The Sharks Sex Saga continues. Tania Boyd, the victim’s former workmate says the victim bragged about “bedding” players, and goes on:

It was definitely consensual, absolutely.
She is saying she is still traumatised etcetera, well she wasn’t for five days, or four days at least, after that affair.
I can’t work out what’s happened. Does it take five days for it to sink in?

Tania Boyd, having not been there, can’t know whether consent was given – only if Clare – the victim – implied (to her, after the fact) that consent was given. She can’t know the truth of the situation since the victim may well have implied to her that there was consent when there wasn’t. The question of consent is a complicated one, as well – Clare might well have agreed to some sort of sexual contact, but at each escalation consent needed to be renewed, and according to her it wasn’t. There’s a good discussion of this involving our Anita at The Hand Mirror.

Ms Boyd has begged the question of consent by assuming that a woman having been raped by a lot of powerful, famous men would act in a way which someone who hadn’t had such an experience would consider rational – that is, by immediately calling a halt, or immediately reporting the events, or whatever. But trauma, especially sexual trauma, especially when it involves power imbalance, is a complicated thing, and it does screwy things to one’s sense of reason. Incidents like this can have many responses which might seem rational to the traumatised person at the time but utterly irrational to others. Bragging about the event could be seen as a form of post-purchase rationalisation; that is, Clare may have thought it started off as a good experience and perhaps even initiated it, and tried to mask the fact that it turned nasty (to herself as much as anyone) by bragging about the event. This could also be seen as a call for attention; an invitation to workmates, friends or family to offer support. Cognitive dissonance is a powerful thing.

As to the second statement, if Clare genuinely is traumatised now, then it follows that she was traumatised in the initial four days, it just wasn’t apparent to Tania Boyd, which isn’t really surprising at all given that her response was not one of support but of disgust. Not that that wasn’t a reasonable response – I have no idea how close these people were or what the nature of the workplace was, and bragging about one’s sexual exploits is pretty polarising.

As to the third statement, the answer to Ms Boyd’s question is – yes, these things do take time to sink in. According to a family member with extensive professional experience in this field, the median period of time between incidence and reporting of rape is eighteen and three-quarter years; viewed in this light four days seems very rapid indeed.

This story is being deployed without qualification in apologia for the men in this incident, whereas articles advocating Clare’s perspective are strongly hedged so as to make clear that the facts of the case haven’t really been established. The headline goes beyond euphemistically describing the events as `group sex’ and calls it a `romp’, for goodness’ sakes.

L

There’s an interesting range of responses to the Tony Veitch guilty plea of reckless disregard causing injury to Kristin Dunne-Powell, his conviction and sentence to a fine and community service.

Some are baying for blood. The KBR aren’t quite unanimous that he should go to jail, but they’re close (though there is a foul stench of `men have rights [to kick the shit out of people who don't behave]‘ as well). Haiku Dave is particularly grim:

should have got jail, then
he’d know what it’s like to be
attacked from behind

Idiot/Savant is arguing it’s Bruce Emery all over again (and he’s not wrong). Commenter Alison at The Hand Mirror shows some sense, figuring that if prison isn’t a good thing for a random violent offender, it’s not going to be a good thing for Veitch either. Heather Henare, of Women’s Refuge, is similarly cool-headed. The Herald’s Your Views is divided, as are the talkback hordes. A particularly inspired friend and colleague of mine suggested he be made to front the ACC back injury ad campaign, needing to stand on a rickety chair or somesuch in order to reach something up high. Humiliation comes in many forms.

Judge Doogue told told Veitch he was the architect of his own misfortune, and I think that if he does genuinely intend to take legal action against the media for their treatment of the case this past year, then Tony Veitch will also become the architect of his own humiliation. The facts of the case are fairly simple: there is no possible justification he can give for his attack on Dunne-Powell, no argument he can make which will put him on the side of right, and any moral high ground he tries to occupy will come under sustained fire from more sources than he and his team of lawyers can possibly afford to shut down because public sympathy toward celebrities evaporates pretty rapidly when they are seen to be taking advantage of their celebrity status. At this point anything Tony Veitch says or does will play against him. If he tries to smack down the media establishment, any publisher who chooses to fight gets the chance to put the whole stinking mess on the public record. Tim Pankhurst, if he were still editor of the Dominion Post, would pick it up in a moment out of sheer bloody-mindedness. Veitch might be planning to go back to work for The Radio Network, and that might mean APN goes easy, but that’s a great risk to them – while NewsTalk ZB and Radio Sport might not need to demonstrate their lack of fear or favour, the NZ Herald surely does.

My advice to Tony Veitch: keep your head down and take your lumps like you made Kristin Dunne-Powell take hers [though you deserve yours, and she didn't]. If you want to show us you’re better than we think you are, there is no short-cut, no easy atonement which you can buy or create from words or gestures. You can’t fix this by becoming a legal bully as you are (or were) a physical bully. If you genuinely want to be known and recognised as a good and righteous person, then the time to undertake good and righteous action is now. For your own sake if for nobody else’s.

L