So, Shane Warne’s been at it again. Yes, there’s texting. (Sidenote: I love the way that word has become part of our vocabulary). Yes, there are English tabloids. Yes, there are models. And you know what? It doesn’t bother me one bit.
I have taken a beating in the past from a lot of people who think that a woman of my persuasion, of my thinking, should loathe Warney. And I know I should. I can hear it now: he’s a pig. He’s a womanising bastard.
But boy, can he bowl.
And this is where I suspect my feminist credentials start to become undone. I should hate Warney. I should despise his behaviour. I should feel sympathy for his wife (instead of laughing at her two left feet). But I don’t.
I can see the damage he causes. I can see that his personal life is a disaster and if he was my brother I would give him a piece of my mind. My love was cemented the day I was at the SCG and saw Warney clowning about with the crowd, while standing in the slips. One minute he’s clowing, the next ball bowled he takes a lightning-quick catch as if he’s eating he’s WeetBix. Regular as breakfast.
I saw Stuart McGill and his wife advertising kitchen renovations in the paper today and I thought: that McGill. He’s so cultured. He knows about wine, he knows about food, he doesn’t send text messages to drunken nurses he met in some dodgy nightclub in Leeds (or wherever). He can bowl, but he just doesn’t have IT. I know I should adore McGill. He is the thinking-woman’s cricketer. But that’s the problem. Cricketers don’t think. They drink and play. And in the rare case of those like Gilchrist, they play passionate homage to their families and set themselves impeccably high standards by walking.
But Warney…well, he’s just Warney. And he can send text messages until he’s 60 and I will still just tut-tut and say, ah Warney, you silly bugger. But I remember when he was in the slips at the SCG…
Thoroughly irresponsible of the SMH not to publish the photograph of him with the blow-up toy.
I know. What’s a good Warney scandal without a good bit of vision?
Warney’s been set up, possibly for blackmail. Who took the pictures?
Good question. Was there a 4th party involved? Did that make it a swinging party?
Of course, I would love to think Warney was set-up. But really, I couldn’t give a toss if he was actually doing the things he is accused of. That is the thing that disturbs me, I excuse his behaviour when he’s obviously such a bastard.
When I lived in a previous household a couple of years ago, a friend of a flatmate came over for dinner, and either she or a friend of hers had had text messages from Shane Warne. She didn’t say what they were but she did say that they were disgusting.
Don’t lose sleep over it, Georg. I had the same internal angst when I followed the Lewinski scandal. All I could think was, “Good on him! Good on her! What self-respecting lass WOULDN’T give the President a blow job in the Oval Office?” But I find the Warney case disturbing. Simply because he’s just SO unsexy.
I know, he is totally unsexy and perhaps that’s why I can’t quite believe the tabloid reports. I mean, I know I am not exactly the right person to comment, but what woman would honestly want to shag Warney? Honestly?
Maybe they weren’t shagging him — maybe they were shagging the sex toy while he watched.
Weathergirl, that is just…well…funny. I laughed. They did say Warney was ‘tired out’ after the ten wicket win over Middlesex…
So what does feminism have to do with it? As long as the blow-up doll gives informed consent then it’s not sexism, is it? Unless Warney’s spin skills are so hypnotic as to overwhelm the judgement of his partners, there’s no reason he can’t do what he likes, is there?
I guess on the face of it feminism has nothing to do with it. The picture of Warney though that is painted by the media is of a bloke who considers no-one but himself, who thinks of women as merely conquests, who lives in the world of a male sportsperson. That is, women are blonde and seen only when nursing children or wearing revealing gowns at awards nights. In this sense it has everything to do with feminism. Warney obviously doesn’t view women as equals, only as handbags. (That should perhaps be manbags). Any feminist would find this objectionable.
Weathergirl:
Cheers for Monica. She would have made a better U.S. Ambassador to Australia than some of the incumbents. She certainly lived up to that Australian “value”….. Have A Go.
Dunno about Warney though. Can’t see myself pushing through a crowd to shake his hand. I’ll leave it up to the ladies to decide if he is sexy or not; I’m not all that qualified.
