Boys Behaving Badly

Ah, the National Rugby League. A game full of fine, upstanding young gentlemen, full of enthusiasm for a healthy and active lifestyle, with impeccable manners and enormous respect for women.

Toilet training, however, seems to be optional.

This evening, Roosters player Nate Myles was suspended for six matches over a drunken incident in a NSW Central Coast hotel yesterday morning. Apparently, an extremely inebriated Myles attempted to barge his way into the wrong room, before being discovered naked and disorientated in a fire escape. But the classiest part? Myles was found to have defecated on himself in a corridor.

I don't know. Perhaps he thought the hotel was a dump, and decided to crank out a three-dimensional critical review.

Now I'm not a drinker. Despite what The Wah claims about that time in Scotland when I had to skull a pot of beer and a peach schnapps in order to win a trivia contest*, I have never been drunk. So I don't know how bad things can get when you're completely muntered and need a privvy urgently. But honestly, how bad does it have to be to drop trou in the middle of a inn to get half your middles out?

Then we've got the revelation that a bunch of Aussie sailors on the ironically-named HMAS Success have been sent home after their cute little "See How Many Chicks We Can Bang" competition was discovered - no doubt by humourless femminazis who weren't featured on their charming list.

I was astounded by the number of people calling talkback radio today to say various versions of the following:

"Oh, it's just young people with healthy libidos. It's been going on for years! Matter of fact, when I was in the service, it was the GIRLS who used to rate the blokes! What's all the fuss about?"

Now I know that being in the military, or police, or politics - or any kind of workplace really - might often seem like a school camp, full of that away-from-home unreality magic. I remember my own Year Nine school camp, when Andrew Barlow gallantly asked me to "snog him", despite his outright loathing of me during normal school hours.**

I appreciate that people like to have sex with other people, and that the achievement of said sex can become a hot topic amongst various peer groups. But to keep a ledger? And award points?

It's so... it's so... it's so Schoolies Week.***

I don't like to draw too much of a conclusion about the macho cultures of rugby league football and the Royal Australian Navy, but I will say there was a fair whack of Hahn Super Dry consumed after our impro show last Saturday, and the worst result was a hangover that caused several players some uncomfortable "I-need-to-stay-in-a-cool-dark-place" moments the next day.

There's always a fair bit of sexual tension in scripted theatre too - with cast crushes common, and cast party shenanigans almost compulsory. And yet, and yet! We've all managed to keep our bowel movements private and our sexual bragging modest.


*Yes, that's right, the Scots found a way to incorporate a drinking contest into their trivia competitions.

** I refused. He was seeeeeeedy. Then he didn't talk to me for three years. I didn't mind.

***Which I didn't go on. Being a non-drinker, and not particularly interested in more potential Andrew Barlow-style offers, I didn't mind.