To be worried about the Ched Evans threads on here

[corkysgran]

Sorry but this does seem like a witchunt to me. Many of the posters (who have signed the petition) obviously have little knowledge of the case. At one point a poster said Sports Direct would withdraw sponsorship if Evans was NOT signed and immediately others were vowing to boycott. Laughable and shows the level of thought before clicking. Online justice and the court of public opinion, not for me. As for expecting football, an industry corrupt from the very top (Sepp Blatter) and inherently sexist, to show any moral stance, get real.

In one of the articles I read, it said that footballers refer to this kind of predatory sexual behaviour as "night games".

It's as if they don't want consensual sex. It's as if they want to rape.

These are not misunderstandings, accidents or miscarriages of justice, I don't think. They are instances of predatory, misogynistic, deliberate behaviour. I hope there are more decent footballers who will speak out now.

Makes you wonder just how many victims there are out there who have never come forward.

In one of the articles I read, it said that footballers refer to this kind of predatory sexual behaviour as "night games".

I must have read the same article as you Deux but I can't remember where.

If it's true it's chilling.

Sabrina, we'll never know because they've seen how CE's poor victim has been treated. Would you come forward now, if it was you?

The whole thing makes me utterly sick.

No, exactly, tea

Women have been taught a lesson here in what happens if you report a rapist who is a football idol - the irony here being she never actually reported CE for rape in the first place. The police and the CPS put together the case against him.

It's so depressing.

But there are positives to take, I think.

The police and CPS putting a case together in the first case.

A successful conviction of rape.

The backlash against CE by a significant proportion of right-thinking people; high and low profile, men and women.

Even 10-20 years ago, this would have been unlikely.

Plus, the name Ched Evans is now synonymous in almost everyone's mind with rape. He has to wear that.

Yes JapanesemargRet i agree, in amongst all this awful business, those are good points.

Yes, amongst all the horrible stuff everywhere about this case, I do feel like a teeny tiny tide has turned. I'm really glad that the CPS are going to be looking at the website as well.

I saw a picture of Ciaran Goggins earlier - I imagined him as a teenager/early twenty something, but bizarrely he looks like he is in his 40s/50s. People are weird arent they.....?

The Guardian is on a roll. Here is a comment piece about the tide turning.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/16/ched-evans-rape-victim-blamers

Interesting last para which pretty much says what has been said on these type of threads. The focus is shifting onto the behaviour of the perpetrator and that's why the likes of RCE's supporters are getting so angry.

You're right, JapaneseMargaret, there are positives. Must remember that.

And I've also learned a lot about how to frame the argument. I had a VERY heated discussion with DH this week about the case. Not about whether RCE should be signed - as a good feminist, DH also pleased that CE wasn't signed, wouldn't want him running round on a field playing for DH's team, couldn't cheer the team if that happened.

BUT he was uncomfortable with what he saw as the inconsistency: a plumber (why is it always a fucking plumber?) would come out of jail and would be able to resume his trade because it wouldn't be all over the papers and there wouldn't be a mob demanding he wasn't employed.

So I had to clarify my own thoughts (and admit that I didn't entirely care about the consistency argument because I felt so passionately the result was the right one). But for the next time - and let's face it, we all know there'll be one):

1. Plumbers are the wrong comparator. TV presenters and pop stars far closer to the high profile, sponsor-driven world of sport. So, are you also arguing Rolf Harris should get his CBeebies job back...?
2. Other footballers, in the past, have caused deaths and got their jobs back. So we have to ignore wrong in the here and now because it was dealt with in a certain way in the past? On that theory we'd still have slavery.
3. What about rehabilitation? Only possible if you know what you've done is wrong. He doesn't.
4. What if he ends up on benefits? Why the fuck should I care? Don't want to lose your career - don't rape.

I won that one. And I didn't have to get into the consent argument because DH isn't a total cunt like RCE's supporters. But it was quite interesting and I'm never using the plumber analogy again. Although actually, there's no way I'd have a rapist in my house, or would stand by while any organisation I was connected with employed one, so I am 100% comfortable I'm consistent on that score.

I did realise also - and this isn't entirely comfortable thinking for me - that I don't see any way back from a rape conviction. Some crimes feel like things people do, but a rapist is what you are. Once you've gone past that boundary and disregarded another human being's autonomy there's no going back. Not sure how I feel about feeling like that.

I ventured intrepid lay onto the Mail's site and had a look at the comments under their report of this. There were only a few, but they were unanimously pleased that the CPS were looking into it. So much for the perception of Evans' supporters that those who fail to support him are nothing but a bunch of lefty feminist harridans.

