The Karmic Challenge: Week 28: Who will stand up for Slippery Pete?

THE CHALLENGE. A man (Captain Savage).  A woman (Rose). A quest. To earn enough karmic points by Christmas to be reincarnated as Something Nice.  A mussel, perhaps? With mayonnaise?

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Hi Peter,

I just wanted to let you know that I support you in relation to the text messaging furore. God, if most of our private conversations were scrutinised in this way, who among us would come out looking perfectly politically correct. I’m a woman and I don’t feel that you particularly insulted women, any more than many men do down at the bar on a Saturday night. Toughen up, ladies – we’ve all heard the fish analogy, get over it. I think what you say in your private texts, unless illegal, is your business and should stay that way. I will say as much on my blog.  I hope things go well for you in future!

cheers

Rose of butimbeautiful

Yep, this week’s ‘good deed’ is a letter.

But who the hell is this Peter Slipper, you ask? If you’re not Australian, that is.  Well, until yesterday he was the Speaker of the Aussie House of Representatives.  His gay staffer, one James Ashby, had accused him of sexual harassment (a story in itself), and during the court case, some texts they’d sent one another became public.  And THEN..all hell broke loose.  Pollies competed to see who could be MOST shocked, MOST horrified, at the ghastly and misogynistic contents.

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VILE!  THOROUGHLY DISGUSTING!  CONDEMNED BY ALL RIGHT THINKING PEOPLE IN THE STRONGEST POSSIBLE TERMS!!!!

In response, Slipper resigned.  In fact, the guy almost cried.  Call me soft-hearted, but I wanted to hug him and say ‘there there, don’t you listen to those meanies!’

Mr F and I, watching all this on tv from our mountain eyrie (we were on holidays at the time) looked at one another and said, simultaneously, ‘So what did these texts actually SAY?’  Because we’d heard how loathsome they were, how they were a call to arms for women everywhere, etc etc – but no tv station seemed to want to repeat them.  Maybe they were just SO bad pregnant women everywhere would abort if they heard them.  Maybe, we speculated, Mr Slipper had texted something like ‘Off home to beat wife. Again. LOL!’  or ‘Women’s bits make me puke. Lets give Sophie Mirabella a clitoridectomy. ROFL.’

So as soon as we got home, we googled what Slipper had actually said.  Turns out it was MUCH worse than even we imagined.  For one thing, he apparently thinks women’s bits look like mussels.  Peter, how could you! You must be in a minority of, oooh, about 50%? (Besides, you’d NEVER catch a woman comparing a guy’s dong to an uncooked pork sausage, now would you!)

And THEN he called MP Sophie Mirabella (renowned for her brainless nastiness) a BOTCH.  What?  Well if he’d called her a bitch that would’ve been bad enough, but a botch! What is he implying? That she should never have been born? That she was one of the Creator’s horrible mistakes? Thank God I’ve never called a colleague a botch (or bitch) in any of MY private conversations!  THAT would have been a world first.

THEN, he texted his gay staffer to the effect that one ‘Lucy’ was hot, ready and willing (tell me you’ve never heard THAT in a pub on Saturday night) – and finally, he threatened to SMACK the said staffer.  Was the staffer suitably indignant?  Oh YEAH.  ‘I might like it’ he texted back.

I don’t particularly like Peter Slipper. He may be guilty of other misdemeanours (we don’t know yet, the court case isn’t over).  But this is thought crime.  If you can’t call someone a botch (sic) and say that women’s bits look like mussels in PRIVATE conversation – what’s the world coming to!  Does anyone really think that you can’t be a neutral ‘chair’ if you think some of your colleagues are as loopy as a centipede?

So I think Australians should fight for Peter Slipper’s right to say what he damn well likes about women’s bits, to his friends.  Fight for his right to have a private conversation.  Fight for his right, and everybody else’s right, to think and say stuff that not everybody agrees with.  I may not like his politics, I may not like seafood, I may not even like HIM – but the growing climate of virtuous indignation and Right Speech appals me.  Much more than Mr Slipper’s opinion of my c**t could ever do.

If you think forcing a public figure to resign over some silly – and private – locker-room talk is a bit 1984, speak up for him and facebook it! (Or not)