Echoing Catherine Lumby, former Big Brother housemate “Lefty” Tim Brunero calls for people to use the alleged sexual assault incident in the BB house as a spur to discussing and reinforcing boundaries about personal and social behaviour. This is not dissimilar to an argument I’ve made myself, but in fact the debate has become totally confused.
Following Gretel Killeen’s lead, BB and Channel 10 themselves are now arguing the “harmless bit of fun” and “misguided but great lads mucking around” lines, which leaves Lumby and Brunero’s calls for serious reflection on a disgraceful incident looking rather hollow. Some of the discussion on bulletin boards and blogs from commenters appears to echo this – “but Ash and John are nice guys”, or legalistic quibbling – and in many cases, in much more disgusting tones revealing a certain class of bloke who’s ready to cheer on this sort of “prank”, and stigmatise its victim in the process. The issue, the behaviour, and Camilla herself are all erased from view. And by BB itself which closes down its “discussion forums” just as its consultant Lumby and former housemate Brunero call for a discussion. None of this should come as any particular surprise to anyone familiar with the dynamics of too much of what passes for discussion and debate about gender related harrassment and violence.
Meanwhile, morals campaigners from the PM and Beazley through Helen Coonan to Steve Fielding seem to harp endlessly on the “filth” theme. It’s hard to find any evidence in the myriads of pollie comments that they have any concern whatsoever about the incident itself, or its real effects on Camilla. Last week Barnaby Joyce was proclaiming himself disgusted by “mixed showering”. At least it’s clean filth, Barnaby. The pollies and culture warriors are either being completely opportunistic or just trying to push a pro-censorship agenda or both.
The only place amongst all this chinwagging and finger-pointing I can see any of the discussion Lumby and Brunero desire is in the blogosphere, and particularly from feminist bloggers.
For instance, from Kate at Moment to Moment:
Camilla is obviously very distressed by this episode, but seems to be getting no support at all, meanwhile, John and Ash are out in public and able to give their version of events.
Anyway, as issues go this isn’t a huge one but I think it has crystallised some of the discourse about sexual assualt, and it reminds me (yet again) that sexual assault is considered a rather amusing and trivial thing by some (many) people.
And Mel at A Wild Young Under-Whimsy who, unlike 90% or more of (mainly blokes) commenting on this issue, takes the time to put herself in Camilla’s shoes and empathise:
Rather, I’m wondering what I’d do if caught in that scenario. I’d probably be caught between feeling pleased that I was being invited to interact with two people who’d previously indicated that they particularly didn’t like me, and being suspicious that they were deliberately humiliating me.
I mean, if I’d spent the last week being sexually humiliated — by my own drunken admission that I wanted to “pash Ash”, by Ash’s subsequent play for Claire, and by Big Brother’s challenge to kiss the entire household in an hour — I would welcome any vague gesture that I belonged. And if the gesture did turn out to be an unwelcome turkey slap, I’d feel so acutely humiliated that I would just want the whole thing to go away.
And Galaxy, reflecting on media and political ethics:
The fact that other media outlets–I saw some footage on Channel 7–are showing the footage is insupportable. All of those arguments about the voyeurism and exhibitionism of BB are equally applicable to The Age, Channel 7 etc etc. There is no moral highground. In fact what the other outlets are doing is far worse, because they’re couching it as ‘news’ which allows them to distance themselves from the apparent paucity of taste inherent in a reality programme such as Big Brother. There are questions of genre, judgement and value that need to be explored in the calls by politicians to remove the programme.
And from dogpossum:
As a woman who grew up in city, in a suburb, attending a school where far worse behaviour was an everyday part of life, I can imagine how the experience could have been regarded as nothing extraordinary. As a joke. I can also see how this might have constituted a bit of homosocial ’slumber party’ titilation – a bit of play between the boys at the woman’s expense (where she became a vehicle for the men’s ‘flirting’ with each other).
But perhaps, more worryingly, I can imagine how she might have felt: Trying to play it cool, to behave in a way which the ‘viewers’ would value, so as to secure her place on the program/in the house. Trying to pay it cool so as to maintain her status with her fellow housemates. Perhaps trying to play it cool as a woman who has been very doubtful of her own sex-appeal, in the company of two conventionally attractive and popular men.
But a the same time, her own, less intellectual response might have been anything from a little erotic tension to that kind of deep-stomach panic, where you’re held down and can’t get away, by two men who are obviously interested in a little power-play, sexual play, and you simply can’t get free physically, or muster the words to persuade them to let you go.