Yep. Including the Lord Chief Justice who refused RCE the right to appeal - although last I looked, he was a privately educated, fairly posh white man in his 60s. And the senior police officer who said RCE shouldn't be signed, and all the football supporters who argued against... it's amazing how us feminazis are all the same...

And yet, Ched's people had no idea he had made any derogatory comments on social media until last week?

They (evans family and friends) were following and favouriting his tweets. And those of others.

Ched evans is now using the twitter account @chedevans09, which was used to favorite several of Goggins and others tweets.

Interesting. Opens up two possibilities: 1. He's a sociopath who hasn't worked out that people can tell the difference between 'things you do' and 'things you say to explain them away' or 2. He's thick as mince.

If 2,can quite see why he's so desperate to get back into football. Can't think of too many other attractive career options.

Yeah the smell of bullshit in the North Wales/Cheshire area must be unbearable at the moment.

I read an article on what footballers describe as "night games" as well, can't find it now!

Same here vevvie. It wasn't the main point which, in a way, chilled me even more. It was thrown in near the end though the piece definitely wasn't in support of the rapist Ched Evans and his buddy, the acquitted Clayton MacDonald.

Do you remember some years ago where there was talk of 'spit-roasting' and a report of an infamous Man Utd party at a hotel in the city where pretty girls were rounded up and regarded by the footballers and the papers who reported on it as like cattle who deserved any abuse they might have encountered?

The women were willing and eager to come along and weren't subjected to anything non-consensual or illegal, I hasten to add. What young, single person wouldn't be flattered to be invited to a glamorous party where the champagne was free? I've done it. I've also left them when I thought the atmosphere wasn't good. But I wouldn't blame anyone if she stayed and something bad happened to her.

It was sordid and Sir Alex Ferguson for one thought it reflected so badly on the image of the club it didn't happen again. Or if it did, it was wasn't so high profile .

I thought it was over. Silly me.

BTW thanks to deux for that Joan Smith piece. I'd really like to think it was true.

I also read an article that footballers send scouts round the high end shops in Manchester to invite young, pretty girls to footballers' parties! Such entitlement! They have no respect for these young girls and it should have been frowned upon well before now.

*shop assistants.

Oh, and before I forget

I once floated my pet theory that sexual escapades involving one woman and several men have more to do with homoeroticism and sometimes men's contempt for women as heterosexual sex.

That's okay if everyone consents. I wouldn't. Millions would, apparently. Especially for the chance to do it with a footballer.

Another poster had the same theory. I won't out her - no reason except that it seems a bit rude not to ask her permission (oh, the irony). She is very robust though.

Anyway can you guess how much wrath descended upon us?

But I'll risk it again: what do you think was in the heads of the rapist Ched Evans, his acquitted friend Clayton MacDonald and RCE's second-string relations goggling with their hands down their pants on the other side of the window with the shaky camera phone while Ched and Clayton were fucking a girl?

I also read an article that footballers send scouts round the high end shops in Manchester to invite young, pretty girls to footballers' parties! Such entitlement! They have no respect for these young girls and it should have been frowned upon well before now.

Presumably those girls from the shops go completely willingly, and why wouldn't they, it's exciting and glamorous and the girls might even enjoy having sex at these parties

What these men (and a lot of the general public it seems) can't seem to grasp is that none of that gives them the right to put their penis inside any of those, or any other, women as and when they feel like it, without that woman's consent.

Vevvie I don't frown on it. I think men asking women to parties is never going to stop and I'm very glad of that. It's all part of being young, free and single. Or middle aged or elderly, for that matter.

It's reasonable to do that by talking to pretty girls working in in posh shops and asking them to invite their friends.

I also think inviting someone who you've met in a kebab shop to your cheap hotel room is also fine if that's what she wants to do.

I'd probably pass on that one

It's what happens at the posh party or the cheap hotel room that matters.

I wouldn't expect to be vilified for a crime that happened to me whether the room cost £200 a night or £29.99.

Presumably those girls from the shops go completely willingly, and why wouldn't they, it's exciting and glamorous and the girls might even enjoy having sex at these parties

X-posted Willferrellisactuallykindahot

Think they felt it was probably a normal night on the town for them! They'd been asking girls back to their hotel in the club, couldn't find one willing to go back with them and one of them stumbled upon a very intoxicated teen. 'Harvest time' is another term, apparently.