The WA Liberal Party today chose to keep a self-confessed sexual harasser as their leader. Last week, the Sunday Times revealed that:
It was alleged that Mr Buswell lifted her chair and started sniffing it in front of her after she had finished interviewing a constituent. He then allegedly repeated the act moments later in front of several Liberal staff members.
It’s understood that the woman had warned Mr Buswell about his pranks before.
On a previous occasion, he had allegedly crawled around on his hands and knees in front of the same woman pretending to be her husband. When confronted by the allegations this week, Mr Buswell declined to comment.
After initially denying the story, a tearful confession followed a few days later.
It was reported in that article that:
Even though Liberal MPs are privately saying they are disgusted by the incident, they say there will not be a leadership change because there is no alternative to Mr Buswell as leader.
For serious - the WA Libs have decided to keep a serial sexual harasser, one who admits that there are probably more allegations to come, because they have no-one better. It’s lucky for them that there’s no truth requirement in election ads, because frankly they’d have to just throw in the towel and suggest a vote for the Nats instead. “Yeah, he sexually harasses women who work for him, and alongside him, but he’s the best we have right now” isn’t really up there with “It’s Time”, is it?
Putting on my fantasy hat for one moment, what I would love to see is for all female Liberal MPs and their allies to all announce that they are going on strike until this creepy jerk is removed, and for all the other parties to promise to support them in this. Until then, it’s lucky that I still have my Labor hack hat, so I can at least be relieved that the next election shouldn’t be too much of a fight. But then again, perhaps I’ve accidently put on my fantasy hat again. If the blokes in the Liberal Party are lacking in judgement enough to not see the problem, then perhaps they’re just reflecting a similar lack in the broader WA public.
Buswell himself appears not to get it, if statements like these are anything to go by:
“And I realise fully the requirements and obligations of … Leader of the Opposition. And I will deliver on those requirements absolutely.”
When asked whether he had a tendency to be bawdy around women, he said that was “a matter for interpretation”.
“I acknowledge that my … natural exuberance may have caused me in the past to do things or say things which have caused offence to people.”
Really it’s not about whether this is appropriate behaviour for a party leader. It’s about whether this is appropriate for anyone at all. And it certainly isn’t about being “bawdy” or “exuberant”. It’s about demonstrating that you don’t give a shit about making women feel excluded from the workplace. Women are no less capable of making jokes, even lewd ones. Chair-sniffing and bra-snapping, however, aren’t about involving women in the fun, they’re about making them the object of “fun”. In Buswell’s world, women, purely because they are women, serve as objects of ridicule so that Buswell and the people (read: men) can have a laugh. That doesn’t just make him unfit to lead a government - it makes him unfit to be an employer, and it makes him undeserving of respect from any decent person.
For more on the adventures of Buswell, see Lauredhel’s posts here.
Yay! Anna’s back!
Boo to Buswell.
Over and out.
And I thought the NSW Libs were preposterously bad in our last State election. Is there some sort of competition for worst State Opposition Leader going on?
[And I thought the NSW Libs were preposterously bad in our last State election.]
And there is a rumour that current WA Liberal Party Secretary Mark Neeham is on the shortlist for a job with the NSW Libs.
This behaviour is simply incomprehensible to me. I Do. Not. Get. It. Is there some brave bloke out there who can at least try to explain (a) why Buswell might do these things, (b) what he is trying to achieve, and (c) why these idiot activities are regarded as funny?
Askin’.
Maybe they could take the Breakfast announcer on 6 PR Beamont,Mamuil and Sattler as well,make for a better radio station,and then they could take the Editor of the West as well.
Clean out the lot in one fell swoop
To bring up a well-worn concept, I’m going to say ‘male homosociality’. That is the frame in which this kind of behaviour tends to appear. I don’t understand this particular inflection, especially since I’ve never been in a workplace with that kind of thing going on, but I suppose I could see some of my friends getting a bit closer to it in the context of hanging around with their mates. I don’t know how much this would be an achievement outside of the context of a high-spirited homosocial episode, but there are some circles in which behaving in a ridiculous fashion can help you accumulate sub-cultural capital in the long term.
