Ulster Rugby trial -continued

[ZibbidooZibbidooZibbidoo]

New thread.

@buckeejit yeah they are uk cases. One was the chief of staff in parliament and apparently the prosecution only gave the defense cctv days before the trial which didn't match up to the accusers account.

Apparently she had mental health problems and had accused someone before?

I'm not in the uk so not that familiar with the case and not sure I can mention names.

Let's all take a step back, don't turn on each other, please. It would be a crying shame if this thread had to be pulled.

I also think it's a lot to do with porn. I think it encourages some of the very worst behaviour in too many men.

Yes please let’s get back to the point of the thread. Not fighting with each other. We all share the same disgust at what these 4 men have done. That’s why we’re on this thread. To discuss that.

I think porn has an awful lot to answer for as well. I truly believe that it has led to a much worse situation for women who are in their teens and twenties now than when I was younger.

@LastGirlOnTheLeft @Bumblefuddle has said in earlier posts that she is going through a horrific time at the moment which involves an assault on her daughter.

You may not be aware of this but either way can we just be a bit more mature and sensitive to each other.

I really didn't want this thread to go this away again.

This is not doing the women in the Belfast trial any good so please think of her? I wanted us to keep the conversation going and see does any good come out of it

The gif that was sent the day after is testament to the impact porn is having. It’s very worrying.

I think NotTaken has it spot on & certain posts need to be ignored.

Bumble so sorry for everything you & your DD are going through. Please don't pay attention to some of the things said on this thread - the vast vast majority of us are wishing you & your DD well.

This thread may have reached its natural conclusion. The players will no longer play for Ulster, they have been publicly judged, raising awareness and levels of revulsion for them and suspicion of a culture of misogyny in the rugby club. Thees players, no doubt, will be asked to play for another club but that doesn't take away the progress that has been made in challenging unacceptable, unthinking male sporting culture.

Bumble, this could be the perfect time to advance your concerns. Sorry if I have missed it, but have you approached your local MP? Informing Bank of Ireland as ongoing sponsors could also be useful.

Evening folks. We can see there's a lot going on here and lots of people are understandably upset about many different things being discussed. We're making a few deletions and if possible we'd like to avoid having to delete the entire thread, because that's always a last resort. Can we draw a line under the rest of it all now and return to the discussion originally at hand? It seems rather a shame if the whole discussion has to be lost. Thanks.

Thanks Hebe, yes please just delete a few posts and try to save the thread.

Thanks Peanut-I looked at the article but couldn't see the whole thing. Yes, being wrongly accused is a horrific thing & I wouldn't want anyone to go through that. However, securing a rape conviction in obvious circumstances is so much less likely that it is really frustrating that this is pedalled out as though they are two sides of an equally balanced coin.

I don't know what the next step is but I'm glad there has been a step of sorts here and I hope that we can build on it. I saw a local lad on twitter saying 'if you're not angry, you haven't been paying attention,' which sums up this case for me.

Exeter dismissing reports that they’re interested in SO. Getting back on the playing field may not be that easy for him after all. I have to say I find the idea that either could walk straight into jobs more than slightly depressing.

Also reading in Irish Independent that UR fans are planning boycott of next game in protest against sackings. Would be great if women filled the stands instead to show approval of the disciplinary’s outcome.

HRHPrincessMegan That would really be something, wouldn’t it?
We could get t shirts printed in the same text and colour saying “I support Ulster Women” and pose en mass for a parody photo.

In all honesty while I don’t think pj and so should be followed and hounded, but if I lived further afield and caught wind that these blow ins were joining my local team after their well documented behaviour, I think I’d have a right to make some noise. I’m sure many people feel the same way.

I want to share a happy story for Monday morning. Dd (7) just told me a boy in her class wants to marry her. He’s a known skirt lifter and generally quite unpleasant. But I try to remain impartial. Apparently boys will be boys.

Dd: Stevie wants to marry me...
Me: (Wtf!) Oh right. And do you want to marry him?
Dd: (No hesitation) No. I want to marry someone who is gentle and kind.
Me: I think that’s a very good decision.

It really made me happy to learn that she is setting her standards even at 7years old.

Is it ok to jump in? I haven’t been on MN for a while but been lurking on this thread for a couple of days.

I think getting SO and PJ sacked is a huge victory, not because of the effect on them personally but because it has been a loud public statement that laddish misogyny is not ok.

I’m actually relieved by the comments from ordinary decent men about this trial because I had reached a point of thinking that this laddish crap was what men were.

I absolutely agree that porn is a massive problem. It’s not about naughty magazines now. Our children are getting their sex education from hard core videos before they even get to secondary school. Our culture promotes overt sexualisation of young women and parents, educators and church more or less avoid the subject. Weirdly normal loving sex is a hidden, taboo subject

Now I think we need to work on:
Men standing up mia doring and Jackson katz
Shifting the focus of consent new consent law
Educating about rape shock and smiling
Better sex education that incorporates social and emotional aspects soberpaddy.com/how-not-to-be-a-rapist/

But crucially, changing the way rape cases are handled in court. review

For the last one, I’ll be writing to Charlie Flanagan and to my TDs today. Personally I do assume that if a rape case gets to court the defendant is probably guilty regardless of the outcome. I don’t hold suspicions like that about other kinds of crime. The system isn’t fit for purpose: men deserve a trial that would clear their names if falsely accused.

Rory Harrison sent Stuart Olding a video of a consensual ‘spit roast’, this was disclosed when reporting restrictions were lifted.

Porn was something that in previous generations seems to have been consumed in private with a certain amount of "shame" (or is that just me thinking that). Now it's everywhere and seems to be universally accepted by blokes as "normal". This culture seems to have pervaded rugby circles where "lads will be lads". Women are constantly shown as willing participants in non mainstream sex, loving is totally unrelated it seems and there is I feel a huge normalisation of this type of imagery. Where the hell do you go with that? Honestly we're never going to tone down the internet, but the acceptance of pornography and extreme pornography needs to be addressed... just don't know how!

It's the violence and the normalisation of it that is so frightening. All over social media I saw men (mostly young men) posting comments about how it was perfectly normal to make a woman bleed during sex. And other men agreeing with them. And women who disagreed were basically being told to shut up.

How did we reach a point where 'normal' men think that there is nothing wrong with injuring women as part of 'normal' sex?

Pressed send too soon .
And women deserve a system that isn’t the leftovers of a society that believed good men were led astray by bad women.

I think that the pj and so dismissals will take the wind out of the campaign, or that we’ll lose sight of the big picture pursuing individual men.

We’ve achieved so much over the years: we’ve established children can’t lure good men, or intellectually disabled people can’t seduce good men, that prostitutes can be raped, that wives can be raped. We had to fight for those “concessions”, now we have to fight to overturn the rotten system and build a trial system predicated on the belief that women are actual human beings.

It's the violence and the normalisation of it that is so frightening. All over social media I saw men (mostly young men) posting comments about how it was perfectly normal to make a woman bleed during sex. And other men agreeing with them. And women who disagreed were basically being told to shut up

We need to keep the conversation going, and we need good men to contribute. We need to keep challenging this.