I mean, what was she to do? What is she to do? Would she be voted off the show if she did take the matter further?
There’s actually quite a lot to seriously debate around these issues, but the culture wars frame doesn’t fit any sort of reasonable picture anyone might want to paint. Insofar as Lumby and Brunero call for good to come out of bad, that’s a real pity.
Elsewhere: More commentary from tigtog, Sarsaparilla, Road to Surfdom, a cracker of a post by Ms Fits, and all sorts of other blogs, many of which I linked to in my previous post.
All I can say after reading through the comments is a ‘me too’ with Mark and the comments linked. Ms Fits post is pretty good I’ll admit.
Oh and ‘clean filth.’ He he. Seems like a race to the bottom for the pollie who can come up with the most inane comment.
Last week Barnaby Joyce was proclaiming himself disgusted by “mixed showering”. At least it’s clean filth, Barnaby.
Not to mention consensual.
Mel at A Wild Young Under-Whimsy – seems to be the only person so far to have correctly nailed the correct context for this “incident”. Very well done Mel, excellent summary analysis.
I beg to differ. While the turkey slap was humiliating at the time for her, she quickly shrugged it off, and it was not an issue for her until she learnt of Ash’s and John’s removal from the house. She then became distressed over their sudden departure, as did the rest of the housemates, only more so because she felt guilty for being partly responsible for their removal.
Just watching Uplate. Mike Goldman just made the comment: “Perry is now cleaning up the house, more than Kim Beazley after John Howard’s IR reforms!”
Heh heh.
But why should she feel at all guilty or responsible over their misbehaviour?
She feels distressed why? Because she is responsible for their removal you say? She didn’t ask for their removal. How is she in any way responsible?
Perhaps she is distressed at the group perception that she is responsible, which is a different thing, no?
Yes, perhaps. Or perhaps she felt partly responsible because she had failed to convince BB that the incident wasn’t serious enough to warrant their dismissal. In any case, I’m trying to point out that Camilla was upset over their dismissal, not over the incident that caused their dismissal.
“..and by Big Brother’s challenge to kiss the entire household in an hour”
Now I wonder why they’d issue that particular challenge to a nice young girl eh? That wouldn’t be because ultimately they’d like to promote some further photogenic intercourse between the inmates would it?
Of course voy..err viewers like Mark are only interested in the articles ‘discussing and reinforcing boundaries about personal and social behaviour.’ It’s not the pictures, honest mum, cross my heart and hope to die if I tell a lie. Sounds like we should be switch BB to radio for all the Marks out there.
“She then became distressed over their sudden departure, as did the rest of the housemates, only more so because she felt guilty for being partly responsible for their removal.”
Just your well brought up sensitive kind of post modern miss eh?
obs, I can assure you that to the extent that I have voyeuristic tendencies, I would satisfy them with much classier material than BB. My interest in BB is for other reasons, not the least of which its significance in contemporary cultural and political debates, which is the point of my post.
oh lordy, drop the issue. I suspect the only person who no longer gives a shit is the “victim”… and stop calling it sexual assault. She stated that there “was no malice” involved, and that they stopped as soon as she indicated she’d had enough. It’s about context, and even the “victim” considered it silly games.
Well, is it still sexual assault if the victim doesn’t consider it as such?
Erm, Ryan, how on earth would Camilla know whether there was malice involved or not? She’s been inside the House, where they’re not allowed to watch themselves, and hasn’t seen, as everybody else has, the contempt and dislike for her that those two boys have been expressing on national television for weeks. She may not think she’s deliberately been made to look a complete fool and a trashy patsy, but …
Obs — please, please, please stop using ‘postmodern’ as a synonym for [said in Queensland-redhead whine] ‘I don’t like it.’ That isn’t what it means. Wikipedia’s not good enough, either. If you must keep using this word as a term of abuse, then at least for the Goddess’s sake read a book about it first. Any book will do.
I couldn’t care less about this, but now that Germaine Greer has weighed in, it probably now has the official status of cause celebre. Germs notes that Eva Cox doesn’t think the incident is a big deal, for those who care what Eva Cox thinks.
Regardless, the “victim” was quite lucid when she outlined her position on the matter. Having lived with them 24/7 I think she’s better placed to determine the true nature of the situation than bloggers or politicians. The rest of you might see it as a disgusting incident, and maybe it is, but what everyone else thinks is irrelevant – it’s up to her and she has made her feelings clear. It was not sexual assault.