Um, isn’t Warney separated from his wife? Seems to me that he’s a single bloke, and he can have group sex with whomever he likes. Is there some feminist objection to casual sex per se? Why would a feminist feel guilty for liking the guy? Is there some suggestion that the models weren’t consenting? I know that there have been times in the past when he has gone overboard with the texting, but there’s no suggestion that that’s happened here. I’m afraid I can’t see what the scandal is – Man Has Sex With Models, big deal.
Well, SW is obviously amazingly self-centred and that’s had the effect of ruining his marriage, but this ’sex scandal’ is entirely a media creation as the women were willing participants. I don’t think feminism should condemn people for what they do in their sex lives if it’s consensual. In a way it denies women agency if it’s all about Warne and people forget that the women chose to sleep with him.
Speaking as a feminist, I don’t find Warney objectionable, just ridiculous.
I agree with Georg. I find him a great bowler!
I am just repeating something someone else once said, some very smart woman or other, but there is a feminist defence of sorts for Warney. He’s not one of those sinister root rats that actually despise women — he obviously does actually like women. He communicates, to the best of his ability. He asks, more or less nicely. Yes of course he is very unattractive but that’s not what I’m saying. Some male sluts are sinister, but Warney is so not.
I also once saw him called in BY THE OPPOSING TEAM (England?) to calm an ugly crowd once. He just wandered over to Bay 13 or whatever it was, great banks of crowds looming down at him, right in the line of fire of the full cans and the ugly bodily fluids. Ignored the menace, made a few reasonable remarks, and they all bowed and said We Are Not Worthy, and the game went on in an orderly fashion. You have to admire him occasionally even without the bowling.
But I’m sorry, Georg, it’s Steve Waugh who’s the thinking woman’s cricketer. And before him, Imran Khan. Oh, my.
A few points: as a feminist I don’t condemn people for casual sex. I don’t care what they do. I don’t think feminism condemns people for having consenual sex (at least last time I looked this seemed to be the case).
What I was trying to say that despite the MEDIA IMAGE of the guy, I still have a soft spot for Warney, despite my sneaking suspicion that I shouldn’t.
Oh, and PC, I agree with Imran Khan but Steve Waugh?? Still, you picked the right brother…
Feminist issues and simple-human-decency issues are being kind of mixed up in this thread (not that there’s no overlap). I agree with Dan that now that he’s unmarried, he can have group consensual sex with anyone he wants. The point about his behaviour in the past, that is while he was married, is that it shocks the other partner into post traumatic stress because it’s your husband or wife /longterm partner who’s supposed to be there for you and go to bat for you, no pun intended. In other words, it’s not victimless, so it’s not just a matter of “it’s all consensual”. Simone didn’t put her hand up for it, nor did his kids put their hands up for it.
The ante has been upped in recent years as wives have been given HIV and other STDs – not just in Africa but in the west as well.
By all means say that monogamy isn’t for you, but if that’s the case, don’t marry and have kids. Takes all sorts.
Helen, who knows what the internal dynamics of Warne’ s marriage were? To not put too fine a point on it, how are you to know that Simone Warne wasn’t having her bit on the side while Shane was away on tour – and that they had a tacit, or even explicit, agreement on this point?
I agree with Helen and now that he is unmarried it seems a bit redundant – not to mention ethically suss – for the News of the World to be secretly paying two hookers – sorry “models” – to have at him for filming purposes.
I think the world pretty much already knew that Warney can’t say no. As “news” it’s about as important as the fact that my shoelace broke this morning in Museum station. I appreciate that tabloids like to run salacious stories and pix on the basis that you can never overestimate the appetite of the reader when it comes to prurient smut but give us a break etc.
The only mildly entertaining thing about it is the curiously old-fashioned language that the two women employ in talking about him. It’s like something out of Victorian porn. He was a “stallion.” He was “firm and manly” Puhleez…..
“firm and manly”
Well there’s my affirmation statement sorted for the day.
comicstriphero is disturbed by Shane’s undies:
http://comicstriphero.blogspot.com/2006/05/currently-scrubbing-my-eyes-with-steel.html
Geoff – your shoelace broke this morning at the train station? That can really irritating. Did you have enough shoelace left over to tie a tiny emergency knot, or did you have to schlep around until you could find a replacement?