For my part I’ve never really understood the attraction, and find this sort of thing laughable rather than funny, but then I prefer the company of women, so there’s only so far my particular kind of male insight can take us.
I think that’s right, Klaus, but in this case it appears to be failed homosociality, since obviously the other men in the room didn’t appreciate Buswell’s behaviour, at least if I have the reports right. I suspect it says something about his own insecurity and personality problems. I’m normally not a fan of “character” as a mode of judging politicians, but there have to be some standards of decent human being-ness!
I’ve seen this sort of behaviour often. But never from pillars of society.
It is usually a trigger for mirth.
I think it is possible to tolerate even failed attempts at ‘fun’. I’m reminded of a fellow at the local pub who occasionally lapses into some really offensive territory, but there’s a sense that ‘Oh, that’s just x: sometimes he acts that way, but he’s usually good fun’. The homosocial bubble stretches a long way before it pops, which is part of the reason why the less well adjusted don’t always judge the limits correctly.
This is a particularly disgusting act and if Buswell and the woman had been alone it would have been a particularly predatory and threatening, disgusting act. Imagine if you were alone with a man who was your ’superior’ and he did this.
I agree Anna, this person is not fit to be either a leader or an employer and probably not even a husband or a father. Indeed its hard to imagine what he’s possibly fit for. What makes this unsavoury event funny is that it has been made public, that the idiot man denied it then tearfully admitted it, that the members of his party support him and that he enjoys the full confidence of Brendon Nelson. What a pack of wolves. it speaks volumes about the Liberals, ‘homosociality’ and the underlying reality of gender relations in Australia.
[I think it is possible to tolerate even failed attempts at ‘fun’. I’m reminded of a fellow at the local pub who occasionally lapses into some really offensive territory, but there’s a sense that ‘Oh, that’s just x: sometimes he acts that way, but he’s usually good fun’. The homosocial bubble stretches a long way before it pops, which is part of the reason why the less well adjusted don’t always judge the limits correctly.]
But what the Libs don’t realise is that both incidents took place in the offices of State Pariament, the Bra Snapping in the Speakers Office, while the Chair sniffing in the Leader’s office (or was it his own deputy leader’s office). I thunk that is a prima facie case of Sexual Harrassment in the Workplace.
And to make it worse he blubs about it.
I have no doubt this is sexual harassment. I don’t take ‘homosociality’ as anything other than a useful term for understanding the conditions under which this behaviour can emerge: they are most certainly not the product of an individual in isolation. There are largely benign, (and maybe even non-patriarchal, though this might be harder to locate) forms of homosociality, including between females. It certainly isn’t ever an excuse for sexual harassment, sexual abuse, sex-based exclusion etc. I am merely trying to answer Dr Cat’s question with a framework within which is might be possible to ‘get it’, or to begin to understand it. It may be the fiction writer (or even the ethnographer) in me, but I find the effort to understand morally repugnant characters a worthwhile pursuit in itself, and it also makes sense in terms of deciding on how to intervene.
Welcome back Anna!
For serious - the WA Libs have decided to keep a serial sexual harasser, one who admits that there are probably more allegations to come, because they have no-one better.
Yes, it’s the same all over - remember this guy ?!
Oh I admit it, I’m a horrible, horrible person.
Oh come on, it was just a failed, tasteless and probably drunken attempt at humour. The sort of thing that other people in the room should responded to with “steady on, mate” and perhaps call a cab to take him home. If the lady was offended he should apologise, and that should be the end of it.
Klaus K sounds to me like someone who doesn’t understand how to be social at all, whether hetero or homo. Either that or he’s being a hypocrite.
