regard for her as a person and this comes out very clearly if you watched Four Corners. People know that they wouldn’t want to be treated like that and that it is wrong.
I suspect that the knowledge of wrong doing is based on the faint echo of Jesus words to do unto others as you would have done unto you that reveberates around western cultures.
Surely that’s a start to engage with people about Jesus, rather than what I see here as crude mockery of secular attempts to engage with ethics.