Thank you so much for not reading any of the posts that Mark linked to, Ryan.
What about sexual harassment?
What about the whole idea that apparently large swathes of the population think men “joking” by contemptuously slapping a woman they despise with their genitals is just a bit of harmless “fun”?
No really Ryan, what do you think it was?
Ask the “victim”.
Seriously, Camilla has dismissed the incident, it didn’t bother her – she was actually more shocked and distressed that the guys were permanently evicted. How is this still an issue? Get off your high horse, stupid people have engaged in stupid behaviour. You may not like it, but it doesn’t mean a crime has taken place. It’s not like she is deluded state of denial…
I think I’m least interested in whether or not other people want to label this as “sexual harassment” (though I, personally, feel that it was), and most interested in why people aren’t interested in the complexities of the issue. I’m quite prepared to accept that Camilla didn’t want to call this sexual harassment, but, as Mel pointed out with this comment:
…I’m unwilling to accept that Camilla wasn’t embarassed or humiliated. The term ‘bullying’ seems a bit more workable, here. Certainly less heavily weighed (…perhaps).
In all this, I wonder if the alacrity with which it was all dismissed as a ‘joke gone wrong’ is in part to obscure the part played by ‘BB’ setting Camilla up for a fall. In pursuing all housemates for kisses (whether they read this as a grab for attention, for sexual thrill, or even for simple intimacy), how could she then be read by these men (who had already been presented to us in carefully edited programs as having little good regard for her) as anything other than a ’slut’ who ‘wanted it’ (but would never get it as she was a unattractive) and therefore deserved a bit of punishment/derision?
And as any woman knows, there are few actions more effective for managing a ‘difficult’ woman than a public, sexualised joke whose intention is to humiliate and exclude through humour, rather than celebrate and include.
The difficulty with being in the BB house, and being a woman, is that you must balance the strategies of invisibility-through-group-membership which many women (and men) adopt to avoid this sort of public maintenance of the pecking order – laughing along, not speaking up, agreeing, etc – with keeping a favourable profile in the eyes of the television audience. You don’t want to be evicted for being ‘boring’ when there’s a cash prize at stake. Or perhaps more importantly, a group to be ‘in’ with. The young and other self-doubting people are particularly vulnerable in this sort of situation.
In all this, I have the greatest problem with the tasks set by BB, which set up a conflict between the kisser and the kissee, and more importantly, encourage conflict and competition between house mates which is then sexualised by a range of other elements.
I’m not surprised that this happened. That these men felt that their actions were ‘ok’ tells us that they felt they could not only get away with this, but that our culture generally agrees with them: that it’s ok to sexually humiliate someone in public in this way. These men did not forget that they were on television. And so, when we watch and do not find a problem with this, we are participating in Camilla’s humiliation as an audience.
This is one reason why I’m so disturbed by the dissemination of footage and stills of this event on a mass scale. I, for one, choose not to play that particular game.
Whine, Whine, Whine
It is not a complex issue. Camilla dealt with it then and there. It was done with.
Big Brother then discussed it with Camilla
Big Brother then discussed it with Ash and John
Ash and John were removed without Camilla, the third party being involved and without allowing them all to come to relative terms with it.
Therefore it is the person at Big Brother that made that decision and consequently made Camilla feel the way she did fault.
To remedy this Big Brother should give Camilla a chance to opt for counselling and a chance to discuss the issue with Ash and John regardless where they are provided they do not mention the outside world.
dogpossum, that’s brilliant.
The final arbiter as to whether it was sexual assault or sexual harrassment or neither has to be the alleged victim. If Camilla is genuine in her dismissal of the incident than the commentators pushing for charges to be laid, the axing of the show or whatever are guilty of pushing their own agenda at her expense.
Yawn.
Sure. Does that mean we aren’t allowed to discuss the sociology of the whole “turkey-slap” phenomenon?
Because that and other contemptuous sex-play strike me as acting out porn-sex in the way kids act out cartoon violence. Porn-sex has about the same level of realism regarding relationship sex as cartoon violence has to actual arguments.
Is encouraging acting out porn-sex as “just a bit of fun” any more sensible or healthy than encouraging kids to drop anvils on each other?
trackback
I more or less agree with the Dogpossum post above. I would add though that it seems unlikely to me that the calls for “discussion” are going to resolve anything much in terms of changing people’s perceptions about sexual harrassment, in exactly the same way TV “forum” shows like SBS’s Insight seem to achieve nothing. I have always had a dislike for that format of show, as the participants simply sound off, and there is virtually never any indication of a consensus position being reached or even achieveable. If anything, they usually leave a feeling of further alienation between the parties.