What about a little bit of tolerance - most of us have done things at parties which on sober reflection we’d rather not have. Do you really want to be ruled by plaster saints who never step out of line? That’s how you end up with the narrowminded Rudds and Howards. And in any case I reckon the bra snapping sounds more serious - like actual assault.
It was in an office during work time, Derrida. Not at a party.
I don’t see that pollies get a free pass for acting like dickheads and being drunk at work. No one else does these days.
PC:
Because he’s never been socialised to regard women as people.
To show how much of a sense of humour he has(n’t).
See the answer to part (a), adding that it seems at least just over half of the parliamentary Liberal Party in WA hasn’t either.
Oh, and one more thing.
Just in case anyone actually thought it’d be plain sailing from here…
The idea of ‘homosociality’ is an interesting one. Another case in the past week was Sam Newman and the blokey culture at Nine. Similar sort of thing - a female professional being demeaned so a bunch of blokes can have a laugh at her expense.
It’s actually got a lot of explanatory power imho. There’s a good article about it here:
http://www.xyonline.net/Homosociality.shtml
Incidentally, the wikipedia entry on homosociality is shite.
“Klaus K sounds to me like someone who doesn’t understand how to be social at all, whether hetero or homo. Either that or he’s being a hypocrite.”
I don’t really understand why this side-swipe needed to be taken, frankly. If you don’t like the concept, that’s fine by me. There are other ways of thinking about it I’m sure. I don’t understand why you’re suggesting I’m a hypocrite, but I’d like to, so can you elaborate?
Yes I also thought it was an unnecessary side-swipe.
An act of such crass rudeness doesn’t deserve any label except crass rudeness.
Has the man no discretion?
Has Buswell’s sniffing of the seats of Lib Caucus members revealed secrets which compel political support to this imbecile?
That is the only possible explanation for his continued leadership of what must be a rabble who share the vice of concealing jack-fruit up their anuses.
Truely, the cupboard must be bare in Western Australia.
Theres not even a Nat who can lead them?
They’re not in coalition? Or are they now?
Derider said: “What about a little bit of tolerance - most of us have done things at parties which on sober reflection we’d rather not have. Do you really want to be ruled by plaster saints who never step out of line? That’s how you end up with the narrowminded Rudds and Howards. And in any case I reckon the bra snapping sounds more serious - like actual assault.”
Tolerance for what though? Developmental delays expressed through infantile performances of hypermasculinity? Mysoginist intent in the sniffing of a chair? What did he smell exactly that brought him such satisfaction in doing it??? Sexual harrassment resulting from suggestive jokes or taunts? What about a little reality instead of minimisation?. Sniffing a chair is a particularly sadistic and shameful way of putting a woman in her place. Dogs sniff arses. Humans do not. It is sexual harrassment. He is sniffing the site where the woman sat. Its sexual harrassment. And this by the leader of the opposition in Perth. I am sick and tired of “the joke gone too far” “boys will be boys” routine - insidious bullshit. This guy should have been sacked.
Here are part of the new draft laws which will be introduced as a result of this cretin’s behaviour:
Sexual harassment can take numerous forms including but not limited to:
*Unwelcome physical touching, hugging or kissing
*Staring or leering at someone, or at parts of their body
*Suggestive comments or jokes
*Insults or taunts based on sex
*Sexually explicit pictures, e-mails or text messages
*Intrusive questions about an employee’s private life or body.
You will note the chair sniffing incident falls into this category.
What this person’s shameful behaviour revealed is that women in the Perth state parliament were not protected from sexual harrassment under the equal opportunities act. The bra snapping incident revealed that women who did not work for the harrasser in question were not protected by eo laws. New legislation has been drafted to deal with this. But BOTH incidents fall into the category of sexual harrassment within this legislation.
Good post Anna.
Yeah, but, see, that’s what I don’t get; what is it, exactly, that Buswell thinks is funny about these things? That a snapped bra hurts? (Note to blokes: it does.) That a sniffed chair makes the woman feel both vulnerable and somehow repulsive? (Note to blokes: it would.) Given that, is it basically about hurting, threatening and belittling the women, at some very low, indirect level, in order to court the approval of other blokes?
