CYNICAL AND SHAMELESS

Not content with only one massive screw-up Jeremy Sear today returns to the group sex issue. He misleads from the outset:

I’d thought responses to the “group sex” issue currently being discussed couldn’t get much worse than Andrew Bolt’s idea that consent is, rather than the critical issue, a “furphy”. But I was wrong.

Bolt's use of "furphy", while unusual, does not mean that consent in regard to sexual activity is a "furphy" -- such use of the word is nonsensical. A "furphy" is a false report; if you will, something that misleads. Bolt's point is that the granting of consent can be misleading in that consenting to participate in an activity does not mean that participating in that activity is the right thing to do. This is obvious in the context of Bolt's article:

The ABC’s Four Corners program on Monday tracked down Charmyne Palavi, who collects footballer lovers. One NRL player had shown her a film he’d taken on his phone.

Said Palavi: “He goes, ‘we picked up this one girl and there was like seven of us on her and everything’ . . . and he goes ‘we just filmed her to say that she consented to it’.”

All good, then, right?

Wrong, of course, yet how often this “consent” furphy is used to dodge uncomfortable debates on morality.

Take the excuses made last year for not damning Melbourne photographer Bill Henson for stripping and taking soft-porn pictures of a 13-year-old girl, posed moodily with her breasts exposed.

But she’d agreed, Henson’s many defenders protested. She’d consented, the girl’s giddy parents insisted. So what’s the problem?

The problem is that trusting to consent means - for a start - trusting that people are smart enough and strong enough to work out all by their uncertain selves what’s good for them.

Notice that rather than quote Bolt in context Jeremy merely cites Bolt's use of the word "furphy" with an attached link to the earlier Pure Poison group sex post. Follow the link and you'll find Jeremy cites "furphy" four times but makes no effort to put the word in context as used by Bolt. Anyone wanting to know what Bolt was getting at must therefore click the link to his article. It will be immediately clear that Bolt is not saying what Jeremy nebulously claims he says.

This is, according to Jeremy, unacceptable:

A link is provided under the text needing support, and it is implied that it backs up the assertion made - and it is only if the reader clicks on it that they will discover that it does no such thing. Everyone else - at some sites, probably the majority - will automatically assume the linked content says pretty much what the linking text says it does. You can see the opportunity this technique, if more widely-adopted, would provide the cynical and shameless.

And:

I’d have thought the rule was fairly simple: if you’re going to quote an enemy in order to attack him THEN QUOTE HIM. Don’t quote your earlier paraphrasing of him.

Which is, of course, exactly what Jeremy does. He's not real big on following his own rules our Jeremy. It's all rather cynical and shameless.

Update: Work commitments prevented me looking at the rest of Jeremy's latest self-embarrassment, in which he also attacks sportswriter Margie McDonald:

On Friday, the Australian published a frankly appalling piece by someone named Margie McDonald, entitled “Women need educating too”.

A 1,000+ word assault on McDonald follows. As with the Bolt article, Jeremy applies his razor-sharp lawyer brain to twisting McDonald's intent. Jeremy, ostensibly male -- ignore the girly arms, narrow shoulders, dyed hair and cat infatuation -- even likens McDonald to a "misogynist dinosaur", finding her female point of view "offensive".

McDonald's point is that females should perhaps be educated as to the possible risks associated with casual sex:

Not too long ago, the national TV advertising campaign "Violence Against Women -- Australia Says No" sent powerful messages. How about a campaign "Going to Hotel Rooms With Several Men -- Australia Says Think Again"?

Education should also come at home, between parents and children and between siblings. If kids are not taught respect, dignity and courtesy by seven or eight, how will they respect themselves, or others, when they are 17 or 18?

For those not fortunate enough to have a good family home, the education must happen at school.

McDonald noting that a female captured on a -- now seemingly all-pervasive -- camera apparently willing participating in sexual activity might be something more than embarrassed:

If I go into a hotel toilet or up in the lift with a player/players to a room, there's a good chance I'll be filmed on CCTV or a mobile phone and, if something goes horribly wrong, I have no recourse in the courts. Maybe we need to start teaching teenage girls that.

Jeremy summing up:

The attitudes expressed by the Margie McDonalds and Andrew Bolts of the commentariat actually make things worse for young women who find themselves in a private room with any man, let alone a few of them. They are effectively saying to them: sorry my dear, you shouldn’t have gone in the first place - you only have yourself to blame for whatever happens. You’ve already consented - you have no rights from here on in.

WRONG. Bolt and McDonald both advocate women thinking carefully about groupie-sex before become involved in a situation they might later regret. As always, lefty Jeremy is opposed to individual responsibility.

Update II: A PP commenter accepts Jeremy's summary of McDonald's argument:

Hell, this is the old “the uterus is public property unless the girl is kicking and screaming argument‘
So girls don‘t get delusional and think you have 100% control over your own bodies, cause if it goes to court you‘ll be proved otherwise.

I surprised Margie didn’t say something about uncovered meat.

Geniuses, the lot of them.

Update III: South Park promotes gender equity.

Update IV: The latest is here.