As Dogpossum correctly points out, the main issue should be with the producers. I would go further: the entire concept of all reality TV shows which involve participants “voting off” and doing character assessments of others, and involving manipulation of the contestants and group dynamics by the producers, is demeaning to viewers and participants as a form of entertainment. That the show deliberately adds the additional element of sexuality and sexual politics into a group of young and immature people just compounds the basic problem that I feel anyone should have with this type of program.
Both conservatives and (some) lefties can sometimes argue that all pornography is also inherently demeaning, but I would argue that the deliberate game of manipulation that BB involves makes it worse than simple pornography or (most) fictional shows involving sex and sexuality.
This is why I was surprised to find some time ago that the show did have its following amongst people (especially women) who post here.
So, for those on the Left who disagree with conservatives’ moralistic tones about this incident, can’t you agree that in any case it would actually be a basic good for society for shows with this sort of premise to be off air as entertainment? If so, instead of worrying about the exact reasons why conservatives object to it, why not reach a consensus position that every side’s disapproval of the concept (and a mutual interest in not having another series) be achieved in ways you can accept, such as sponsor boycotts, and challenging government financial assistance?
Personally I wouldn’t choose to further victimise Camilla to push an agenda. YMMV.
Perhaps because the horse has well and truly bolted. What is this, BB5? Time to do something about this concept was five years ago when a boycott could have really hurt the producers.
Steve, I haven’t found a lot to like about this year’s series. But I was a big fan in the past – and for a host of reasons. The difficulty with what you suggest, I think, is that any move to end the show (and it won’t be through consumer boycott but through the government talking up alleged “community outrage”) has, given the way the debate has turned out, be akin to a call for censorship. And we all lose from that.
and another 50 cents worth:
The other issue is – are Ash and John, the same guys who drugged Dianne Brimble, in 10 years time? Is this type of sexual behaviour a slippery slope where young men learn inappropriate behaviours at younger and vulnerable ages, and become progressively more hardened and more coercive as the years progress?
Do young men from ‘good families’ go feral when immersed in raunch culture, and/or surrounded by peer group misogynist attitudes? Or do they retain an inherent set of standards, which are more or less on display from early adolescence? Are John and Ash, as the BB producers, want us to see them, harmless yobs, or are they 10 years from putting fantasy into someone’s drink and trying to dump the body overboard?
As to Camilla – neurotic, needy, opinionated, loud mouth Camilla. Is she ever going to learn to make better choices with the Victim Industry telling her, it’s completely not her fault? I certainly won’t be telling my daughter that. Parents spend a good part of our lives trying to train our children to avoid placing themselves in unsafe situations at any time. One would think, getting into bed with the two most sexually frustrated boys in the house, in the middle of the night, knowing these boys don’t like you, all the while laughing and joking about the fact they are going to “turkey slap meâ€?. If this isn’t a poor choice – then what is?
The Australian producers of BB should be replaced by people who can manage the franchise successfully.
THIS IS MEANT TO BE READ FIRST – sorry
What odds the two most immature beta males, the ones who didn’t score any babes, both homophobic, would choose to approach the most ambivalent and unstable single female in a coercive manner, after a drinking session and after 70 nights listening to the hetero alpha males having near-sex in the same bedroom? Same odds, as NRL players on an end of season trip visiting prostitutes and vomiting on the team bus/plane.
Do Ash & John deserve to be seen as sex offenders by the whole nation, or should they be viewed as yet another bunch of disposable dupes of the BB franchise, who knowingly cast these third rate yobs and stooges in the first place?
After BB04, the producers chose to cast young, single, exhibitionist, ‘good-looking’ housemates to absolutely ensure live sex on the telly and high ratings. They created the group dynamics for both BB05 & BB06, and wilfully continue/d to manage/manipulate situations/relationships all the way along. With advanced psychological testing, a long audition process etc, producers are easily able to weed out contestants who have poor impulse control, show any anti-social behaviour traits and misogynist/homophobic tendencies. That these pre-selected dupes ‘act out’ after many BB manipulations, should be more closely analysed, especially when the contestants are young and immature. Some of them actually say after being ‘released’ that they had completely forgotten they were on camera/tv. How much consent are you giving, when you are 18 and have an IQ of 90?
To be fair to them, I think they’re 20 and 22.
Meouwr!!