What kind of man thinks hurting a woman will impress other men? What kind of man is impressed?
In that respect, thanks to Klaus K in particular for confirming what I thought Buswell’s social motives probably were, but there’s something else going on here as well. I understand the Sam Newman thing, for example: that too was partly about homosocial bonding but a man who inflicts that kind of symbolic violence is (also) directly expressing hatred and contempt for women. Newman is, God help us all, an adult, and the enemy. I get him.
But bra snapping? Chair sniffing? Is this some kind of eight-year-old ‘Ooooh, t*ts! Ooooooh, c*nts!! Ha ha ha ha!’ thingy? Or what?
[They’re not in coalition? Or are they now?]
Nope, and never will be - State Election will be 3 cornered contest in rural seats, so Buswell may well lose his own seat to a National.
Oh and Derrida Derider, regarding the notion that the chair sniffing would be less painful than the bra snapping, let me quote you something:
“a man who inflicts that kind of symbolic violence is (also) directly expressing hatred and contempt for women”
With bra-snapping at least I wonder if it is being seen by the perpetrator as a ‘playful’ adolescent act: the kind of thing that is almost justified amongst adolescents as ‘picking on’ members of the opposite sex. The consequences of that activity even in adolescence - which popular discourse tends to frame as innocent, as a sign of suppressed affection even - can be easily imagined as causing humiliation, creating a sense of vulnerability or exposure, and pain. Perhaps part of the particular outrage is that we feel at some level that this is something that happens to girls, but shouldn’t happen to women? (Presumably for Buswell, all women are ‘girls’).
How old is this guy? 43? Is that right?
I do think it does prove something about the infantile mentality that regards women as “girls”. Mind you, I think we should think a lot about whether adolescent boys should be doing this as well! (But I recognise you’re talking about prevailing attitudes, not your own view, Klaus).
Or rather, perhaps the reason this can and has upset non-feminists as well is that Buswell has shown that he is not attentive to the age-specificity of forums for harassment.
I agree: they really shouldn’t be doing it either. Given that the young probably always will go too far when it comes to interpersonal interaction, I guess we have to be careful not to continue to justify it, and to recognise that some of the awkwardness and humiliation experienced in adolescence is less than innocent when it happens to confirm all of the other experiences that humiliate women, and limit women’s freedom, throughout their lives.
[How old is this guy? 43? Is that right?]
42, married with 2 teenage boys, 1 of whom has just started High School.
Actually, Klaus K, it’s crap when you’re a girl as well. Particularly if you’re a well-endowed girl and particularly in the pre- (2nd wave) feminist days when I was a girl and had had it drummed into me that I must never hit anyone, especially not boys, who would lose their temper and pulverise me, quite apart from it being unladylike to hit them. The line spun to us was that boys could control neither their anger nor their sexuality, and that the onus was therefore on us girls not to inflame either. And that if either of those things were inflicted on us, then it must have been our fault. QED.
If I’d ever had a daughter, the first thing I would have taught her the day I bought her her first bra would have been that the correct response to a snapped bra is a swift knee in the goolies, and that a swift knee in the goolies is rooly rooly funny and all the other girls will laugh and let you play with their Barbies.
Thanks, Frank.
(Sorry, Kim and KK, comments crossed there.)
No probs, Dr Cat.
I can understand homosociality in the context of very young adults but I think it is infantilising to say that a 42 year old is unable to generate the tiny amount of empathy and awareness required to see that behaviour like this is degrading and to control himself appropriately.
I think he is perfectly aware and this kind of thing is a demonstration of dominance backed up by an unassailable sense of his own entitlement. Boy will I enjoy watching Buswell’s career come to a screeching halt.
