Gross attitude to sex infects whole society – not just rugby elite

THE grossly misogynist language used by the defendants in the Belfast rape trial is not confined to a privileged subset of professional sports star – it is endemic in society. Following the not guilty verdicts in the Belfast rape trial, much of the coverage of the trial has sought to exceptionalise the demeaning and degrading language used by all four men as somehow limited and rare.

Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding, in particular, so the rationale goes, as entitled young sports stars led a privileged life in which they had become accustomed to women throwing themselves at them.

Women became a perk of the job – and were treated as such. Used up and thrown away. Their only useful function after these encounters? A soiled prop that could be used for boasting.

This explains the vile text messages. Olding’s reference to the complainant in the case as “very, very loose” while, in contrast, the men were “all top shaggers”. Jackson crowing that “there was a bit of spit roasting going on last night fellas”.

But perhaps the most revolting text messages, opened to the court, were authored by Blane McIlroy. He captioned a photo, of three young women sitting beside him on a couch, with “love Belfast sluts” and gleefully reported that he had “pumped a girl with Jacko on Monday night. Roasted her. Then another on Tuesday”.

Mr McIlroy was a student at the time of the alleged rape and sexual assault. So, what’s his excuse?

His friends may have been famous, and living in a bubble of fawning fans and groupies, but he certainly wasn’t.

There is a danger that in the aftermath of the trial, the degrading language used by the men is treated as niche or unique. A product of middle-class, rugby school entitlement that is not replicated across society.

The rather more unpalatable truth is that these kinds of gross exchanges are disturbingly common place. This sexist attitude infects every region of the country and every socioeconomic demographic.

How else to explain the ‘rape list’ that materialised in the boys’ toilet of a co-educational secondary school in Mallow?

Scrawled on the door of the toilet were the names of four girls, who attend the school, with the threat that the name which attracted “the most ticks will get raped”. Even more alarmingly, this is the third such list which has been circulated in the same school – but management were unaware of the previous incidents.

So, you can now apparently have a situation where references to raping female students, brazenly posted in a toilet in a large school, are deemed to be so unremarkable and mundane that nobody is concerned enough to alert staff.

Perhaps some of the students who viewed the ‘rape list’ thought it was a joke. A bizarre endorsement of the attractiveness of the girls involved.

But that in itself tells its own story. Violent language used in connection with women is not concerning of itself. It is mere bravado, bluster and, most disturbingly, a sinister compliment.

Students in Mallow are not the only ones who may view allegations of rape as funny. While much of the public commentary following the Belfast rape trial was condemnatory, there were those who saw the humorous side.

Two players from Malone Rugby Club in Belfast, one bearing the label ‘Paddy Jackson’ and the other ‘Stuart Olding’, were pictured five days after the verdict posing with a trophy resting between their crotches.

The joke was they were spitroasting the trophy. While the men’s faces have been pixelated in media coverage, it is obvious they are both wearing broad smiles. They clearly

This normalisation of misogyny debases women as glorified sex dolls who exist to be ‘pumped’ and ‘roasted’

thought they were hilarious – and had no reservations at all about posing for the picture.

In fact, the joke was so well thought out and planned that the men had gone to the bother of printing out name tags, bearing Olding’s and Jackson’s names, to stick on their chests.

This kind of proudly oafish behaviour, in the midst of the nationwide protests that were taking place at the time in the wake of the verdict, is really quite astonishing. And deeply depressing.

THESE men must have been aware of the controversy, and public anger, caused by the degrading language used by the defendants in the trial – but that didn’t deter them from making light of it.

Far from being a spur-of-themoment, rash decision to make an inappropriate joke, printing the name tags suggests the men had clearly thought about it in advance.

When the reaction to a rape trial is grotesque banter, when rape threats and lists are posted in secondary schools and remain unremarked upon, it is clear that we have a problem which transcends the personalities involved in one criminal trial.

This normalisation of misogyny, and barely concealed contempt for women, has a corrosive effect on society. It debases 50pc of the population as glorified sex dolls who exist to be “pumped” and “roasted”.

It leads to dysfunctional attitudes to sex and consent and women resigned to a life in which daily street harassment and sexual assault is viewed as an inescapable side-effect of their gender.

The proliferation of porn, and the ubiquity of sexting among teenagers, with nearly 50pc of 17-year-olds having admitted to sharing sexual content in texts of photographs, means that this an issue that urgently needs to be addressed.

Not just among an elite rugby set, but in the whole of society.