I call bullshit.
I refer to Donald Trump's defence, after his unwitting confession to committing sexual assault aired. You know the confession I mean.
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Athletes call out Trump's 'locker-room talk' excuse
Donald Trump's characterisation of crude language toward women as "locker-room talk" is striking nerves among pro and amateur athletes.
"When you're a star," the Republican Presidential candidate told George W Bush's cousin, Billy Bush, in reference to attractive women, "they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything ... I moved on her like a bitch."Â This, we have been told repeatedly by Trump, is "locker room" talk.
It is a seductive notion for idiots to embrace, a self-exculpatory twist, along the lines of, "no harm done, this is just the way manly men speak to each other, when they are being really manly, doing manly things, and talking manly subjects. No big deal. Nothing to see here folks."
Morons like Pauline Hanson actually took it hook, line and sinker, and even publicly defended Trump, saying it was a decade ago that he said it and, anyway, a lot of men say things like that.
Bullshit we do, and definitely not in the locker room, at least not serious ones.
For once, I really do know of that which I speak.
I not only spent a couple of decades around some rough footballers in locker rooms, but was a rough footballer myself, across Australia, Italy, France and the USA – the last of which I played across three sports, and "lettered" in American football. I heard, and engaged in, some rough talk in those locker rooms, and up the back of the bus.
Did we talk about women? A bit.
Touch on sexual matters? Occasionally, but not a hundredth as much as we talked about . . . football.
Did we, then, engage in talk that we would not want our mothers to hear at the time, or be reminded of now? No doubt.
But brag of sexual assault?
WHAT?
Are you out of your freaking mind??? NEVER.
Anybody who says that, or believes it, simply doesn't get it, has no clue what the essence of "locker room" talk on women is actually all about.
When macho males are in women-boasting mode, there are two basic strands, each with the same garish goal. Mostly the preening turns on how attractive your most recent partner is, with the goal being to demonstrate what a slick bloke I must be to pull such a chick as this, don't you reckon, guys??! And the second strand is even more gauche, boasting how many attractive women I've pulled, hence how super slick I must be, dontcha reckon youse blokes, ragazzi, les gars, you guys?
Trump's confessional atrocities are an anathema to both notions.
Only a vulgarian without even the first clue as to how macho men interact on this front would think the use of force on otherwise unwilling women would impress other men. The actual aim of the game, subtly or otherwise, is to imply you are a "chick-magnet." She couldn't keep her hands off me, I tell you!
But say out loud, in front of other proven chick magnets, that you personally were reduced to forcing yourself on a woman? That doesn't make you impressive. It makes you a rapist. And men, real men, do not speak like that.
As to the notion that the likes of Donald Trump and Billy Bush would even know what the talk is in a serious sports locker room – far removed from the business board-rooms and entertainment world dressing rooms they have excelled in, where different cultures must prevail – please.
A guy like Billy Bush?
Listen to his enabling of Trump, his grotesque sycophancy, his bouncing puppy dog act around a Bulldog: "What are we gunna do now, Boss? Play with the ball, huh, huh, HUH? Want me to roll over, Boss, so you can tickle my tummy? Huh? Huh? HUH? Wanna see me piss on the fence, Boss? Lick your balls for you, Boss? Laugh uproariously at your jokes, Boss? Whaddya want me to do?"
I ask this quite seriously. Is he the bloke you're going to give the ball to, when you're five points down, with as many seconds left on the clock? Please. Is he the champion, with great inner-belief, a man among men, who knows how to inspire other men to achieve great things? Please. He would not last on any team, or in any locker room, I've ever been in. A man of such weak character would be found out in any close contest. In the modern day, David Pocock would eat him alive before breakfast, and not burp. Bush would have his contract shredded.
Trump?
Double ditto, albeit for different reasons.
He is the brassy braggadocio who never shuts up, who prances and preens, and boasts and craps on, but does not actually deliver the hard yards when they count. He would be what is known in the trade as "a white-line phantom". He'd be the loudest one in the dressing room before the game, screaming and carrying on. But then you'd cross the white line to enter the field of play when . . . pfffft – where did he go? – only to see him suddenly re-emerge, at game's end, the loudest in the dressing room once more, braying and boastful once more.
They don't last. Craig Bellamy would have Trump in reserve grade before he could blink. Blokes like him, who talk like that, have no place in real locker rooms. And I am not the only one who thinks so.
Atlanta Falcons tight end Jacob Tamme talked to The New York Times on Monday, just after his side had whupped the Denver Broncos, and he had just left the dressing room.
"I showered after our game but I feel like I need another one after watching the debate," he said. "The attempt to normalise it as any type of 'talk' is wrong. I refuse to let my son think that this is 'just how men speak'." We don't. Not real men, anyway.
Twitter: @Peter_Fitz
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