Matthew Johns

So this time it’s the turn of Matthew Johns, poster boy for Rugby League – the second official poster boy for Rugby League to be shamed within weeks – and regular on the cross-dressing Footy Show.

When I was eleven years old my best friend was a catholic boy called Barry. Every Saturday afternoon we would go to the matinee at the old Capitol Theatre (1/9d up stairs front circle, or “up front” as we’d say). Value for money back then. On the way home Barry would pop into St Mary’s to do his confession and out he would bounce, all freshly forgiven and ready to sin again with impunity. I, incredulous, asked him about this and his opinion was that he could sin as much as he liked, knowing he would be forgiven next Saturday.

I thought of this yesterday as I watched Matthew Johns writhing uncomfortably with the week’s revelations of his ‘sex romp’ in New Zealand some years ago.

It seemed there was a pattern amongst many people, particularly footballers, who do whatever they like, knowing that all they need to do is effect a display of contrition and remorse and everyone will forgive you or at least get over it soon enough.

“ It caused all parties enormous pain and embarrassment,” [said Andrew Johns]. “For me personally, it’s put my family through enormous anguish and embarrassment, and has once again, and for that I can’t say ‘sorry’ enough. But the police did investigate the situation at the time, the allegation, and there were no charges laid. But there has been a lot of pain and embarrassment to a lot of people.”¹

So forget the girl. We should feel sorry for Andrew. He’s upset.

Note the carefully spin-doctored “form of words”. First, he hasn’t actually apologised. He hasn’t even said “sorry”. He has said he can’t say it enough. The question remains, can he say it at all? Does he express regret? Perhaps, but only to his family. He hasn’t expressed regret for the act itself, for his behaviour, for his attitude to the girl or his apparently misogynistic attitude to women generally.

This type of non-apology “apology” is supposed to “do”, is supposed to satisfy the criticism. It addresses nothing at all. Doesn’t have to, of course. As Matthew Johns says, it was only an “allegation” which he hasn’t denied, there were no complaints, no charges laid, no case to answer. He owes nothing to anyone.

And just wait…if the Four Corners story makes things a little more uncomfortable for him, expect to see him popping up on Australian Story in full PR-managed mode to tell “his side of the story”.

Imagine him struggling to hold back the tears as he tells of the stresses of growing up under the aura of a far-more-famous-and-better-footballer-brother, Joey; trying to grow up to be your own man when your brother is so much bigger and stronger and better than you; coping with the stresses of dealing with Joey’s own emotional and drug problems.

I’m already sorry for him, so sympathetic and forgiving…and I haven’t even seen the [non-existent but potential] program yet.

As far as we know, there’s been no serious impact on Matthew Johns personally. He hasn’t lost any money, or his job, over his multiply-gismic escapade. There is, in fact, probably some grudging, if unacknowledged, envy, amongst a large number of men.

¹ UPDATES:

1. We find other sources have quoted Johns as saying, “I am very sorry for all the trauma and embarrassment this has caused for everyone, but particularly for my family…

2. He did lose his job on Channel 9.

What is generally lost in the coverage of these regularly revealed scandals is the question,

“What is Rugby League REALLY?”

What is it about? Really? What are kids learning about our culture in this “family game”? The conclusion an objective observer might reach, simply on the evidence of the behaviour of those who play it professionally, is that it is mostly about exaggeratedly blokey masculinity, violence and more or less violent sex – sex that is, clearly, at the very least hostile and aggressive to women and I think probably has the same attitude and intent as rape in war.

It does seem, from the number of times we hear about these episodes, that a team of Rugby League players having a group-fuck is not unusual, not even a ritual or a rite of passage. It seems to be just what you do when you’re away from home together.

Pizza and a gang-bang.

The question I’d like to ask Matthew Johns and anyone else who enjoys these sex romps is,

“How young do you think your own daughter will be when she has her first group fuck with a rugby league football team? 16? 18? Will you watch? Will you join in?”

Or to put it another way,

“If you saw your 18 year old daughter being taken up to a hotel room by 15 Rugby League players, what would you think and what would you do? Would you ask if you could watch, or would you join in?”

What you might also wonder is, is it possible that the only way these blokey “teammates” – or team members who mate – can contrive to have sex with each other in a marginally acceptable way is to mingle their semen together in a vessel who provides a façade of heterosexuality to the inherent homosexuality of the activity.

For myself, I can’t imagine the attraction of sticking my dick in amongst the combined gism of any number of other men, footballers or not, not even Matthew Johns’s cum. I think I would probably throw up.

But perhaps that would get a good belly laugh from Matthew Johns.