Actually:
[But her 12 and 14-year-old sons were only told about the latest reports last weekend.]
from:
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,23639866-5016964,00.html
And note that they don’t say “their 12 & 14 Yr old sons”
As I said, homosociality is not a justification, but (and thanks to Dr Cat for clarifying) a way of understanding the immediate social context and possible motives. I absolutely believe that he has to take responsibility for his actions
I don’t think it’s infantilising to suggest the homosocial dimensions of adult sociality. For one thing the notion of ’self-control’ implies an individualist account of misogynist behaviour: pathologising the individual does little to highlight the patriarchal dimension of his actions. It may be useful at the level of removing him from office - and undoubtedly this should be happening - but the next step is to keep a recognition of the collective dimensions of the problem alive. If the conditions remain the same, then there is no reason that the next man in Buswell’s position will end up any different.
Also, delimiting homosociality to the infantile simply confirms our assumptions that some kinds of behaviour are more acceptable in the young.
I agree with all that, Klaus.
You can also observe homosociality at work in professional settings where 40, 50 and 60 something men patronise, harrass and diss their female colleagues. Looking at any of the high profile sexual harrassment cases in banks, law firms, etc, gives us a good idea of how that goes on. It may manifest itself differently in young men and boys, but it’s definitely there among (some) older men.
I think it is the social justification that facilitates this kind of harassment, and that feminist activity that attempts to influence and redefine homosociality, to shift it away from using women as mediating objects, will be most effective.
One reason that women are drawn in as mediating objects is that homosociality is always haunted by the ’spectre’ of homosexuality: men together use women to confirm their intimacy with each other is of a non-sexual variety. Which is why working against homophobia may help initiate these changes as well, and turn out to be consonant with feminist goals.
Yes, and understanding that all this stuff works on a sex/gender/sexuality continuum is a good way to start!
I think the pain aspect of bra snapping is a red herring - I think the point of Troy’s bra snap was what we doggy owners call “dominance” behaviour. That’s what is wrong with it.
I was having my cake and eating it too, Klaus. Being of the multitasking gender (I am frequently told) I can understand and Denounce! all at once.
I get the homosocial angle, I know it is not a justification. FWIW though, I think the reaction of his male peers shows that this is indeed pathologic behaviour.
If only pollies were more like dogs, Helen, then they could bond by sniffing each others arses instead of women’s chairs.
“FWIW though, I think the reaction of his male peers shows that this is indeed pathologic behaviour.”
Fair enough. On the other hand, how did we get to this point and why is he still in office? Negative reactions aren’t necessarily indicative of anything if they’re of the ‘there’s a place and a time, and this ain’t it’ variety. That’s just business as usual.
“If only pollies were more like dogs, Helen, then they could bond by sniffing each others arses instead of women’s chairs.”
Lol.
The etiology of Buswell’s behaviour is to be understood as the fag-end of the sexual revolution that began in the 1960s.
That revolution expressed for the first time since the Middle Ages the then disturbing possibility that women were sexual beings.
This sexual revolution also expressed the subversive notion that sex was enjoyable in its own right and that it needed no justification beyond gratification.
Eventually (indeed very quickly), these two notions became mainstream. The question then arose as to how men should go about encouraging women to do what they really wanted to do.
Various attempted solutions to this problem have excited all sorts of pathetic male behaviour since the 1960s. Buswell’s bra-snapping is toward the normal end of this continuum. Buswell’s olfactory exhibitionism is toward the gross-out end of this continuum.
The problem with freedom is that it must be shared with idiots, frotteurs, flashers, and consumers of alcopop.
Aha.
Yes, the pain thing was just one of a series of hypothetical questions about motive — which I still don’t think we’re quite at the bottom of, though now a lot closer. Because if it’s only dominance behaviour, why doesn’t he do the equivalent to men as well? Or perhaps he does? There must be some male-to-male dominance equivalent of bra snapping and chair sniffing; I wonder if he does that.
