The number one story around the water cooler this morning is … an All Black having sex in a toilet.
Big news.
Bigger even than the Nobel Prize announcements (congratulations guys), Russia’s continuing backdoor aggressions (and whether either presidential candidate could contain them), or Helen Clark not getting the top job at the UN (which we all knew would happen, didn’t we).
A sportsman having sex in a toilet. The kind of story that has happened before (sportsman behaves badly), and will without question happen again (man has sex with woman behind a locked door).
This, sad to say, is news.
It’s not like it was even cramped in the cubicle – it wasn’t a broom closet (boom boom!) – they had the nous to choose the larger, more palatial disabled suite in which to plight their troth. (Which bothered no-one apart from two stickeybeaks who wanted to be bothered.)
Sure, he didn’t behave well (you’ve always got be careful around those Christchurch girls) but the real story here, I reckon, are the two stickybeaks who spent 10 minutes outside the cubicle with their children filming the locked door, then sending their bloody footage and a long bloody email about it to a journalist.
“We don't want to convey the fact that we're narking or gossiping about his private life,” said the female half of the two narks. “It's kinda beside the point.” No love.You being a loser kind of is the point.
“I almost feel bad for putting the poor bloke in it now," the male loser said in a subsequent email to the journalist. Bit fricking late now, mate. You’ve already exposed yourself as a joyless pillock probably ordered around by his wife – who seems to do all their talking.
So what do they reckon these two were doing standing in a corridor with their phones out for ten minutes filming a locked door? What kind of people would do that?
The All Blacks were put on a pedestal and were role models for young Kiwis, [said the female loser]. As such, they should be held to a higher level of scrutiny.
Really! Why? Maybe instead we could all pretend to be adults, and stop putting our own expectations onto sporting champions.
"Most people would not do that, let alone a public figure," she said.
Really! I reckon most people would jump at the chance. What most people wouldn’t do however is stand in a corridor filming a locked door and sending the footage to the press. That takes a special kind of loser.
The All Black was representing his team at the time of the incident, wearing his number ones and in a very public place.
If you think a locked toilet cubicle off a long and narrow corridor is “a very public place” then you have many more problems to worry about, lady, than just your prudery and predilection for gossip.
"They are kings and treated like absolute royalty...We hold these people so high in regard. They get paid more money than any other athlete, they're household names, and they're on the Weetbix boxes for God's sake."
Oh my god! They’re on the Weetbix box! The humanity of it all!!
What a pathetic pair of human beings.
So here’s the thing: Instead of journalists parking up and pestering Aaron Smith and his partner(s) about all this for days on end – because for all we know they’re polygamous, which would be their own damned business – how about instead they park up outside the house of these two pathetic losers and pester them about whay they think somebody having sex in private is something for them to witter about to the press. Let them ask all those important questions about what motivates the pair to tell all about somebody else’s sex life – like, are they really getting enough themselves?
Here’s Paul McCartney explaining journalistic ethics to a reporter who’s never encountered the concept.
UPDATE: Stephen Franks asks quite seriously “Have I lost touch with my country? Where am I?”
When did it become an obligation on an employer to discipline an employee for what could be a fleeting airport toilet shag with a woman not his ‘partner’, thousands of miles from the ‘workplace’ with no evidence (so far) that it could affect workplace performance…
Maybe there is more to come. One suggestion in my office is that it is relevant that it was a disabled toilet. What about the responsibility of the airport company for not supervising access to it? Will we see demands for precautionary modifications of all toilets? Welfare offices must all now be rebuilt because a judge has decided the bosses are responsible for the actions of a mad and bad shooter. Are disabled toilets too inviting? I must confess to liking all that space. Strategically located spikes like those that deter pigeons on statues might help discourage misuse.
In this new country anything is possible.
And Rob Hosking suggests a little something to mark the death of NZ journalism…
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9 comments:
Yes, what a pathetic, puritan nation we've become. And even more pathetic is the All Blacks management suspending Smith for a game. There was a time when he would have received nothing more than envious backslaps from his colleagues.
Just another example of the dead-brained media beating up a non-story in a desperate bid to get some attention. Sad and pathetic.
While I think recording two animals rutting was tacky I have a different view on this. There was once a view widely held that actions in public places could be expected to meet a certain level of morality (for want of a better word). An example of what this looks like is as follows.
A friend's work colleague saw a drunk young lady being assisted by the police in Wellington. She had become partially undressed and a lot of people were watching and laughing (like childish people and perverts do). The lady (as it was) asked the police if she could cover the drunk up to preserve a bit of decency and was allowed to give her coat to wrap up the drunk. The drunk, even in her state, noticed and was grateful that some dignity had been restored because some one, just one, cared.
The lesson is that while we can all fuck anywhere we like but some of us still think that using a private space (which arguably this is not) that respects other people is not unreasonable and if that's not available exercising some self control may be warranted. It was known as common decency, good manners and so on and it doesn't seem like very long ago. We didn't need legislation to rule every aspect because most knew how to act most of the time. Sleaze has always been but it hasn't always been celebrated as wholesome. We all have things like this in our past but when your face is everywhere and you are making good money on the back of it you need to be mindful of the responsibility that goes with that. The alleged tear at being caught and confronted was the final straw for me. He needs to man up or get a bum job with no profile.
3:16
When a toilet cubicle becomes a public space, I may agree with you.
But until then ...
Exactly. Getting naked and screwing in a public place in full view would be offensive to many. So would dropping your pants and taking a crap in public. But it's OK to do that in a toilet even if you do make a loud farting noise and a terrible smell, both of which might emanate to the outside.
So what's different about shagging in the toilet? Not so much in my opinion. The only problem I can come up with is that they were doing it in a disabled toilet. The rest is pure media prurience and nobody's business but the protagonists' and their partners.
I see your point and am no prude but toilet walls are thin and people are just outside waiting to go. In public toilets I cringe if an audible fart escapes me let alone the sound of primitive mating rituals. I guess some people simply must exchange bodily fluids and root others every chance they get because they have no self control but I remain of a view this was a poor choice of location. He's all upset and embarrassed because, irrespective of what may be legal, he knows it was tacky.
3:16
Not at all. What's tacky is what the media and sexless couple are doing and have done.
It's the Paul McCartney point, really ...
The difference is that there could be (and apparently was) a child outside listening. Your argument is valid for a toilet in a nightclub but not in an airport.
Children don't loiter outside toilets listening. It was only their because of its idiot parents, and all that was heard was a thumping. Hardly going to turn the child to drugs.
Pure.
Media.
Prurience.
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