Adios Kyle

And the networks have to cave. There is nothing more poisonous to a corporate public image than even being mentioned in the same paragraph as child abuse. Recall the hysterical furore over The Chaser’s very unfunny sketch about kids with cancer and how they were immediately pulled off air for two weeks. We are living in a world where once the public spot a target and the media smell blood, the only response is total capitulation. Network 10 are three degrees of separation from the rapist, but they just can’t risk it. Anything to get the spotlight of attention pointed somewhere else.

The girl admitted she was raped, that she was the victim of a crime. Let’s look at the upside (of the admission, not the rape!) The police will now investigate, so perhaps something good will come out of it, apart from the end of Kyle’s media career. The girl may receive some justice and some counselling if required, though it has been reported that she does not want to press charges. There may be a deeper story here yet.

So, let’s look at the public reaction, which focused more on Kyle than on the mother or Jackie O. The lie-detector she was strapped to was just a silly stunt - lie detectors don’t work - though some commentators seem to imply that the girl was somehow strapped down against her will. Another sub-plot concerns Kyle bizarrely asking the girl if she had had any “other experiences”. This has led to a strident discussion about how rape is not a (sexual) experience. Biologists and dictionaries would disagree. It is a bad sexual experience.

Correct me if I am wrong but I believe that, stripped of the sordid details and character flaws of Kyle, the underlying gripe is that you have Kyle, a man, putting himself in a position of power over a young girl who has already been raped by another man. But he didn’t know she had been raped, her mother did, and she consented to appearing on the show. I know who I would blame if blame is to be attached.

Another source of angst for some commentators, I suspect, is that the girl was confident enough to say publicly what had happened to her. She received little support from her mother and yet still did not act sufficiently traumatised. This does not fit with the standard narrative at all.

Openly admitting to being raped is nothing to be ashamed of. To say so further punishes the victim. Are women or girls who are raped not to mention it in public, or have their faces and voices digitally disguised? Apparently our prime minister thinks she should feel humiliated. I beg to differ. She should feel angry at the perpetrator. Nor has she been “exposed to ridicule” by the stunt. Who the hell has ridiculed her? Who is making the unattributed claim that she has been exposed to ridicule? What does exposed to ridicule actually mean anyway? These are emotive and unattributed allegations whose only purpose is to excite further outrage.

Rape is rape I hear you cry and mere men can never understand the trauma it causes, even when the victim may appear strong. Yet, this principle is applied selectively …

On January 6 this year, there was a story about a drink driving teenage idiot called Cody Heap. In handing down a suspended sentence, Magistrate Brian Maloney made it clear that a re-offence would mean jail time for young Cody. Just to clarify to Cody what this might entail he further explained:

Have you got any idea what it’s like in there? Any idea at all? You wouldn’t last a night. You will find big, ugly, hairy, strong men who’ve got faces only a mother could love that will pay a lot of attention to you - and your anatomy. Scary, isn’t it? But that’s what will happen.

So here we have a public magistrate, a servant of justice, stating publicly that young males who are sent to Her Majesty’s prisons can expect to be anally raped as part of their punishment. This is common knowledge but it is amazing that a public official would admit such. But even more disgracfully, he is using the fact of illegal rape in prison as a deterrent for Cody and other would be young criminals.

Public outcry? There was none. My letters to the papers were not published. Apparently, rape of a 15-year-old boy isn’t rape. You can’t expect consistency from the mindless mob I guess.