Lewd photos send a damaging message
ANUMBER of young GAA players learned a salutory lesson in recent days after lewd images and video footage of a rather wild night out after a championship win were leaked.
It is understood that the Gardaí are investigating the matter but according to the GAA it was a private event, and not a club one, despite the fact that the winning cup was in the photographs.
There are so many levels to an incident such as this and many will brush it off as a bit of harmless fun.
In an age of smart-phones, any silly mistake on a drunken night out can be replayed at the expense of someone’s dignity and reputation and can have repercussions far beyond a bit of banter amongst sporting teammates.
Such footage is never going to stay buried and whoever leaked it didn’t have much regard for those involved. Then again they probably thought that those engaging in such behaviour didn’t have much self respect either given the fact that it all took place in public.
It is the club members and team mates who are now associated with this scandal that many feel sorry for, as they didn’t seek such negative press. Were it not for the appearance of the cup no connection would even be made to any GAA club but by having it there, those young men are representative of it.
More concerning than this is the women involved in the images.
What sort of message does this send to other young men around the country and does this tell them that it is okay to degrade women and themselves in this manner?
While these particular women may have been consenting participants – it cannot be even suggested that all women are willing to do the same and that it is acceptable for any man to treat women in this manner.
There is so much discussion about consent and images such as this could be extremely damaging to young people on a wider scale who may be naive enough to think that this is the way men and women behave, that it is okay to expect a woman to come in an perform a sex act in front of a group of onlookers.
We all hear how accessible pornography is today but when images such as these are linked to an organisation such as the GAA and to young lads in rural Ireland, that is when perceptions can get skewed and a damaging message is sent out.