Rape and the politics of high dudgeon

MSometimes a running news story gives us insights into what it might be like to be ruled by the logic of the media. A good example was last week's coverage of the Supreme Court's judgement striking down the law making it an automatic crime to have sex with a girl under 15. Most of the media went into full outrage overdrive, although most, too, were confused as to what precisely they were most outraged about. There was much of the usual huffing and puffing about the rights of victims, and little attempt to understand the issue from the viewpoint of a properly calibrated concept of justice. "Perverts Paradise", screamed one tabloid headline. "What a betrayal of our children", screeched another. There were two strands to be located in the outrage: one, that the Supreme Court was "barmy" for striking down a law that protected "our children", and two, that this law should have been changed long ago. On one page a newspaper might get stuck into the Government for failing to amend the law in accordance with the recommendations of the Law Reform Commission in 1990; on another the "logic" of the argument would imply the precise opposite: that the law as it stood represented a minimal guarantee of "our children's" safety. A man from Mars would rather rapidly perceive not merely that these were contradictory positions but that, in all probability, the reason no government had acted in accordance with the recommendation that the law be reformed was that politicians had shied away from interfering with something that provided such sterling safeguards for "our children". Why should any politician seek to dabble in an area where there was no return except headlines about creating a "perverts' paradise" and "betraying our children". It was several days before sanity began to descend, and this, rather implausibly, as the result of an intervention by the Minister for Justice, who pointed to the rather glaring anomaly in the law whereby it is an offence for males to have sex with girls under the age of consent but not the other way around. The Government confirmed what had already been obvious: that having sex with minors was still and offence. Perhaps as the result of one or two newspaper editors suddenly remembering that they have teenage sons, the tenor of the coverage altered gradually over the weekend, as more of the law's absurdities began to emerge. A number of quite sensible remedies were floated. The Supreme Court decision, however belated, is to be welcomed by anyone with any sense of the reality of life as it is lived by young people now. In truth, this was an appalling law, entirely ill-adapted to the needs of our present society, in which sexual activity between teenagers is widespread. Much of this activity falls under what is known as statutory rape, which means that many normal, healthy and well-adjusted boys have been running the risk of criminalisation and stigmatisation because of doing what is completely natural and acceptable within their own peer groups. On radio last week, I made these rather unexceptionable points in a discussion on the subject and, on coming off air, was assailed by a female researcher who demanded to know if I knew how serious a matter rape actually was.

This is the kind of gobshitery that results in bad laws. It is also, unfortunately, what we have come to expect from our media on certain issues: high dudgeon untainted by reason or knowledge, stock stances based on ideological positions, easy sentiment that casts a virtuous light on its source while contributing nothing but confusion to the general discussion. This is sobering for anyone who sincerely believes that the media offer to society a means of conducting mature and informed discussion about issues relevant to its welfare and sanity.

The primary impulse of media nowadays is not to inform or stimulate reasoned debate, but to tap into the emotions of the public. Thus, the typical approach to a story is to seek those aspects which most readily find access to public rage, outrage, greed, fear etc. It is also, of course, vital to find someone at whom the finger of blame can be pointed, preferably a politicians who has failed to do something.

It is far more effective, from the viewpoint of shifting units of newspapers or competing with your broadcasting competitors, to suggest that the country is now a licensed haven for paedophiles than to soberly outline the factual position with all its complexities and semantic details. Many people seem to buy newspapers not to find out what is going on but to be wound up in some way about something or other, regardless of whether there is any basis to the outrage they have purchased. In a day or two, the outrage emerges as groundless, but it doesn't matter, because the focus has changed. Yesterday's emotion, as well as the misstatements which created it, is forgotten. If it's Tuesday it must be the government's fault.