Rape culture? What rape culture?

In the latest incident of schoolyard fights being put online, a YouTube user who went by the name 'TheCoonpatrol' uploaded several mobile-recorded videos of fights at Swan Hill College, in the state's north-west.

The seven videos showed students trading punches, surrounded by laughing and clapping onlookers, chanting "fight, fight, fight". ...

In one video, a student shouts at his opponent: "I'll f**king rape you 'til you're f**king dead". In another, an onlooker shouts: "Bitch, f**king take it".

It's a long time since I was at school, and I was lucky enough to go to an all-girls high school, which meant I got treated and was allowed to act like a human being rather than like a girl, so while I saw plenty of subtle bullying I don't think I ever saw a single physical fight. A bit of retaliatory hip and shoulder on the hockey field was as physical as we ever got. (Not me personally; hockey was much too rough for me. I was happy to play dirty, but in the debating team, not on the hockey field.)

But up the road and round the corner at the so-called brother school, while they may have had their share of physical fights, I'd bet quite a lot of money that they didn't express hostility in the language of violent sexual assault. Especially not to each other; they would have been far too appalled by the slightest suggestion that they might be poofters.

Also, have a look at the name this charming little group of uploaders have given themselves. Ironic, really, given the derivation in rap – itself tragic (the derivation not the rap, though a lot of the rap is crap as well) – of the way they talk to each other now. Maybe it's just deeply inherent in the worst of human nature to be some form of bigot.

Reading the paper: depressing in every possible way

On page 5 of yesterday's Adelaide Advertiser:

A woman who stabbed her partner to death with 'excessive' force has been spared jail because of the years of domestic violence, abuse and torment she suffered at his hands.

And, on page 10:

The girlfriend of Melbourne Storm superstar Greg Inglis is standing by her man as he prepares to face court today on charges he allegedly assaulted her.

Don't like what they're saying? Hack them to death with sharp objects!

I love blogging. I do. But as someone who's been reading blogs of various stripes for over four years now and therefore knows more than she used to about the depths of misogyny and hatred that can be plumbed when women speak fearlessly of what they know, I have to say that this surprises me less than it would have in 2005.

Throw out those nanna pants or take the consequences, bitch

Check it out.

As they sometimes say over at Hoyden About Town: I have no words.

Actually I do have a few words. The hilarious line being taken by this man's lawyer is a defence based on the concept of diminished responsibility. That's the one that goes 'Well of course I raped, strangled and dismembered her, I'd had 19 Tequila Slammers, so it wasn't my fault.' It's the kind of thing that makes you think they haven't yet quite ironed out all the bugs in the judicial system.

I see from the last paragraph under the heading 'Discussion' in this handy Wikipedia entry that there's an urban legend regarding the alleged precedent for the line of defence being used in the nanna pants case: it's a kind of reverse version of the 'Twinkie Defense'.