Not rape - just boys acting up

So, it has come to this. We have so failed in the very basics of civilised human interaction that the Australian Football League has been forced to hire a swag of actors and a film crew to make an interactive DVD to help players understand that perhaps it’s not a good idea to pretend to be your best mate so you can have sex with his girlfriend.

“R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Let’s spell it out together, boys!”

The AFL wants to help the lads recognise that taking advantage of a woman who’s had too much to drink, doesn’t rank as the noblest decision they could ever made.

“C-O-N-S-E-N-T: Shout it out for me, boys!”

What’s next: teaching men not to bash women over the head with a club and drag them into a cave by their hair?

The DVD is a rude wake up call on the state of male-female relationships in the 21st century. As we approach International Women’s Day on March 8, women’s advocates are forced to face the brutal reality that we haven’t come a long way at all. We may even have gone backwards.

The DVD is being produced as part of the AFL’s efforts to improve players’ respect for women. Respect and responsibility program co-ordinator Melanie Heenan says it’s to "prompt confident decision-making in situations that can be quite complex.” If this is what’s required, then we really are starting from ground zero in human relationships.

We haven’t seen the whole script yet, but three draft questions have come out. In one, a mate's girlfriend calls a player into her room under the mistaken impression he is her boyfriend.

"Do you: (a) go and hop into bed and pretend to be him or (b) do you walk away?" is the choice offered in this very complex situation.

In another, a player is with a girl who is under the influence: “Do you: a) get her some water, (b) call her a taxi or (c) take her back to your place for sex?”

The next scenario is “The player’s mate and his girlfriend are having sex. You can see them. Do you: (a) watch or (b) not watch?”

Not only do our sporting role models lack a highly evolved view of women. They also seem to need a lesson in how to pull the blinds down and lock the door. Given the behaviour of some elite sportsmen, these questions could reinforce some of their worst stereotypes about women: dumb bimbo so thick she can’t tell the difference between you and her boyfriend; or another pissed sheila who wants you bad.

Is it no longer considered basic human decency, let alone a mark of minimum sexual standards, that you don’t take advantage of someone who is drunk? Do men really need special training on not tricking women into sex? It seems they do: it’s off to remedial behaviour boot camp.

The DVD questions fail to convey the seriousness of sexual assault. Will the statement “Sexual assault: maximum penalty, 14 years’ imprisonment” appear in the final cut? Perhaps a little post-interactive DVD field trip for our star performers to interact with men in prison for having sex with women who didn’t freely and voluntarily consent might help?

It is time to confront the culture of collusion in which sporting clubs offer only faint damnation for serious breaches of community standards that too often include criminal assaults against women.

The chief executives of AFL, cricket, rugby union and rugby league, as well as other sporting organisations, should develop a nationwide code of conduct which would treat offences against women even more strictly than taking performance-enhancing drugs.

The AFL DVD is a sign of a broader malaise. Examples of increasing contempt for women are everywhere. An Australian-made T-shirt available online bears the slogan, “It’s not rape, it’s surprise sex”. A 13-year-old girl I know is sent photographs of waxed genitals on her mobile phone by boys asking when is she going to get hers shaved too. Other girls describe being called “boobs on a stick” by boys at school. One received an MSN message from a male student detailing the sexual acts he wanted to perform on her in class. She was 14.

Many young women don’t even seem to understand the meaning of sexual harassment: it’s become so normalised they just expect it.

Then of course you’ve got schoolies week on the Gold Coast, where the adult entertainment Girl’s Gone Wild crew ply girls with alcohol so they’ll expose themselves for the cameras. And the Canberra Summernats car show, which sees hordes of men screaming “show us your tits” to any woman in sight. Yes, it seems it has come to this.