group sex, is it rape?

I agree. Why is there this desperate need to exonerate these men? The current media storm says nothing about this girl's suffering. It has all been about poor Mattie Johns and losing his job as a TV presenter... How he is suffering. What about what this girl has been through?

SARAH FERGUSON: It generated a few brief news stories in New Zealand and Australia.

STEVE ROGERS, FORMER CEO CRONULLA SHARKS: We asked if they were aware of any incident that may have sparked such allegations and they are certainly not aware of anything.

SARAH FERGUSON: Four minutes of news footage, a blanket denial from the team's management and the story disappeared from view.

But not for the young woman involved, seven years later the pain is still raw.

CLARE: I do get really upset sometimes yeah but I just. I don't think about it and um I still feel that it's my fault.
(crying) But I know it's not, but I feel that way, so I just try not to think about it otherwise I get too upset.

SARAH FERGUSON: You still think it might be your fault?

CLARE: Just nothing ever happened and um, no one's on my side, so that's how that's just how I feel.

SARAH FERGUSON: In 2002, 19-year-old Clare, as we'll call her, was working part time as a waitress at the Racecourse Hotel on the outskirts of Christchurch.

After finishing work Clare went with two of the players back to their room, one of them started kissing her.

CLARE: I didn't want to you know, make a big deal out of a kiss and even though it was rough and disgusting and I was a piece of meat even at that stage, but it was you know it was you know, it was nothing it was just a kiss.

SARAH FERGUSON: Over the next two hours, at least 12 players and staff came in to the room, six of them had sex with Clare, the others watched. Five days after the event Clare made a complaint to police.

NEVILLE JENKINS, DETECTIVE SGT CHRISTCHURCH POLICE: It's a case that I do remember because of its extraordinary allegation.

SARAH FERGUSON: Neville Jenkins was one of the officers on the case.

Four weeks after the complaint was made, 40 players and staff from Cronulla were interviewed by police.

In their graphic descriptions, those present said she had consented to each and every act. No charges were laid.

SARAH FERGUSON (to Neville Jenkins): So it is the case that a large number of players and others in the Cronulla Sharks confirmed that group sex activity had taken place in that hotel?

NEVILLE JENKINS, DETECTIVE SGT CHRISTCHURCH POLICE: There were people involved with the Cronulla Sharks and their supporting crew confirmed that there was sexual activity with this young woman.

SARAH FERGUSON: Four Corners doesn't say that what took place in room 21 of the Racecourse hotel was sexual assault.

But a woman involved in degrading group sex can still be traumatised whether she consents or not.

In the course of the investigation, Jenkins formed an opinion of Clare.

NEVILLE JENKINS, DETECTIVE SGT CHRISTCHURCH POLICE: Um she was a nice girl. She was young, um naïve, not worldly, just a growing up teenager. But even for 19 she was quite young I felt.

CLARE: They were massive, like ah big Rugby players, I felt that I just had no idea what to do.

There was always hands on me and there was always um, if one person had stopped, someone was touching me and doing something else. There was never a point where I was not being handled.

Every time I looked up, there would be more and more people in the room and um there's lot, lots of guys in the room watching, ah maybe two or three that were on the bed that were doing stuff to me.

SARAH FERGUSON: Can you try and tell me what some of those things were?

CLARE: They flipped me over quite a bit and got out their penises and would put like, put them on my face and stuff and like maybe two guys would rub them on my face and things like that and yeah.

SARAH FERGUSON: What were the others doing while that was happening?

CLARE: They were I don't like know how to say it, um but masturbating yeah themselves while watching.

SARAH FERGUSON: The player she remembers best was there from the beginning.

CLARE: I only remember this whole time, I only remember one player definitely, it was Mattie Johns.

(Excerpt of footage from Logie Awards)

LOGIE VOICEOVER: Accepting the show's fifth Logie are.

(End of Excerpt)

SARAH FERGUSON: Matthew Johns is an NRL personality, he was 30 at the time, a former Knights and State of Origin player, he's best known now for his role on the Channel Nine Footy Show.

He told Four Corners he knew that one day this incident would catch up with him.