Well, I think bitchiness from me is in the spirit of a BB thread!
My Gravatar cat could totally beat your Gravatar cat Pavlov!
nope mine could
But so uncharacteristic, Mark! Don’t get me wrong — it was a meou of approval. I’m a cat myself, of sorts.
Cliff’s and St Catnip’s gravatars are indeed very fine, but that is my actual piano with my actual cat sitting on top of it, looking as though she is about to burst into song. In combat, however, as you both suggest, she would (and does) run away and hide under the big armchair.
My first gravatar, Pavlov’s Cat, before FDR and Cardinal Ratzinger with a beret (removed at C.L.’s insistence) was also a cat…
Don’t get me wrong either – I took it as a meow of approval!
I must point out, knowing Cliff personally as I do, there’s an uncanny resemblance between his gravatar and him. That’s intended to be a complimentary observation!
Heh.
I think we should throw a few cats into the BB house and see how it changes the dynamic. I mean, enough with last year’s llamas already!
More seriously, the posts from Mel, tigtog, dogpossum and Kate are superb. Coming back to this debate after a week up in the rainforest where it was the last thing on my mind I’m stunned by how few people stopped to think about how Cam might actually be feeling. And let’s not do the whole “she’s fine now” thing. How often does sexual harrassment take time for its effects to be felt, and as a number of people have said, how fragile was she to start with? Mark is quite right – this debate has gone way off couse, and it’s a thousand miles away from anything to do with what’s harmful in current teen and 20 something behavioural norms – just as I was a thousand miles away from the debate…
I suggest that when Camilla finally leaves the house, discussion of her sexual harrassment will be far more humiliating to her than the actual event itself. For her sake I hope the discussion never occurs.
I’m intrigued by how many men are so sure that continued discussion of sexual harassment is more humiliating for someone than the event itself. It sounds dreadfully like some folks in the States who recommend that African-Americans should just stop focussing on their experiences of racial discrimination because it’s so “negative”, and they’d get on better if they were more “positive”.
Could it be that it’s the men who are finding discussion of sexualised contempt too uncomfortable?
Harry is usually rather grumpy looking (the wrinkles in forehead are usually more creased up than that)… but he looks rather calm in that picture so I’ll take it as a compliment.
Throw in the cats and get rid of the people. Someone’s already done this, actually.
If my cats are anything to go by (we have three males and a female)… sexual assault would be even more prevalent (they’re animals however… humans have no excuse). The girl knows how to fight back effectively, though I often have to pull Harry off her. He’s been neutered for God’s sake, what does he think he’s going to achieve???
I think that I may have led this discussion off topic and perhaps have inadvertently trivialised the issue. Apologies… cat observations aside, this is a serious issue and the behaviour abhorrent (certainly not even animals engage in that sort of degradation; in fact I think degradation and humiliation are human, all too human, activities).
I was gravely concerned by the “boys being boys” and “she deserved it” brand of commentary… it would hardly surprise me if these comments issued from the same people who would have (rightly) criticized the defenses of those Muslim youths who were convicted of raping young caucasian women. We can only be certain that someone is “asking for it” if they explicitly and unambiguously ask for it (and even then consent should not automatically be taken as such; as anyone who has been blind drunk can attest to). Furthermore, the kind of behaviour exhibited would suggest to me that one should think twice even if it is asked for. The idea that sexual assault can be excusable given some natural animalistic/predatory urges in the male condition degrades and devalues the humanity of men as equally as it degrades the status, dignity and security of the female.
Cliff, I think you’ve raised the nature vs. culture issue – I agree that men shouldn’t be seen as having primale predatory sexual urges which are barely restrained by civilisation’s thin veneer. That theme has been there in the discussion of Ash/John.
Absolutely, Kim. To expect that the (larger than we might wish) minority of men who don’t already know how to show self-control are somehow inherently unable to free themselves from the grip of testosteronal urges strikes me as a dehumanisingly anti-male thing to claim, and it’s not the feminists who make that argument: it’s those who say stuff like “she should have expected it”.
Yes, exactly. If you say ‘She should have expected it’, what you’re actually saying is ‘Those blokes are too immature to control their own behaviour and too uncivilised to see why they should try’.
Oh, wait …
Ryan please dont talk about subjects that you know little about. Have you ever been a women? have you ever had someone hold you down and assault you. Perhaps that can be arranged would you like that? So you do think Camilla was disadvantaged? no well like i said a reconstruction of these events with you as our leading lady my change your mind.