There was enough left to tie an emergency knot (once I’d removed myself from the human tide flowing through the concourse turnstiles and found knot-tying sanctuary by the icecream cabinet outside the news kiosk.)
It wasn’t easy though, Bismarck, because the shoelace had gone all thready at the break and it was quite challenging to fit it through the appropriate aperture in the upper.
Yeah, I hate that. Even worse is seeing a client’s gaze drift to the derilict little effort if you don’t have time to get a replacement lace. You can see them wondering if you’d wear a rope belt.
If Simone had a relationship with someone else as well, you can bet a TV station’s bottom dollar we would know about it.
The British media is brazen on matters of entrapment, or the Murdoch bottom feeder is.
Corrupt shock jocks in Australia are still loved by their audience, though I think Hinch suffered because of his remarks about Kennedy.
But i wonder what would happen if local media here was discovered entrapping Warney, or – even more extreme – Simone?
Georg is utterly correct. Imran Kahn – absolutely yes. Steve Waugh – wah?
I personally have no interest in Big Brother whatsover but it is becoming very clear that Warney was born for Australia’s ultimate celebrity version.
It’s not often in a lifetime that you get someone who is both one of the greatest cricketers ever and a natural media clown. Only WG Grace and Beefy really come to mind and can you imagine them sporting undies, and with models and inflatable objects as dashingly as Shane?
I’m kinda hoping he’ll go into politics. It’d be great fun for all concerned and I don’t think he’d make too bad a pollie either. He may be stupid at times but he’s not dumb, and knows how to set a field. And as an advisor once said to Nixon as he hestitated over his 1968 comeback, “There’s nothing the media can do to you, they haven’t already done.”
Also Geoff, the Sun may not have hidden footage of you and your footwear issues but there’s already a book about it.
“He has just visited a pharmacy and purchased a pair of shoe laces. The fact that both the laces of the shoes he bought two years before for his first office job have snapped within 48 hours of each other creates a sense of wonder in the narrator. His mind ranges excitedly over questions of probability and mechanical attrition, while at the same time recalling how his mother taught him to tie his laces and how he himself introduced some personal tics and flourishes into the standard process, particularly when tying sneaker laces in the playground.”
Oh yeah, Nabakov. Let’s see, natural media clowns…
Put Warney in there with Paul McDermott, Cheryl Kernot, that lead singer from the Vines whose name escapes me, Robbie McEwen, Stephen Conroy, Nicole Pratt, Steven Milne, Jana Pittman, Damir Dokic, Tony Abbott, Clive Hamilton, Pauline Hanson, Robert Hughes and a case of cheap Scotch…
…
I’d watch that.
Steve Waugh. OK, first I liked his attitude to his cricket (die trying), and then I noticed the beautifully proportioned athlete’s bod (think Golden Geometry), and then I idly read one of his diaries and was transfixed by the orphanage stuff, and by the willingness on tour to get out on the street and talk to the people and play cricket with the kids and eat the food and travel to the out-of-the-way places and take the photos while his teammates were veging out in their hotel rooms eating baked beans and watching satellite TV.
He is a bloody good photographer and he writes his own stuff, which is much better than most. And it’s a good face, one of those men’s faces that get better as they get older.
But Imran … I saw him once as a guest speaker along with Wasim Akram at a fundraiser lunch in Adelaide one summer, both dressed in the full-on dress-up traditional cream silk shalwar kameez. Every woman in the room was gasping and fanning herself with her table napkin.
“And it’s a good face, one of those men’s faces that get better as they get older.”
It’s a sharp but thoughtful face that wouldn’t look out of place in WW2 photos from Tobruk or Kokoda
PC, you’ve just made a very good case. I will rethink Tugga Waugh. I do have to admit to feeling slightly let down by Ponting’s captaincy style, since Waugh retired. Sure, they win, but not with the grit AND style that Waugh had.
Liam, bring it on molls and hunks, I’d watch that. Might I also throw Piers Ackerman and Gretel Killeen into the mix?
Damir Dokic AND Jelena, and they both have boob jobs before they go in.
Feminism doesn’t mean you HAVE to like or dislike a certain person. It just means women and men should live equally in the workplace and the bedroom! Here’s to LUST and LOVE!