Given how much these kinds of blokes loathe being forced to talk about their own behaviour (”Troy, we need to talk”), I would like to sit the bloke down and not let him get up until he has been forced to articulate exactly why he does this stuff. ‘Natural exuberance’ isn’t good enough. I don’t want a ‘reason’; I want a motive, and one that is gender-specific, like the behaviour.
The other thing about all this is that given the prodigious fuss made about Hillary Clinton’s alleged ‘tears’ (I could never see any tears no matter how hard I looked), I’m astonished that this bloke has been given an almost totally free pass in the press about the classic bully behaviour of collapsing like wet fruit and blubbering in public. It’s always the word ‘family’ that makes harassers and the unfaithful cry, have you noticed that? The family they have irretrievably humiliated and are now begging other people to have pity on.
Speaking of which, whatever happened to John Brogden?
I’ve always felt there was something in Doris Lessing’s observation that all of our tears are tears of self-pity. Remorse is expressed differently, I think, but tears are frequently taken to signify something like that when men shed them (and something else again when women do).
Word Anna, word.
Thank you, world of employment, for bringing the Eye of Winter back to LP, with its steel gaze that searches our souls.
…
You might be curious about motive, PC, but if there was an absolute opposite of curiosity, it’d be what I feel about Buswell. The mentality of a public chair-sniffer is just one of those places that I’ll be happy if I never hear about again, let alone understand. We don’t need to talk to Troy to understand him. The Liberal Party needs to dispatch him quickly, send him to the shamed obscurity of failed leaders everywhere, and stick his metaphorical head on a pike outside the party room as an example to any others who’d think to bra-strap-snap or chair-sniff.
To their credit, the NSW Liberals did just that to racist joke-teller John Brogden.
…
Katz: frotteurs? I always assumed the verb to ‘frot’ was a decent Germanism, not one of those vile Norman imports to English. Not that I’ve spent a great deal of time looking for the etymology of frotterheit.
Katz @ 48: “The problem with freedom is that it must be shared with idiots, frotteurs, flashers, and consumers of alcopop.”
Yes, but they should not be elevated to or maintained at positions of leadership, where their behaviour might be construed as example and role model.
Agree with Caroline at 10. How the rest of the associated party jump to understand or excuse this depressing .I also can’t understand why the guy doesn’t comprehend he should resign.
Continuing on benefits what or who exactly?
Not to be outdone, it seems Premier Carpenter has been in on the act too:
The Liberal Party needs to dispatch him quickly, send him to the shamed obscurity of failed leaders everywhere, and stick his metaphorical head on a pike outside the party room as an example to any others who’d think to bra-strap-snap or chair-sniff.
Sadly, I heard the Julie Bishop excusing and enabling him on RN this morning. She was spinning so much you could hear the hum.
No chance of a teachable moment there, I’m afraid.
Did you hear it Caroline? were your teeth grinding as much as mine? Fortunately for the enamel, they did have a crumpet between them, although Julie’s semantic twists and turns did put me off my breakfast a bit.
…
Katz: frotteurs? I always assumed the verb to ‘frot’ was a decent Germanism
I thought it was from the French, Frottage. or is that just an invented word? (Pav?)
“The Julie Bishop”?? Must make better use of the preview.
I’m pretty sure it’s from frottage. There was a big frottage craze in lefty circles at UQ in about 1992.
Well that’s it then. Can’t trust the French or the Queenslanders.
Dr Cat - One dominance thing that (some) blokes do to each other is the handshake manouvre. The intending dominator grasps the other bloke’s hand with a bone-crushing grip and twists so his own hand is on top of the other.
I’ve seen some behaviour a bit like the chair-sniff occaisonally (but not recently) in male-dominated Army boozers. Even in what was once an extremely misogynistic environment like the Army, though, this sort of behaviour is not acceptable. (This is not to say it doesn’t still happen, but it’s rare.)
“And I thought the NSW Libs were preposterously bad in our last State election. Is there some sort of competition for worst State Opposition Leader going on?”
There’s a concurrent Worst Premier comp running too.
Apparently everybody is winning except Anna Bligh.
