Q: To whom it may concern,
A few years back on a sport tour I got into a bit of a situation with a fan. What started out as a regular after game sex session with a female fan got out of hand. Some of the other guys turned up and joined in. I thought it was okay at the time, but now the whole thing has blown up and turned ugly. The thing is I’m the only one who has been named and shamed for this, and there were all these other guys from the team involved too. I know who they are, but they are staying quiet. I’m sick of having to cop it all. Can I reveal their names? It seems like the wrong thing to do, to break that team code, but I’m out here getting plenty on my own and no one else is coming forward. What should I do?
M.J, Rockdale, NSW
A: It’s so hard to come face to face with the fact of our ultimate aloneness M.J. Most of us avoid this confrontation unless we are forced to face it. It sounds as if you are struggling with the question of how you will face it. So much has changed since this night and it sounds as if the repercussions are overwhelming. When a team is working well, it protects and supports us to go beyond what we can do ourselves. When it is not, we realize more clearly that we ultimately have the freedom to make our own decisions. And we must stand alone when we are held to account for our actions.
It is frustrating and painful to experience the desertion of our friends. It is lonely to face up to our choices without the acknowledgement that they were made with the approval of others. But can we ever really share the blame? Each decision we make, even within a group, is our own. Each of you is responsible for the situation getting “out of hand”. Each of you is part of the ugliness. That you are being named alone is not your concern here it seems to me. This is not because team codes are sacred, but because we are each responsible for the hurt others suffer at our hands. You stood alone then and you stand alone now.
It’s a fantasy to think that sharing this public condemnation would lessen the burden. It would perhaps ease your understandable feelings of unfairness, but it would do nothing to address the knowledge that you hurt someone. That what you thought was okay at the time was “ugly” for her. You are alone now, as she was and may still be.
You did not have the choice to stay quiet as your teammates have. But do you want to reveal their names to soothe your shame? Would it help to be one of many here? Who would it help?
These are important questions I think. Equally important is what you now understand as “okay”. It sounds as if this too has changed and, with it, the whole landscape you once inhabited.
I think the real question is – why does “Clare” get to remain anonymous, while naming and shaming MJ? No laws were broken. She regrets her decision, sure. But to point the finger behind a vail of anonymity? That’s the real cowardly behaviour.
Does someone get paid to write this dribble?
Wouldn’t most of the answer equally apply to ‘Clare’.
If she is ashamed of what she’s done that’s something she has to sort out for herself.
Probably less introspection and more the teaspoon of cement.
I am sick to death with everyone mindlessly “standing behind Matty Johns” – as if there were not enough of them there in the first place!
But now a Facebook page has been opened up to support him. They claim 155,816 “supporters”. Give me a break. This obscene madness has to stop.
Matty Johns is not the primary victim in this sorry saga.
Lets call a spade a spade, a Ga*ng Ba*ng a Ga*ng Ba*ng and a primordial soup of ejaculant for what it is – a sordid grubby mess.
It was a totally distasteful incident.
If you wish to see what I really think, visit my blog –The Body Politic Is Ill
Beautifully said!! Matt johns was not part of some weird sci fi group sex monster sharing a brain between all the men involved , he acted alone as did everyone else there making his own decision to not take care or even consider a very young girl obviously way out of her depth & terrified as any woman would be surrounded by giant hulking beasts.
So Matthew Jones acted alone did he? As team captain he stood to one side whilst his team indulged in an orgy of gang-bangism-after screwing the victim of course- Later he went back into the room to see if everything was okay.
Of course I don’t believe a word he said. However, there are some people who would be rancid enough to want to believe him.
Anyone here know the old quote to the effect ‘all that is necessary for evil to succeed is for people to do nothing’ This leaves two possibilities 1) He was in the very thick of the gang-bang 2) he did nothing.
On either count he is as guilty as hell. But, as I’ve said in earlier comments ‘footy players and footy lovers are not reknown for being the sharpest knives in the drawer.