CLARE: He laughed and he joked and he very loud and boisterous and thought it was hilarious and you know kept it going.

SARAH FERGUSON: Matthew Johns and fellow player Brett Firman told Four Corners they were the first players to have sex with Clare, Firman said "she was up for it a hundred per cent".

Johns denies he kept it going, saying when he had finished he quote "took a step back."

CLARE: They never spoke to me, they spoke just to themselves, amongst themselves, laughing and thinking it was really funny. When you have sex with someone and it's nice and you talk and you touch and this was awful. This was nothing like, nothing like that.

SARAH FERGUSON: Some players even came into the room through the bathroom window.

CLARE: I had my eyes shut a lot of it and when I opened my eyes there was just a long line at the end of the bed.

SARAH FERGUSON: What was going through your mind when this was happening?

CLARE: I thought that I was, that I was nothing. I thought I was worthless and I thought I was nothing. And I think I was I was in shock. I didn't scream and they used a lot of like mental power over me and, and belittled me and made me feel really small like I was just a little old woman.

SARAH FERGUSON: Towards the end Paul Gallen, the current captain of the Cronulla sharks, went in to see what was happening. Gallen told us it was pretty much all over by then, but nothing bad had happened anyway.

After two hours it ended.

CLARE: I think maybe one of the guys said she's had enough, or something along those lines, like alright guys let's wrap it up she's had enough. And so I put my clothes on and walked out as, yeah.

SARAH FERGUSON: Did anybody talk to you while you were putting your clothes back on?

CLARE: No no one. I was nothing.

SARAH FERGUSON: Afterwards in the car park, Matthew Johns told Four Corners, he went up to Clare and said he was sorry about the other guys coming into the room.

The players continued with their careers, but seven years ago when the Cronulla caravan moved on from Christchurch, it left a young woman alone to deal with confusion and pain.

CLARE: Well for years and years afterwards I was, I was drinking a lot and um crying a lot and losing a lot of friends and just doing quite destructive things to myself and to other people.

SARAH FERGUSON: Did you continue with your studies?

CLARE: I tried to, but I couldn't.

SARAH FERGUSON: Did you did you know what was going on?

CLARE: No, no, no I, I just thought I was, I just thought I was a useless person that I couldn't like. Um I didn't yeah, didn't care about anything and I didn't really care what was happening.

SARAH FERGUSON: How long did that last for?

CLARE: Maybe four or five, five years or more to the end of it um, I wasn't so much drinking heaps and heaps, I was more scared to go out of the house. I was a bit of recluse, didn't want to go out and see the world after that.

NEVILLE JENKINS, DETECTIVE SGT CHRISTCHURCH POLICE: Yeah, I saw a young woman struggling with life. Um I didn't know her prior to this episode but presumably um, I'm led to believe that this is as a result of what happened to her at that time.

SARAH FERGUSON: And has she called you for help at any time during these years?

NEVILLE JENKINS, DETECTIVE SGT CHRISTCHURCH POLICE: Yes, she has.

SARAH FERGUSON: And in what sort of state has she been?

NEVILLE JENKINS, DETECTIVE SGT CHRISTCHURCH POLICE: Yeah distressed.

SARAH FERGUSON: The New Zealand Accident and Compensation Commission found that Clare was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.

Psychiatrists reported that she was suicidal, had cut her wrists several times and bought a rope to hang herself with.

The ACC funded treatment for her and gave her a weekly payment in compensation.

SARAH FERGUSON: Do you think it will ever go away for you?

CLARE: No never ever, no.

Transcript from part of the show in question.. The rest about actual code of silence and other assaults can be found in this link..

​

Sarah Ferguson was the reporter. Clare is the young girl who is at the center of this scandal.

Now Asguard, does it sound like consentual group sex to you? Happy times?

It doesn't to me.

There were other parts of this show that were quite chilling. That even one girl who does go out to have sex with these players found chilling. She commented earlier on in her interview that she had been raped by one player when she was drunk and any sex she has with the players now is consentual, in that both parties are sober and no drugs involved. But here is what she had to say about what one player boasted to her:

Made her.. Does that sound consentual to you?