Ah yes — the manouevre also known as Latham’s Downfall.
Since someone’s asked, I’ve looked it up in French and English dictionaries and can report that ‘frot’ is indeed a word in English dating from the Middle English derived from the Old French ‘froter’, now evolved into modern Franch ‘frotter’, the infinitive form of a perfectly cromulent verb meaning, not surprisingly, ‘to rub’. Its specialist slang/sexual meaning — “frottage” is a French construction — doesn’t appear (judging from my rather detailed French dictionary) to actually exist in French. Go figure.
Nah. I am no particular fan of our Mike Rann, who uses his attack-dog Treasurer to keep everyone in line and who is making the classic mistake of arrogant overconfidence based on a 70% approval rating (though I think it’s a lot lower than that these days), but the bloke is an unquestionably competent and highly civilised intellectual. You don’t get to be a speechwriter for Don Dunstan at 25 unless you’ve got a lot of good smarts going on.
I should write a post about this some time (or not). When a few women in the aforesaid UQ lefty circles started propagandising frottage in 92, the idea immediately struck everyone as much more sexually exciting than sex. But then, we may have been weird.
Couple of observations. What happened with the ALP at Bunbury. Probably foolish because they were pollies, but from all accounts completely consensual. So I have no problems with whatever went on at the kareoke night(never been to one, y’know) on the present information.
Interestingly, I have not registered any reporting in the MSM that even considers Buswell’s behaviour as a form of sexual harassment, which it obviously is.(Not that I’ve taken a lot of notice.) Though the connection is clearly made in that other public incident of Sam Newman on the AFL Footy Show.This has set me wondering why, assuming my observation is right. I haven’t come up with an answer.
For the record, when I first heard of the story I thought it was both hilariously funny and pretty disgusting. But the clearest mental image I had was of how outraged the woman he did it to must’ve been.
Wierd maybe. If I correctly recall the fashion for lycra and polyester, statically charged definitely.
You lot must have crackled and sparked like equipment in a B-movie mad scientist’s laboratory.
Heh!
Well we won the 92 student election by a record margin anyway!
SEA - the tide is turning. Cool octopus graphics on the posters.
Frottage is ineffably francaise.
It was an entirely respectable word until the invention of public transport.
Since then it has kept bad company.
Mot, Katz.
I wish to point out that we practiced frottage in the privacy of our own homes (well maybe in the student union building or rented dumps) and between consensual adults only - not as a random act of public transport.
C’etait l’excitement!
“student union building”
We used to have a designated area specifically for such things (bucket bongs and frottage). Officially, the Guild of Undergraduates Social Club Committee Room. What filthy little shits we were. Oh, memories…
I was also interested in his assertion that he originally denied the chair sniffing to protect the woman involved.
Excuse me? How do you protect her by denying it occurred - surely it is too late to protect her if you are being asked publicly about the incident? Big BS to that one, IMO. The only person he was trying to protect was himself.
As to frotteurism Wiki says “In psychiatry, the clinical term frotteurism (no longer called frottage)” You lot at UQ were weird.
“What happened with the ALP at Bunbury…”
Are they, perhaps, Bunburyists? Surely we’ve learned by now where that leads…
Andy says: “they should not be elevated to or maintained at positions of leadership” which is, of course true. But the problem is, this isn’t just about ‘leadership behaviour, it is about general behaviour - nobody should do this stuff, leader, politician or bloke in the street. In relation to this behaviour as an expression of immaturity, it is worth considering how you would deal with your (real or imaginary) 12 year old son if they did that? Surely we wouldn’t accept it from them and would give them a good telling off (at least) if we saw them - the message is, it is totally unacceptable to treat a woman like that.
Carpenter’s behaviour is actually different - it was consensual and it didn’t have the absolute ‘yuk’ factor that Buswell’s behaviour has. Radisich has now come out apparently and said that “nothing happened that caused me offence”.
Peter Van Oslen - Howard’s Biographer - was on Radio National this morning talking about how this action - and the Liberal party’s support of Buswell - has damaged the Liberal brand to the point of losing them the next election - not due until next February
Mais oui, PC.
Un petit mot peutetre?
Gather its got worse. Buswell was apparently making sexual noises while he was sniffing. This has got to be utter madness. Any sane bloke knows that’s not the way to impress women. Don’t they? Or, for the most part, unless you’re a cretin on The Footy Show, other men.
Here is what Jaye Said.
[Labor MP Jaye Radisich today again refused to publicly deny claims that Mr Carpenter exposed her bra at the karaoke party, held at Bunbury’s Sanctuary Golf Resort in 2004.
As state parliament prepared to resume sittings, Ms Radisich said nothing had happened on the night to cause her offence.
But she did not deny the specific allegation that Mr Carpenter lifted her top and exposed her bra.
“At the event in 2004, nothing happened to cause either (then Labor MP) Louise (Pratt), nor I, any kind of offence,” Ms Radisich said as she arrived at parliament house.
“And, as I said, I don’t intend to further edify the spectacle.
“It’s about time that all of us as politicians raised the standard in WA because the people that elected us deserve better than this.”]
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=145&ContentID=71490
At the very least to an unedifying spectacle of one nonchalantly scoffing all the cucumber sandwiches…
tigtog, precisely the sort of thing I’m referring to, not to mention hogging the muffins and serving tea-cake to guests
Further to Paul Burns at #76:
I think she means ’sexually satisfied’.
Source here.
Perhaps Noel Crichton-Browne is Buswell’s mentor. Frank?
Helen I did hear Julie Bishop on the radio ala Kevin Rudd’s TAXPAYER funded trip to a stripclub where he was so drunk he couldn’t even remember what he’d done.
That they even try to support this tosser is both pathetic and telling of an underlying lack of any scruples that seem to characterise this party. It reminds me of pack rape, where the pack mentality prevails and individual judgement goes awol.
Dr Kat, motive must tie in with reason. Reasons seem to be an obvious lack of intelligence, woeful parental rolemodel, (I’d hazard a guess that Buswell Snr has been a major influence for better or worse in Troy’s, (Troy–Geezus wept) life and obviously a generalised hatred of women, (undoubtedly due to a series of knockbacks).
He should be thrown out of the party. Yet I cannot see anywhere in society where a man of this calibre fits. Perhaps there’s a need for re-education camps or something?
A new policy of sincerity perhaps?
[Reasons seem to be an obvious lack of intelligence, woeful parental rolemodel, (I’d hazard a guess that Buswell Snr has been a major influence for better or worse in Troy’s, (Troy–Geezus wept) life ]
Buswell Snr died when Troy was either in his teens or early 20’s.
Perhaps a more constructive way forward than re-education camps was offered by a commenter at Eureka Street:
“Wouldn’t the problem be better addressed by Troy Buswell remaining as leader and leading by example in a change of culture?”
Caroline I wouldn’t hazard too many guesses if I were you - Troy’s father died when he was quite young, so you might guess that his mother had a bigger influence.
Frank, he was 8 when his father died.
Wouldn’t the problem be better addressed by Troy Buswell resigning completely. Then publicly stating that his behaviour has shown that he deserves no leadership position in any organisation trying to influence public policy?
On the redemption theme - I was just looking at imbd in order to remind myself of heart throb Troy Donahue. (Caroline, Troy B was named after Troy D - his mother was inspired by a Fantale wrapper), and it says:
“Starting drinking alcohol in seventh grade (age 13). After being dropped by Warner Brothers in 1966 (age 30) he became an alcoholic. Admitted that he was addicted to pain killers, amphetamines, & cocaine, and used marijuana daily. Joined AA in 1982 (age 46) and turned his life around with his sobriety.”
If you had seen the film A Summer Place you just couldn’t think badly of the name! (Now we’re getting into Darlene’s territory)