What about the young university student who was passed out drunk in her dorm room when a football player walked into her room and tried to feel her up as she lay asleep until she woke up and was able to fight him off? Consentual?

I posted a quote from the ex-player who is now replacing Johns on the Footy Show. Do you know why I posted it? It is because his speech is that astounding. He's not saying that they shouldn't do stuff like that because it is wrong to treat women that way. He basically told them that they shouldn't do it because it could ruin their career. And that is the attitude that is "ingrained" in the NRL and other codes.

 

Could she have walked away though? She was 19 and they were all big football players. She felt disgusted from the time the first guy kissed her when they got in the room. And then she was confronted with more and more of them as they quite literally stormed the room and stripped off and quite literally started to have sex with her.

Lack of consent does not always mean that she did consent to it.

No one is denying that. Group sex is not rape if all parties consent. Whether consent was given in this case is a grey area. And the result of this case is that the legal bodies are now considering whether consent laws need to be changed.

From her interview, it would appear that she did not go to that room to have group sex. But she ended up having sex with over 6 of the men while the others stood around her either naked and masturbating or looking on and talking about what they were doing to her.

Was she coerced? From the interview it would appear as though she didn't have much say in the matter. One minute she was in a room and one of them started kissing her and the next she was naked and engaged in group sex.

The investigations were literally her word against theirs. They had a plethora of lawyers on hand to ensure those players were not found to have raped her. One other girl who was interviewed in the piece commented that she had once been raped but never bothered reporting it because of the backlash that would have resulted against her and also because the NRL body itself would have done everything it could to clear the player in question. Another girl in the piece commented that she never pressed charges against one player who came into her dorm room and sexually assaulted her while she slept, again because it would have been her going up against a huge sporting body who had a lot of lawyers on hand.

Should those who did it apologise? Yes. So far, the apologies, when given, have been more self serving than showing remorse for what they actually did to the girl. The others who were in that room are not coming forward.

The astounding thing about this case is how the pity is being directed towards the player who was dismissed from his coaching and media roles than for the girl.

There is an ingrained mentality in the Rugby League code in Australia where they think this sort of thing is acceptable and that they can get away with it. It has been so bad of late that the NRL has recently forced teams to educate players about consent. Here is another part of the transcript where they show what kind of mentality is being dealt with here:

As you can see, these players have stuff all idea.

 

None of it makes sense. Does it make sense to you that she goes to the room with 1 or 2 guys and they start kissing and touching her? Does it make sense that soon after, other guys start streaming into the room, some even through the bathroom window, to have sex with her? Does it make sense that the mentality of the 'Code' has group sex with one woman as being a form of team bonding sessions? I'm sorry, but did something happen to going into the woods with your team mates and beating one's 'man leather' as forms of bonding?

Do you think she could have said no?

A comment from one of Australia's most misogynistic and right wing commentators:

She didn't say no. But it doesn't make any of what happened right or acceptable either.

What you aren't getting from all this is that the League has had scandal after scandal of this sort of thing. Group sex isn't rape. But when group sex involves a 19 year old girl, surrounded by over a dozen large men who were quite literally lining up at the end of the bed to have a go at her, what does that tell of of the men involved? What does the bit from the education sessions about "consent" tell you of the mentality of players in the NRL? They have this notion that anything goes. That as long as they have good lawyers, they can do whatever they want and damn the consequences. Look at Gould's comments on the Footy Show. It's not bad because it's bad to treat women like they are pieces of meat and cum buckets. It's bad because it can ruin your career. There was a massive cover-up when this happened 7 years ago. And the result?

There have been countless sex scandals involving sportsmen (primarily from team sports such as the NRL and AFL and the latest from the soccer league).

Andrew Bolt is right. The League hasn't taught its players about consent. It's taught them how to get consent.

And that's kind of scary.

Fair negotiation means having equal parties. Do you think this girl was an equal party at the "negotiation"?

 

I am going to ask a simple question.

Does consenting to sex with 1 or 2 men mean you have consented to sex with 6 men or more?